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A Study of Literary Adaptations of Empress Wu’s Sexual Relationships with Male Attendants: East Asian Comparative Perspective

Jeongsoo Shin 1

1한국학중앙연구원

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ABSTRACT

In pre-modern East Asia, power was equated exclusively with masculinity. On account of this reasoning, it was considered an anomaly when a woman emerged as a ruler. The best known female ruler is Empress Wu (675-705; r. 690-705). Between the Song and Qing dynasties, male literati despised the Empress, highlighting her supposed promiscuous life in their writing. Through readings of selected adaptations of her life focusing on sexual bias, this study examines how the some literati demonized her. In these works, I have analyzed their desire for revenge, their fear of the empress, and the phallogocentrism of their works. I have also broadened my perspective to explore the cases of Queen Seondeok (r. 632-647) and Empress Suiko (554－628; r. 592-628) in order to find similarities and dissimilarities in the literary treatments of female rulers in East Asia. Queen Seondeok was portrayed positively to some extent, while Empress Suiko was rarely mentioned in terms of gender or sexuality. The different mis/representations of the three female rulers in their own countries are considered to come from the three women’s different class and cultural backgrounds.

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* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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