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A Study of China’s Only Empress Wu Zetian’s Poems ― Between the Subjugation of Power and the Challenge of Authority

  • JOURNAL OF CHINESE STUDIES
  • 2019, (64), pp.29-56
  • DOI : 10.26585/chlab.2019..64.002
  • Publisher : CHINESE STUDIES INSTITUTE
  • Research Area : Humanities > Chinese Language and Literature
  • Received : April 30, 2019
  • Accepted : May 28, 2019
  • Published : June 30, 2019

Eunjung Rho 1

1성신여자대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

In china, there were largest number of emperors in history. About 494 people have been named emperor in China, ranging from Qin Shi Huangdi to Emperor Puyi. Among them, Wu Zetian of Tang Dynasty is the only woman who became emperor. At the age of 14, Wu Zetian entered the palace as a royal concubine and ascended to the throne of the emperor. This was not the result of a opportunity that came by chance, but the result of a systematic step-up. In ancient China, where Confucian morality dominated, women’s status was very low and women’s rights did not exist at all. So she had to break through a huge wall to become an emperor. In a male-dominated society, women’s entry into society was completely impossible. But Wu Zetian absolutely broke the wall. She built her own world by confronting, overpowering, persuading men and cooperating with them in an era when only strong men changed the world as a hero. Wu Zetian challenged the masculine authority of the theocratic policy with 48 numbers of jiaomiao songs. Through Taizhong, Gaozhong, and the reign of Wu Zhou, she gave full pay to her political prowess, Wu Zetian wrote her success in poetry and ordered her ministers to write a poem in answer to her poetry. In her poems, Wu Zetian announced “The Emperor is not someone else, but me.”

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