Wang Caiwei (1753–1776) was a Qing-dynasty woman poet, historian, and lay Buddhist. Her initial name was Weiyu; her courtesy name is given as Yuying or Yuzhen, and one account treats Weiyu as a courtesy name and Yuying as an additional name. She was from Wujin in Jiangsu and was the fourth daughter of Wang Guangxie, a county magistrate.
Life and learning
At nineteen she married Sun Xingyan, who entered her family as an uxorilocal husband; they had a daughter, A Ling. She died in 1776 at the age of twenty-four.
She was delicate in appearance from birth, and as she grew up was described as graceful in appearance and gentle in temperament. Her father educated his daughters as he would sons, and all the sisters could read and write. She immersed herself in literary and historical study, kept books constantly in hand, and especially enjoyed verse. She read and copied texts at a bright, orderly desk, brewed tea, arranged flowers, and sometimes read Daoist books, entertaining thoughts of transcendence. In the mountain studio she burned incense, opened books, and discussed historical matters with Sun Xingyan.
Within days of marriage, she asked Sun Xingyan to compose ci and invited him to play go; he subsequently wrote the lyrics but never managed to play against her. She also agreed with him to learn several dozen characters from the *Shuowen* each day; in time, Sun mastered elementary philology. She considered much of Tang-and-Five-Dynasties ci suitable for singing to melody, and in the quiet of late-spring nights played Li Yu's lyrics on the flute. She was fastidious about cleanliness and kept the tables and mats in order.
She enjoyed Han and Jin histories and was especially skilled in small regular script; a manuscript of poems she copied for an elder was said to resemble the style of Yu Yongxing. During her illness she coughed through the night, suspected she would not recover, and produced poetry and lyrics in a plaintive tone.
Works and poetic style
Her works include *Changlige ji* (《長離閣集》); the title also appears as *Changlige shiji* (《長離閣詩集》) or *Changlige shici* (《長離閣詩詞》), and *Yuzhen ji* (《玉珍集》) is also associated with her. Her poetry was described as qingchao, clear and elevated. In *Zhou guo Dantu, yu fuzi deng shan an xing* (《舟過丹徒，與夫子登山岸行》), she evokes solitary walking, villages, paired birds, a lone firefly, moonlight, a settled tide, faint oar sounds, and glimmering fires along the water.
Posthumous reception
The prefaces associated with her writings were written by Kong Guangsen and Ye Guoguo; Yuan Mei composed an epitaph, Gong Qing a postscript, and Ruan Yuan, He Senlin, and Zhang Jingbang supplied title inscriptions. Wang Guangxie wrote her biography, and Sun Xingyan her xingzhuang.
References
- CBDB Wang Caiwei (54395)
- 搜韵 王采薇 (67900)
- Wikidata Wang Caiwei (Q45695489)