Meng Man's Poetry Lessons for Women: Wise Women and Distinguished Ladies (Two-Book Set)

Teacher Meng Man came to public attention through her lectures on poetry, but as a university professor, her research focuses on ancient history, especially the history of women in ancient China.

In Meng Man's Women in Poetry, she brings poetry and women together. Using poems as her guide, she follows the succession of dynasties through history, recounting the remarkable lives of 52 women and the Chinese history behind them.

The first volume, Wise Women, focuses on 28 political women who changed history. The second, Noble Ladies, focuses on 24 cultural women who wrote history.

Within these pages are the devotion of “I wish to find a man of one heart, and stay together until our hair turns white,” the helplessness of “The sun and moon are the highest and brightest; husband and wife are the closest, yet also the most distant,” and the free-spiritedness of “I find the green hills so charming; I imagine they find me just as charming,” as well as the bold pride of “Why need pale greens and deep reds? I am the finest flower of all.”

There is also the radiance of “Her smile is charming, her lovely eyes glance about,” the grace of “She steps lightly over the waves, her silk stockings raising dust,” and the insight of “With a grand bow, he speaks with uncommon eloquence; the beauty's keen eyes recognize a man in desperate straits.”

These women were gentle, yet left a lasting mark, and were capable of stirring the tides of history. Their thoughts and feelings are in their poems, and so are the stories of their lives.

This is the life beyond the poems, the truth within history: the other half of a glittering constellation that we have overlooked and yet never fully understood, beyond the likes of Qin Shi Huang, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, Li Bai, and Du Fu.

This is the other half of 2,700 years of poetry and 5,000 years of history, still unknown to you and me.