Yuan Changying
Yuan Changying | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 11 October 1894  Liling |
| Died | 28 April 1973 (aged 78) Liling |
| Alma mater | |
| Children | Yang Jingyuan |
Yuan Changying (Chinese:袁昌英; October 11, 1894 –April 28, 1973) was a Chinese writer.[1][2] She was the first Chinese woman to graduate from the University of Edinburgh and the first Chinese woman to be a Master's student in Britain.[1][3][4] She is best known for her collection of plays - Southeast Flies the Peacock.[1][2][4][5][6]
Personal life[edit]
On October 11, 1894, Yuan Changying was born in the city of Liling in Hunan.[1][2] Her father Yuan Jiapu was educated at Waseda University.[1] Yuan's mother died when Yuan was young.[6] Her father remarried and had a son and another daughter.[6] Yuan married Chinese economist Yang Duanliu (杨端六).[5] Yuan met Yang when he was studying at the University of London.[5] After graduating from University of Edinburgh in 1921, Yuan returned to China with Yang.[1] In February 1923 in Changsha, Yuan gave birth to Yang and hers daughter, Yang Jingyuan (杨静远).[7] Later on, Yuan gave birth to their son - Yang Hongyuan (杨弘远).[7]
Education[edit]
In 1916, Yuan started attending Blackheath High School in London.[1] From 1916 to 1921, Yuan studied at the University of Edinburgh, where she earned a Master's Degree in English drama and literature.[1][4][8] Her master's thesis was about William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.[1]
Career[edit]
In 1922, she started teaching women at Beijing Normal University.[1]
In 1928, Yuan became a professor at Wuhan University in the School of Chinese Language and Literature.[4][9] While at Wuhan University, she worked and befriended Su Xuelin and Ling Shuhua and the three of them were known together as the "Three Female Talents of Luojia Mountain,"[4] the "Three Heroines of Luojia,”[1] or "The Three Musketeers of Luojia."[5] She also taught at the China University of Political Science and Law.[10]
In 1930, she published Southeast Flies the Peacock, which was a collection of Chinese plays in the "spoken drama" style instead of in an opera style.[4][5] Yuan's nickname - "the peacock of Liling" - originated from her 1930 collection.[5] In 1935, students at Wuhan University performed Southeast Flies the Peacock.[4] Yuan was also a part of a literary group called The Crescent Moon Society.[11]
In 1931, she accused Hong Shen of plagiarism in her article "Zhuang shi huangdi he Zhao yanwang."[12] Hong Shen would deny these accusations.[12]
Later in life, Yuan became a member of Chinese Democratic League.[1]
Death[edit]
In 1973, she died in Liling.[1][2]
Legacy[edit]
The University of Edinburgh honored Changying by naming The Yuan Changying Prize after her.[3] The Yuan Changying Prize recognizes outstanding ‘gender observations’ written by undergraduate students in Edinburgh's "Understanding Gender in the Contemporary World" class.[3]
References[edit]
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "Yuan Changying". The University of Edinburgh. 2023-02-06. Retrieved 2023-11-18.
- ^ a b c d Guo, Li (2013). Fong, Grace S.; Widmer, Ellen; Haiping, Yan; Dooling, Amy (eds.). "Negotiating the Traditional and the Modern: Chinese Women's Literature from the Late Imperial Period through the Twentieth Century". Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature. 32 (1): 195–220. ISSN 0732-7730.
- ^ a b c Gupta, Hemangini (19 May 2023). "Announcing the Yuan Changying Prize Winners 2023!". www.gender.ed.ac.uk. Retrieved 18 November 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f g Welland, Sasha Su-Ling (2006). A thousand miles of dreams: the journeys of two Chinese sisters. American voices. Lanham (Md.): Rowman and Littlefield. pp. 229–231. ISBN 978-0-7425-5313-2.
- ^ a b c d e f "The three Musketeers of Luojia-Wuhan University". en.whu.edu.cn. Retrieved 2023-11-18.
- ^ a b c Yan, Haiping (2006). Chinese Women Writers and the Feminist Imagination, 1905-1948. Routledge. ISBN 9780415474580.
- ^ a b "《彼得潘》译者杨静远去世 享年92岁". www.sohu.com. Retrieved 2023-11-18.
- ^ Joubin, Alexa Alice (2009). Chinese Shakespeares: two centuries of cultural exchange. Global chinese culture. New York, NY: Columbia Univ. Press. p. 114. ISBN 978-0-231-14848-1.
- ^ "Department of English-武汉大学外国语言文学学院". fls.whu.edu.cn. Retrieved 2023-11-18.
- ^ Jos Schyns, Su Hsueh-Lin, and Chao Yen-Sheng eds., 1500 Modern Chinese Novels & Plays (Ridgewood: The Gregg Press, 1965), 116.
- ^ Denton, Kirk A.; Hockx, Michel, eds. (2008). Literary societies of Republican China. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. p. 279. ISBN 978-0-7391-1933-4.
- ^ a b Luo, Liang (2015). "Reading Hong Shen Intermedially". Modern Chinese Literature and Culture. 27 (2): 208–248. ISSN 1520-9857.