Xu Can (dates disputed: 1610–1678 in one account and c. 1618–1698 in another) was a Qing-dynasty woman poet and painter. Her name is also written as Can; her native place is variously given as Wu County in Jiangsu, Suzhou’s Wu County, Jiangnan’s Wu County, and Hangzhou in Zhejiang. Her courtesy names are given as Xiangpin (湘蘋; also Xiangping and Xiangqi), Mingshen/Shenming, and Mingxia; Mingxia and Ziyan (紫言) are also recorded as sobriquets, while a further sobriquet is written 紫䇾. She studied Buddhism in later life.
Life
Her father, Xu Zimao, served as a Guanglu si cheng. She became the wife of Chen Zhilin, a grand secretary; some accounts describe her specifically as his second wife. While the couple lived in his capital residence, they composed linked poems under the flowers; the lines were said to express a hope that he would retire.
Chen was severely censured, dismissed, and banished to the frontier after bribing a palace eunuch; Xu accompanied him and lived with him for seven years beyond the frontier, also described as Liaozuo. After his death, she was allowed to return. In 1666, the fifth year of the Kangxi reign, when the emperor went to pay respects at the imperial tombs, Xu met him by the roadside and petitioned to return home. She was allowed to go south, settled beside Tongxi, and spent her remaining years in vegetarian Buddhist devotion.
She had four sons: Chen Kanyong, Chen Jianyong, Chen Rongyong, and Chen Fenyong. Xu Wenlin is variously described as a niece and a niece from a collateral branch, while Xu Yuan was her grandaunt; Chen Kanyong died in 1667 and Xu Wenlin in 1666.
Literary and artistic work
She was accomplished in prose and excelled in poetry and ci, as well as calligraphy and painting; her ci followed the Northern Song manner and avoided the delicate, affected conventions of the genre. In her later years she painted ink Guanyin images almost exclusively. Chen Weisong ranked her the foremost woman lyricist after the Southern Song; other praise compared her with Li Qingzhao and declared that she was more than merely the foremost woman writer of the Qing.
Works
Her works include *Poems and Lyrics from the Zhuozheng Garden* (拙政園詩餘), in three juan, and *Poems from the Zhuozheng Garden* (拙政園詩集), in two juan; the collection also appears as *The Zhuozheng Garden Collection* (拙政園集) and *Poems and Lyrics from the Zhuozheng Garden* (拙政園詩詞集). The six-juan *Xu Yangxi Collection* (徐陽溪集六卷) is also attributed to her. Associated prefaces are attributed to Wu Qian and Chen Zhilin, while associated postscripts are attributed to Chen Kanyong, Chen Jianyong, Chen Rongyong, Chen Fenyong, and Chen Jingzhang.
References
- CBDB Xu Can (54845)
- 搜韵 徐燦 (62892)
- Wikidata Xu Can (Q45436569)