TITLE Exploring the intersection between gender and culture: Rereading Li Qingzhao and Emily Dickinson from a comparative perspectiveAUTHOR Tan, DaliDEGREE PhDSCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARKDATE 1997PAGES 193ADVISER Smith, Martha NellISBN 0-591-67997-3SOURCE DAI-A 58/11, p. 4263, May 1998SUBJECT LITERATURE, COMPARATIVE (0295); LITERATURE, ASIAN (0305); LITERATURE, AMERICAN (0591); WOMEN'S STUDIES (0453)DIGITAL FORMATS image-only PDFCritics have read Li Qingzhao (1084-1186) and Emily Dickinson (1831-1886) extensively in literary history. What would happen if I bring the two women poets, of seemingly totally different cultures and time periods, together and view them with the lens of intersecting gender and culture? Would we find common themes for women writers since both are women writing in patriarchal societies? Or would we find distinctive characteristics since both lived in different cultures? Both women saw poetry as especially important and congenial because it revolutionized their existence and because it was allied with the world of immortality. They used poetry as a vehicle to voice some frustrations with their lower status as women and were able to turn cultural and social disadvantages into creative advantages in poetry writing. My central argument is that gender studies should be based on culture studies for gender studies to be useful and truthful. Julia Kristeva failed to make valid judgements about Li Qingzhao because she did not know the cultural environment that produced Li Qingzhao. Because of Li's gender-conscious sentiments and Emily Dickinson's natural affinity with Taoism, I proposed a poetics of 'cross-reading' in which I employ Western theories of gender studies to reread Li Qingzhao and Chinese traditional poetics to reread Emily Dickinson. My reading of Li Qingzhao, situated in a cultural examination of women's status and women writers in comparison with Emily Dickinson sheds light on Li as an outstanding woman poet. To read Emily Dickinson with an Eastern parameter would suggest the universality and particularity of poets and especially women poets. I seek to enhance analytical strategies by using approaches not readily imagined by the Western mind. My poetics of cross-reading demonstrates the importance of what has been neglected or considered as negligible in the two women poets' work. Through comparison, the characteristics of each poet become more apparent.