Is beauty truth and truth beauty? Does the artifice of role-playing necessarily contradict the ideal of authenticity? Should genuine feelings serve as a foundation for developing truly intimate relationships? These questions are of crucial importance to Chinese writers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a period that witnessed profound transformations in the economic, social, and cultural spheres. In this talk, I work from Li Yu’s vernacular short story “A Male Mencius’s Mother Raises Her Son Properly by Moving House Three Times” to explore these complex questions. Focusing on Li Yu’s masterful use of humor, parody, and wordplay to subvert gender norms, this talk illuminates the intricate tensions between Confucian orthodoxy and the discourse of authenticity in narrative. My talk will further link Li Yu’s story to contemporaneous discussions about the power of human desire and its cosmological significance, demonstrating that the protagonist, an embodiment of an “ideal femininity,” affords interesting comparisons with a host of boundary-crossing characters in late imperial Chinese literature. Through this talk, I hope not only to provide a nuanced analysis of Li Yu’s story but also to offer historical insights that can inform critical thinking about gender, sexuality, and togetherness (Amal Alhaag, Wayne Modest). 

This lecture takes place in the context of the course: Literary Worlds: World Literature and Globalisation, in Literary and Cultural Analysis undergraduate program.