Li ching chao biography of william

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The importance for her is not to view their collection as possessions but to view them as events, similar to their eating the fruit as they used to look over their acquisitions. Owen calls attention to the idea that by not acquiring this work, it is recorded in memory. She refers to their love of collecting as "hoarding," as a "disease." Using this as a backdrop, a reader can understand Chao's ambivalent feelings toward her husband's love for his collection of the inscriptions and vessels.



After Chao Te-fu dies, Li Ch'ing Chao experiences the dissolution of their treasure as their collection is burned and stolen. The result of her husband's passion for acquisition is that a "nervousness and anxiety" enters their life. In relating their experience of collecting their treasures, Chao initially emphasizes the experience of sharing their passion for knowledge and beauty.

The possessions they acquired are left unmentioned. They would savor the treasure, the fruit, and their time together. He believes that Chao's account is filled with memories of her happy times in her married life and her tremendous bitterness toward her husband for the excessive value he placed on this material collection. She speaks of how her husband would edit the collations and write a colophon.

They would savor the treasure, the fruit, and their time together.

One of the few works Chao mentions by name is the painting of peonies by Hsu Hsi. Yet this is the work they could not afford to purchase.

  • The Lotus Lovers: Poems and Songs (by Tzu Yeh and Li Ch'ing-chao) (Sam
       Hamill). By excluding the pronoun, Chao sometimes covers the different values she and her husband place on their growing collection.

    li ching chao biography of william



    As Chao records the details of their growing library and museum, she also records their losses. Of her six original volumes of lyrics, only about 50 lyrics remain. She must reduce the amount of meat in their meals and do away with all the "finery" in her dress. Owen calls attention to the idea that by not acquiring this work, it is recorded in memory.

    Saint Paul: Coffee House Press, 1985.

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  • She was born into a literary family and became an antiquarian, book collector, and calligrapher.

    She speaks of how her husband would edit the collations and write a colophon.

    In Stephen Owen's chapter, "The Snares of Memory," it concentrates on Li Ch'ing-Chao's Afterward to Records on Metal and Stone.