Tang Dynasty Rhapsodies on Puppetry: Literary Representations of Artifice, Gender, and Sexuality

Abstract The earliest extant rhapsodies about puppetry were produced in China during the Tang dynasty (618-907). This paper examines two short texts – the “Han yi munü jie Pingcheng wei fu” (A rhapsody on the Han dynasty use of a wooden woman to relieve the siege of Pingcheng) by Xie Guan (d. 865; jinshi 837) and the “Muren fu” (Rhapsody on a wooden man) by Lin Zi (jinshi 843) – which explore the interactions between puppets and people. In these writings, the puppets are figures of fantasy, life-sized, moving autonomously, and so realistic in movements and appearance that they are indistinguishable to the human eye from living people. Accordingly, this is an opportunity for the writers of these rhapsodies to explore ideas of nature versus artifice, as well as gender and sexuality. The first of these rhapsodies features a female puppet, whose beauty provokes lust in the men who see her and jealousy from women; while the second describes a handsome male puppet, who appears at the court of King Mu of Zhou only to flirt with his consorts, provoking royal anger. These writings problematize the way in which emotions and gender norms define social relationships because their subjects are automata, which appear human but are not.