TO MAKE HER MINE: WOMEN AND THE RHETORIC OF PROPERTY IN EARLY AND EARLY MEDIEVAL FU

Abstract The description of women in early and early medieval fu and related genres often employs the rhetorical device know as effictio, usually referred to in poetry as the blazon. The use of the blazon is mainly seen in fu on goddesses, in the Summons Poems of Chu ci, and in certain poems in the Qi, or Sevens, genre. A connection is seen between the blazoning of women and the rhetoric of property that informs the Summons Poems and many fu, with their enumerative tendencies, including the spatial enumerations of the journey and the attendant notions of possession.