Li Qingzhao and Zhao Mingcheng collected paintings, calligraphy, and inscriptions on metal and stone. These experiences appear in her postface to Records on Metal and Stone, revealing more than her celebrated lyric poetry.
War scattered their collections, and the postface recounts collecting, migration, and loss. It records scholarly activity while also carrying personal memories and the impact of historical change.
Early life
Li Qingzhao was born in 1084 in Qi Prefecture, Jingdong East Circuit (today's Zhangqiu, Shandong province). She was born to a family of scholar-officials. Her father, Li Gefei, was an academic professor, a famous essayist, and a member of a poetry and literary circle led by Su Shi. Her mother was a renowned poet descended from prime minister Wang Kung-ch'en. The family had a large collection of books, and Li was able to receive comprehensive education in her childhood. Her poems showed her girlish innocence, sharp mind, and love of nature, such as "Happy Memories: Dreamland". Since she was a teen, she studied hard and had an in-depth understanding of literature. As a teenager, she started to develop a career as a poet by writing two poems in shi form to rhyme with a poem by a friend.
Marriage
Li's poetry was already well known within elite circles by 1101, when, aged eighteen, she married Zhao Mingcheng. They had numerous similarities and both loved poetry, literature, sculpture in bronze and stone, painting, and calligraphy. After her husband started his official career, he was often absent from home. They were not particularly wealthy but enjoyed collecting inscriptions and calligraphy. Since Li spent a quite happy time with her husband, her poetic style became calmer and more elegant. Li and her husband collected many books. They often wrote poems for each other as well as about bronze artifacts of the Shang and Zhou dynasties. Her early poetry portrays her carefree days as a woman of high society, and is marked by its elegance.
Unfortunately, their marital bliss was only temporary because of the Jin-Song wars between the Song dynasty and the Jurchens. The Northern Song capital of Kaifeng fell in 1127. Fighting took place in Shandong and their house was burned. Citizens of Zhao country, including Li and Zhao, endured countless sufferings and fled south of the Yangtze River. The couple took many of their possessions when they fled to Nanjing, where they lived for a year. Zhao died of typhoid fever in 1129 on the route to an official post, and Li never recovered. She wandered aimlessly after her husband's death. It was then up to her to keep safe what was left of their collection. Li described her married life and the turmoil of her flight in an afterword to her husband's posthumously published work, Catalogue of Inscriptions on Metal and Stone.
Later life
Li subsequently settled in Hangzhou, where the Song government made its new capital after the war against the Jurchens. During this period, she continued writing poetry but her later work was full of nostalgic memories of her husband and her hometown. She also kept working on completing the Catalogue of Inscriptions on Metal and Stone. The book was mainly about the calligraphy on bronze and stones; it also mentions the documents Li and Zhao collected and viewed. According to some contemporary accounts, she was briefly married to a man named Zhang Ruzhou who treated her badly, and she divorced him within months. She survived the criticism of this marriage. It is widely believed that she died around the age of 71, but no records of this remain.
Scholars note that this change in tone was closely related to the historical turmoil of the Song–Jin wars and Li Qingzhao's repeated displacement in her later years. The loss of her husband and their shared collections further deepened the sense of sorrow and nostalgia in her ci poetry.