Abstract
In 1650, the famous poet Wu Weiye composed four impassioned poems entitled ”Qinhe ganjiu sishou,” in which he related a romance he had with the legendary courtesan Bian Yujing. Qian Qianyi, another prominent poet of the day, wrote ”Du Meicun Gongyan yanshi yougan shuhou sishou” after reading Wu's poems. In the preface to his four matching poems, Qian suggested that there was a hidden political dimension beneath its ostensible love story in Wu's poems. And Qian's four matching poems are themselves charged with emotions of Ming loyalism. Qian's reading of Wu must be considered as a purposeful misinterpretation. Ten years later, in a preface that Qian composed for Wu Weiye's collection of poetry, Qian reiterated his earlier views about concealed political messages. It is clear that in all this Qian Qianyi was advancing a theory of allegorical reading pertinent to the demise of the Ming dynasty. Through close readings of Qian's matching poems and his preface for Wu, this paper explores the creative and interpretive strategies that characterized Qian's post-Ming poetic endeavors.