Wang Zhenyi

Wang Zhenyi (1768-1797) was born in Jiangning [Nanjing] in the period of the Qing dynasty. She loved reading from an early age and her grandfather’s impressive library encouraged and nurtured her love for books. Her grandfather was her first teacher in astronomy and mathematics, while her grandmother taught her poetry. Her father was also an educated man and taught Zhenyi many things, including his science, medicine, but also geography and mathematics. Apart from her family’s early teaching Zhenyi was mostly self-taught, but her posthumously published work Collection of the Defeng Pavillion reveals the breadth and width of her reading and knowledge, from both Chinese and Western sources.

Zhenyi had the opportunity to travel a lot during her youth and her poetry carries vivid images of her travels, which were combined with intellectual and physical activities. When she married at the age of twenty-five, her life-style became more sedentary and her poetry writing receded as a result of her duties as a wife.   And yet, it was after her marriage that she became famous for her poetry, astronomy and mathematics, but also had the opportunity to teach, both men and women. Zhenyi did not have any children and she died very young at the age of twenty-nine. 

Zhenyi’s literary work has been praised by scholars of the Qing dynasty, but her greatest contribution was in astronomy, the natural sciences and mathematics. She wrote six books on astronomy and mathematics but none of them have survived. However, three prefaces that she wrote for her works have been included in her collected works, Collection of the Defeng Pavillion.