Xiong Lian 熊璉 born 1758, from Rugao in Jiangsu province, was a woman poet of the Qing dynasty. Her courtesy name () was Shangzhen 商珍 and her hao 號 was Danxian 澹僊. She also went by the name Ruxue Shanren 茹雪山人.
She wrote a text called Mingyuan shihua, which compiled biographical information on women poets. It was an important influence on Shen Shanbao's text of the same name. When she discovered that her husband was disabled she refused to break off their engagement, despite the fact that his family was willing to break it off,Weijing Lu True to Her Word: The Faithful Maiden Cult in Late Imperial China Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008, 191-92. a decision that won her a degree of celebrity. But despite the celebrity she lived in poverty for most of her life, and indeed the poverty of her husband's family seems to have impelled her to return to live with her native family.Weijing Lu True to Her Word: The Faithful Maiden Cult in Late Imperial China Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008, 191-92. She relied on support from her family and earned a living teaching other women.Ellen Widmer, The Beauty and the Book: Women and Fiction in Nineteenth-Century China. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University East Asia Center, 2006, 336. She composed ci (song lyrics) and the songs which remain are of remarkable diversity.Waiyee Li, Women Writers of Traditional China: An Anthology of Poetry and Criticism, edited by Kang-I Sun Chang and Haun Saussy, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999, p.514.
Some of her work has been translated into English. See, for example, the translations by Waiyee Li,Women Writers of Traditional China: An Anthology of Poetry and Criticism, edited by Kang-i Sun Chang and Haun Saussy, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999, 514-21. Ellen Widmer Ellen Widmer, The Beauty and the Book: Women and Fiction in Nineteenth-Century China, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University East Asia Center, 2006, 143-144. and Weijing Lu.Weijing Lu True to Her Word: The Faithful Maiden Cult in Late Imperial China Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008, 191-92.
Chinese texts of some of Xiong's poems may be found at Ming Qing Women Writer's Database
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