Qu Yuan

Qu Yuan (c. 339 BC–unknown; alt. c. 340–278 BC^[1][2]) was a Chinese poet and minister who lived during the Warring States period of ancient China. He is known for his patriotism and contributions to classical poetry and verses, especially through the poems of the Chu Ci anthology (also known as The Songs of the South or Songs of Chu): a volume of poems attributed to or considered to be inspired by his verse writing. Together with the Shi Jing, the Chu Ci is one of the two great collections of ancient Chinese verse. He is also remembered as the supposed origin of the Dragon Boat Festival.

Historical details about Qu Yuan's life are few, and his authorship of many Chu Ci poems have been questioned at length.^[3] However, he is widely accepted to have written Li Sao, the most well-known of the Chu Ci poems. The first known reference to Qu Yuan appears in a poem written in 174 BC by Jia Yi, an official from Luoyang who was slandered by jealous officials and banished to Changsha by Emperor Wen of Han. While traveling, he wrote a poem describing the similar fate of a previous "Qu Yuan."^[4] Eighty years later, the first known biography of Qu Yuan's life appeared in Han Dynasty historian Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian, though it contains a number of contradictory details.^[5]

Traditional biography

Sima Qian's biography of Qu Yuan in the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji), though circumstantial and probably influenced greatly by Sima's own identification with Qu,^[6] is the only source of information on Qu's life.^[7] Sima wrote that Qu was a member of the Chu royal clan and served as an official under King Huai of Chu (reigned 328–299 BC).

During the early days of King Huai's reign, Qu Yuan was serving the State of Chu as its Left Minister.^[8] However, King Huai exiled Qu Yuan to the region north of the Han River, because corrupt ministers slandered him and influenced the king.^[8] Eventually, Qu Yuan was reinstated and sent on a diplomatic mission to the State of Qi.^[9] He tried to resume relations between Chu and Qi, which King Huai had broken under the false pretense of King Hui of Qin to cede territory near Shangyu.^[10]

During King Qingxiang's reign, Prime Minister Zilan slandered Qu Yuan.^[9] This caused Qu Yuan's exile to the regions south of the Yangtze River.^[9] It is said that Qu Yuan returned first to his home town. In his exile, he spent much of this time collecting legends and rearranging folk odes while traveling the countryside. Furthermore, he wrote some of the greatest poetry in Chinese literature and expressed deep concerns about his state.^[9] According to legend, his anxiety brought him to an increasingly troubled state of health. During his depression, he would often take walks near a certain well to look upon his thin and gaunt reflection in the water. This well became known as the "Face Reflection Well." On a hillside in Xiangluping (at present-day Zigui County, Hubei Province), there is a well that is considered to be the original well from the time of Qu Yuan.

In 278 BC, learning of the capture of his country's capital, Ying, by General Bai Qi of the state of Qin, Qu Yuan is said to have written the lengthy poem of lamentation called "Lament for Ying" and later to have waded into the Miluo river in today's Hunan Province holding a rock in order to commit ritual suicide as a form of protest against the corruption of the era.^[11] The ritual suicide at Miluo River was the consequence of his despair by the fall of his birthplace and misery of his fellow countrymen.^[9]

Influence

Qu Yuan is regarded as the first author of verse in China to have his name associated to his work, since prior to that time, poetic works were not attributed to any specific authors. He is considered to have initiated the so-called sao style of verse, which is named after his work Li Sao, in which he abandoned the classic four-character verses used in poems of Shi Jing and adopted verses with varying lengths. This resulted in poems with more rhythm and latitude in expression. Qu Yuan is also regarded as one of the most prominent figures of Romanticism in Chinese classical literature, and his masterpieces influenced some of the greatest Romanticist poets in Tang Dynasty such as Li Bai. During the Han Dynasty, Qu Yuan became established as a heroic example of how a scholar and official who was denied public recognition suitable to their worth should behave.^[12]

Chu Ci

Chu Lacquer Coffin

Chu was located in what is now the Yangzi River area of central China. At this time, Chu represented the southern fringe of the Chinese cultural area, having for a time been part of both the Shang Dynasty and the Zhou Dynasty empires; however, the Chu culture also retained certain characteristics of local traditions such as shamanism, the influence of which can be seen in the Chu Ci.^[13]

The Chu Ci was compiled and annotated by Wang Yi (died AD 158), which is the source of transmission of these poems and any reliable information about them to subsequent times; thus, the role which Qu Yuan had in the authoring, editing, or retouching of these works remains unclear.^[14] The Chu Ci poems are important as being direct precursors of the fu style of Han Dynasty literature.^[15] The Chu Ci, as a preservation of early literature, has provided invaluable data for linguistic research into the history of the Chinese language, from Chen Di on.

Patriotism

In the People's Republic of China, Qu Yuan came to be regarded as a prime example of patriotism.^[12] His social idealism and unbending patriotism have served as the model for Chinese intellectuals to this day, particularly following the establishment of new China in 1949. For example, in the 1950s China issued a postage stamp bearing the "likeness" of Qu Yuan.

Dragon Boat Festival

The enduring popularity of Qu Yuan can be seen in this depiction of a him in a dragon boat, on one of the central streets of Singapore. A display for the Dragon Boat Festival (also known as the Duanwu or Double Fifth festival).

Popular legend has it that villagers carried their dumplings and boats to the middle of the river and desperately tried to save Qu Yuan after he immersed himself in the Miluo but were too late to do so. However, in order to keep fish and evil spirits away from his body, they beat drums and splashed the water with their paddles, and they also threw rice into the water both as a food offering to Qu Yuan's spirit and also to distract the fish away from his body. However, the legend continues, that late one night, the spirit of Qu Yuan appeared before his friends and told them that he died because he had taken himself under the river. Then, he asked his friends to wrap their rice into three-cornered silk packages to ward off the dragon.

These packages became a traditional food known as zongzi, although the lumps of rice are now wrapped in leaves instead of silk. The act of racing to search for his body in boats gradually became the cultural tradition of dragon boat racing, held on the anniversary of his death every year. Today, people still eat zongzi and participate in dragon boat races to commemorate Qu Yuan's sacrifice on the fifth day of the fifth month of the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. The countries around China, such as Vietnam and Korea, also celebrate variations of this Dragon Boat Festival as part of their shared cultural heritage.

See also

• Jiu Ge
• Classical Chinese poetry
• Song Yu
• Duanwu Festival

Notes

References

• Davis, A. R. (Albert Richard), Editor and Introduction,(1970), The Penguin Book of Chinese Verse. (Baltimore: Penguin Books).
• Hartman, Charles (1986). "Ch'ü Yüan 屈原". In Nienhauser, William. The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, Volume 1. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 352. ISBN 0-253-32983-3. 
• Hinton, David (2008). Classical Chinese Poetry: An Anthology. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. ISBN 0-374-10536-7 / ISBN 978-0-374-10536-5.
• Kern, Martin (2010). "Early Chinese literature, Beginnings through Western Han". In Owen, Stephen. The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Volume 1: To 1375. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–115. ISBN 978-0-521-11677-0. 
• Knechtges, David R. (2010). "Qu Yuan 屈原". In Knechtges, David R.; Chang, Taiping. Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guide, Part One. Leiden: Brill. pp. 745–749. ISBN 978-90-04-19127-3. 
• Ye, Lang, Fei, Zhengang, Wang, Tianyou, editors (2007). China: Five Thousand Years of History and Civilization. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press. ISBN 9789629371401.
• Yip, Wai-lim (1997). Chinese Poetry: An Anthology of Major Modes and Genres . (Durham and London: Duke University Press). ISBN 0-8223-1946-2

Further reading

• Hawkes, David (1959). Ch'u tz'u: The Songs of the South, an Ancient Chinese Anthology. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 
• Hawkes, David (1974). "The Quest of the Goddess". Studies in Chinese Literary Genres. Berkeley: University of California Press. 
• Schneider, Laurence A. (1980). A Madman of Ch'u: The Chinese Myth of Loyalty and Dissent. Berkeley: University of California Press. 
• Watson, Burton, trans. (1993). Records of the Grand Historian (Rev. ed.). New York: Columbia Univ. Press. ISBN 0-231-08164-2. 
• Waley, Arthur (1973). The Nine Songs; a Study of Shamanism in Ancient China. San Francisco: City Lights Books. ISBN 0-87286-075-2. 
• Watson, Burton (1962). Early Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University Press. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Qu Yuan.

• "Qu Yuan (Chu Yuan), the great poet"
• "This article has photos of Qu Yuan's hometown before it was submerged by the dams project"
• "The Dragon Boat Festival" (article reproduced from Volume 1, number 2 of the newsletter of Families with Children from China of the San Francisco Bay Area)