work
Qu Yuan is a poet, and only from him did China have a writer famous for his literature. He founded the style of "Chu Ci" (also known as "Sao Style"), and was praised as "a poet in clothes, not a generation". According to Liu Xiang and Liu Xin's collation and Wang Yi's annotation, there are 25 works of Qu Yuan, namely Li Sao 1, Tian Wen 1, Jiu Ge1,Nine Chapters 9 and Travel Far. According to Sima Qian in Biography of Qu Yuan in Historical Records, there are 1 evocation. Some scholars believe that Zhao Da is also the work of Qu Yuan. However, some people suspect that the chapters behind Journey and some chapters in Nine Chapters were not written by Qu Yuan. According to Guo Moruo's textual research, there are 23 Qu Yuan's works handed down. Among them, Nine Songs 1 1, Nine Chapters, Li Sao 1, Tian Wen 1, Evocation 1.
Generally speaking, Li Sao, Tian Wen and Jiu Ge can be regarded as the representatives of three types of Qu Yuan's works. The contents and styles of Nine Chapters, Journey, Buju, Fisherman, Evocation of Soul, and Da Zhao can be listed as a group with Li Sao, most of which are well documented and meaningful.
Focus on expressing the author's inner feelings. Li Sao is a magnificent poem created by Qu Yuan with his own ideals, experiences, pains, enthusiasm and even his whole life. It shines with bright personality and is the focus of all Qu Yuan's creations. Tian Wen is a poem written by Qu Yuan according to myths and legends, which embodies the author's academic attainments and views on history and nature. "Nine Songs" is Qu Yuan's music for offering sacrifices to the gods in Chu. It is full of life breath in the expression of characters' feelings and the description of environmental atmosphere. However, it is the expression of generations or gods, rather than the author's self-lyric, which shows more traces of the literary tradition of southern Chu. Li Sao and Nine Songs constitute the basic style of Qu Yuan's works.
ideal
Qu Yuan's works record his persistence in the ideal of "beautiful politics" and his struggle against the decadent aristocratic groups in Chu. His ideal of "beautiful politics" is reflected in his works, that is, "cultivating talents and empowering them, but doing things without being equal" (Li Sao). The so-called "promoting talents and empowering" is to select truly talented people to govern the country, oppose the secular world, and limit the monopoly of the old aristocracy on power. He also took the historical stories of Fu Shuo, the slave, Lv Wang, the butcher and Ning Qi, the vendor, as examples to illustrate the rationality of selecting talents regardless of their status. The so-called "following the rope without being rude" means practicing the law, that is, the law is not expensive and limiting the privileges of the old nobles.
Although Qu Yuan was exiled or even exiled, he always thought about the rise and fall of the motherland and the sufferings of the people, hoping that the King of Chu would repent, work hard and become the master of ZTE. He knew that being loyal to honesty and frankness would lead to disaster, but he always "endured but could not give up"; Knowing that he faced many dangers, he could have gone to other countries to find a way out in the era of "using Chu materials", but he refused to leave Chu. It shows his infinite loyalty to the motherland and his personality and will to win glory with the sun and the moon.
Qu Yuan's works are closely related to myths. Many illusory contents are developed from myths. Qu Yuan is also a poet who pays attention to reality. His works reflect various contradictions in the real society, especially the dark politics of Chu.
The style of Qu Yuan's works is obviously different from the Book of Songs. This is related to the differences in folk customs between the Yangtze River Basin and the Yellow River Basin. At that time, the north had entered the patriarchal society, and Chu still had the legacy of clan society, which was tough and lively, and was not bound by etiquette. Therefore, the expression of love between men and women and patriotism is so straightforward, and the materials used are so rich that everything can run to the bottom of the pen. Write about the love between man and God, crazy people, ancient historical legends, and traveling with ghosts and gods. All gods have ordinary human nature among the people, and God is just a person beyond ordinary people. They make their works look bright, full of emotion and unrestrained. This kind of works shows different characteristics from northern literature. From the institutional point of view, Qu Yuan's previous poems, whether the Book of Songs or southern folk songs, were mostly short stories, and Qu Yuan developed into a long and huge system. Li Sao alone has more than 2,400 words. In terms of expression techniques, Qu Yuan skillfully combined Fu, Bi and Xing, and made extensive use of the Bi Xing technique of "vanilla beauty" to vividly express abstract morality, consciousness and complex realistic relations.
In the form of language, Qu Yuan's works are uneven and flexible. Chu dialect is widely used in the language, full of local flavor; Most of its dialects are refined, colorful and vivid. Qu Yuan's works break through the pattern of four sentences in The Book of Songs, with each sentence ranging from five words, six words, seven words, eight words and nine words, as well as three words and cross sentences. Grammar is uneven and flexible. The word "Xi" and function words such as "Zhi", "Yu", "Hu" and "Er" are often used at the end of sentences to coordinate syllables and produce cadence, singing and sighing effects. In a word, his works are very creative from content to form.
Qu Yuan's works had a greater influence after the Chu people established Guanzhong, the capital of the Han Dynasty. With the continuous study and development of Songs of the South, the literature in the north has gradually become Chu. The new five-character poems and seven-character poems are all related to Chu Sao. Fu writers in Han Dynasty were all influenced by Chu Ci. After the Han Dynasty, works of "Shao Sao" appeared in all previous dynasties. The author often uses Qu Yuan's poems to express his own obstacles, and even uses Qu Yuan's experience as a metaphor, which is the direct development of Qu Yuan's literature. In addition, there are poems, songs, lyrics, songs, dramas, Qin lyrics, Daqu, scripts and so on. Take the life story of Qu Yuan as the theme, such as The Portrait of Qu Yuan, Nine Songs, Nine Tweens, etc. It is also difficult to count. Therefore, Lu Xun called Qu Yuan's works "outstanding" and "its influence on later articles is even above 300 (The Book of Songs)" (Lu Xun's Outline of China Literature History). Guo Moruo, a famous poet, once wrote Ode to Thunder and Electricity for him to commemorate his deeds.
Style of works
Qu Yuan's works are full of positive romantic spirit. Its main performance is that he integrated his passionate pursuit of ideals into artistic imagination and magical artistic conception. For example, Li Sao wrote that after he gave a speech to Zhong Hua, he went against the wind. He knocked at the heavenly palace first, but the emperor didn't accept it. He begged a girl who happened not to be there; He pursued Fu Fei, but Fu Fei was rude to him; He wanted Judy and Er Yao, but he didn't have a good matchmaker to deliver the news. This fantasy and pursuit of going to heaven and going to earth embodies Qu Yuan's hard pursuit of ideals in reality. In addition, Nine Songs and Tian Wen also use a lot of myths and historical legends as materials, with bold and rich imagination, which is rare in ancient and modern times.
Besides, Qu Yuan's works also use a series of metaphors to express his feelings. For example, he used flowers and herbs to describe a noble gentleman; Use smelly things and Xiao Ai as a metaphor for traitors or traitors. Wearing vanilla symbolizes the poet's moral cultivation. This technique of "vanilla beauty" makes a sharp contrast between loyalty, ugliness, goodness and evil in reality, and produces a concise and endless artistic effect.
Qu Yuan is the first great patriotic poet in the history of China literature. He is an outstanding representative of romantic poets. As an outstanding politician and patriot, Qu Yuan's spirit and personality of loving the motherland and the people, persisting in the truth, preferring death to surrender, has inspired and nurtured countless Chinese sons and daughters for thousands of years, especially when the nation was in danger. As a great poet, the appearance of Qu Yuan not only marks that China's poetry has entered a new era from collective singing to individual originality, but also his new poetic style-Chu Ci, which broke through the expression form of The Book of Songs, greatly enriched the expressive force of poetry and opened up a new world for China's ancient poetry creation. Therefore, later generations called Chu Ci and The Book of Songs together as The Book of Songs. "Feng" and "Sao" are the sources of the two fine traditions of realism and romanticism in the history of China's poetry. At the same time, Chu Ci, represented by Qu Yuan, also influenced the formation of Han Fu.