A poetic style that arose in Chu State during the Warring States Period. The name of "Chuci" was first seen in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty. Han people are sometimes referred to as "Ci" or even "Ci Fu". Moreover, because the most representative work of Chu Ci is Qu Yuan's Li Sao, later generations also refer to Chu Ci with "Sao". For example, the category of "Sao" in Xiao Tong's Selected Works and "Distinguishing Sao" in Liu Xie's Wen Xin Diao Long are all aimed at the whole Chu Ci. Since the Han Dynasty, "Songs of the South" has become a general collection of works by Qu Yuan and others.
Chuci originated from the Chuci in the Jianghuai Valley of China. Influenced by the Book of Songs, but directly related to it are the ballads born and bred in the south. There are long-standing ballads in Chu State. According to Liu Xiang's Shuo Yuan, there were Yue songs and Chu songs in the 6th century BC. The Analects of Confucius recorded that Confucius had heard the song of Jieyu, and Mencius also included the Song of Servant. However, these songs of Chu only exist in historical records. It was not until the mid-Warring States period that a series of works by Qu Yuan and others appeared in the literary world of Chu Ci, which formed a literary style.
The main author of Songs of the South is Qu Yuan. He created such immortal works as Li Sao, Nine Songs, Nine Chapters and Nine Questions. Under the influence of Qu Yuan, Chu produced some Chu Ci writers. According to historical records, there are Song Yu, Le Tang, Jing Ke and others. The existing Songs of Chu are always concentrated, mainly the works of Qu Yuan and Song Yu. Most of Le Tang's and Jing Ke's works have not survived.
Qin Xing, Chu Ci is underdeveloped. In the early Han Dynasty, Chu literature and art were revived. This is probably directly related to the royal family, ministers and Dochu people in the Han Dynasty. Liu Bang, Emperor Gaozu of Han Dynasty, was a native of Chu, and his "wind song" was Chu Yin. His favorite lady Qi can dance Chu, and he personally sings Chu songs for her. In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, several emperors once "called on the world to be poets". In this context, on the one hand, Qu Yuan's works are valued, on the other hand, people who are familiar with Chu Ci are favored. For example, in Records of the Historian Biography of Liang Guan, it is said that "Chu Ci and (Zhuang) are in harmony, and they are in the middle and are doctors in Tai Zhong". In addition, many people are active in the imperial court and vassal States, engaged in the creation of Chu ci style. Today, Wang Yi's Songs of the South still preserves the works of Jia Yi, Huainan Xiaoshan, Zhuang Ji, Bao Wang, Liu Xiang and others in the Western Han Dynasty. Although most of them only imitate Qu Yuan's works in form. Some even "empathize without pain" (Zhu in Dialectics of Chu Ci), but we can see the importance attached to Chu Ci at that time.
As for the characteristics of Chu Ci, Huang in Song Dynasty summarized it as: "Covering the songs and songs of the Song Dynasty, writing Chu language, writing Chu sounds, and remembering Chu places, so it can be called' Chu Ci'" (see, volume 92). This statement is correct. In addition, the historical legends, fairy tales, customs and habits, artistic techniques and rich lyric styles involved in the works of Qu and Song in Chu Ci all have distinct Chu culture colors. This is the basic feature of Chu Ci. They are an important part of Chu culture and complement each other with Central Plains culture.
In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, Chu Ci has become a general term for the works of Qu and Song. When Historical Records and Hanshu describe the great events of the Western Han Dynasty, they all show this by comparing Spring and Autumn Annals with Songs of the South, or juxtaposing Six Arts with Songs of the South. At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, in the third year of Emperor Pingdi (26 BC), Liu Xiang led the school secretary to sort out the works of Qu and Song before compiling Chu Ci. Although Zheng Xuan and Guo Pu quoted Qu Yuan's works at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty when commenting on other classics, they sometimes called Lisao the Songs of the Chu Dynasty, but as the name of the collection, the Songs of the Chu Dynasty have spread all over the world. Regarding the content and volume of this Collection of Songs of the South, Wang Yi once mentioned in his Preface to Chapters and Sentences of Songs of the South: "I arrested Liu Xiangdian to proofread the classics and divided them into sixteen volumes." The General Catalogue of Sikuquanshu says: "Liu Xianghuo first collected Qu Yuan's Lisao, Jiuge, Tian Wen, Jiuzhang, Yuan You, Buju, Fisherman, Nine Arguments of Song Yu, Evocation of Soul and Grand Tactics of Beijing Inspection." Yi Youyi wrote Jiu Si and Two Prefaces to Ban Gu, with a volume of 17, and each volume is a note. "Liu Xiangbian's" Songs of the South "volume 16 has been lost for a long time. Only Wang Yi's 17 volume Chapters and Sentences of Songs of the South has been circulated so far, and the original version of Songs of the South can be seen.
The first master of Chu Ci works was Liu An, the king of Huainan in the period of Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty. In the second year of Jianyuan (BC 139), he was ordered by Emperor Wu to write the Biography of Li Sao. This book has been lost for a long time, and only Sima Qian's Historical Records and Ban Gu's Preface to Lisao have some quotations. Since Liu An, more and more people have made comments on Chu Ci. Such as Ban Gu, Jia Kui and Ma Rong. But these notes have not been handed down.
In the early years of Andi Yuan, Wang Yi wrote chapters and sentences of Chu Ci. This is the oldest extant annotation of Chu Ci. Since then, scholars of past dynasties have done a lot of research on Chu Ci and produced many monographs.
Songs of the South occupies an important position in the history of China's poetry. "Poetry" and "Sao" are called the two sources of China's classical poetry. In particular, Qu Yuan's Chu Ci works, with their profound thoughts, rich emotions, rich imagination and gorgeous rhetoric, show the perfect unity of content and form. Its figurative technique is not only used to choose words and make sentences, but also can be developed into a chapter idea, which provides a model for future generations to create. It also had a far-reaching influence on the formation of later fu style, parallel prose and five-seven-character poems. As Liu Xie said: "His clothes were built by poets, not a generation." (Don)
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