Lisao is a poem written by Qu Yuan, a poet in China during the Warring States Period, and it is also the longest lyric poem in ancient China. This poem centers on the poet's life experience, experience and mental journey.
The first half repeatedly confided the poet's concern about the fate of Chu and people's life, expressing his desire to reform politics and his will to stick to his ideals and never compromise with evil forces even in times of disaster. The second half reflects the poet's thoughts and feelings of patriotism and love for the people through the statement of dreaming, pursuing ideals and dying after failure.
As a masterpiece, Li Sao is extremely rich in ideological content, which can be summarized into two aspects. One is to describe the contradiction between poets and dynasty rulers, that is, the opposition between ideal and reality; The second is to describe the pain and entanglement of the poet's mind, the contradiction between enterprising and retiring.
The influence of later generations
As the pioneering work of China's patriotic poetry, Li Sao opened the source of China's literary romanticism and had an important and far-reaching influence on the development of China literature and the creation of later literati. Scholars of later generations appreciate this long poem. Li Bai, a great poet in the Tang Dynasty, once declared: "Qu Ping's ci and fu hang the sun and the moon, and the king of Chu is empty."
Many of Li Bai's works, like Li Sao, often weave a large number of myths and legends, the sun, the moon, the stars and historical figures, forming a magnificent picture with symbolic significance. When Lu Xun, the founder of modern literature in China, published Wandering on 1926, he quoted the poem Li Sao as an inscription before the book, which shows that Qu Yuan's tireless pursuit of truth embodied in Li Sao had a great influence on Lu Xun.