Qu Yuan (about 340-278 BC) was born in Zigui, Danyang, Chu (now Yichang, Hubei). He was a poet and politician of Chu State during the Warring States Period. He is a great patriotic poet in the history of China, the founder of China's romantic literature, and the founder and representative writer of The Songs of the South. He initiated the tradition of "vanilla beauty" and is known as the "ancestor of the Songs of the South". 1953, on the occasion of the 2230th anniversary of Qu Yuan's death, the World Peace Council passed a resolution to identify Qu Yuan as one of the four cultural celebrities in the world.
Why is Qu Yuan called "the ancestor of Chu Ci"
Literary innovation
The Symbolic Meaning of "Vanilla Beauty"
The symbolism of Qu Yuan's "vanilla beauty" inherits and uses the metaphor of The Book of Songs. Qu Yuan's creation shows emotional liberation to a certain extent, thus creating a brand-new poetic style full of vitality and strong appeal. Because of the need of this kind of emotional expression, we can't be satisfied with plain writing techniques, but need to borrow a lot of mythical materials from Chu and use beautiful fantasies, which greatly expands the realm of poetry and shows its magnificent characteristics.
This opened up a new path for the creation of China's classical poetry. Poets with strong personality and emotion in later generations, such as Li Bai and Li He, were greatly inspired. It can be said that all the schools in China's ancient literature that pay attention to literary beauty can be traced back to Qu Yuan.
(B) the creation of new poetic style-Sao style and new poetic style
For the works of Chu Ci, there are not only some ready-made five-character or seven-character poems, but also a large number of three-character poems besides the two-character poems.
The appearance of three-character rhythmic poems is an opportunity for four-character poems to be transformed into five-character or seven-character poems. Therefore, it can be said that Chu Ci is the first poem to break the four-sentence pattern. In its various uneven sentence patterns, it contains the embryonic form of five-character and seven-character poems, which gives endless inspiration to future generations.
In addition, Chu Ci created a new poetic style. This form of poetry is more free and changeable in sentence structure and structure than the Book of Songs, so it can more effectively shape artistic images and express complex and intense feelings. As far as sentence patterns are concerned, Chuci is dominated by miscellaneous characters, which breaks through the traditional four-sentence pattern. As far as language description is concerned, Chu Ci is good at rendering and describing, rich in words, and attaches importance to the aesthetic feeling of external forms, which creates conditions for the emergence of Fu literature in Han Dynasty. Chu Ci also highlights the romantic spirit, which is mainly manifested in the passionate emotion, the pursuit of ideals, the prominence of the lyric hero image, fantasy imagination and so on. And created a magnificent picture through fantasy and myth.
(3) The Songs of the South initiated romanticism.
Qu Yuan's romantic writing technique has a far-reaching influence on later literary creation. In particular, Li Bai, a great romantic poet in China in the Tang Dynasty, also consciously studied Qu Yuan's positive romantic writing techniques. There are many Luo Zhi myths and legends, historical figures, the sun and the moon in Li Bai's poems, which constitute a magnificent picture.