What influence did Qu Yuan and Chu Ci have on later generations?

Judging from Qu Yuan's position in the society at that time, he was a politician, not a "poet" in the general sense. But as far as his great creative achievements are concerned, he is also the first great poet in the history of China literature. There are also many beautiful and moving works in The Book of Songs, but they are basically mass and collective creations, and rarely show individuality. On the other hand, Qu Yuan's creation is branded with his ideals, experiences and pains, as well as his lifelong enthusiasm. This marks a new era of China's classical literature creation.

Qu Yuan is a poet with lofty personality. He cares about the country and the people, and is still respected as a staunch patriot. Although his patriotism is linked with his loyalty to the monarch, he can't deviate from the basic moral principles of his time and society, but at the same time, he should also see that Qu Yuan has a strong sense of self. He doesn't consider himself a servant of the monarch, but a monarch, so he is the guide of the country. He has a firm belief in his political ideal and life ideal. In order to pursue his ideal, he did not hesitate to confront most people in his social group and would rather die. This reserves the right to think independently and be loyal to one's own understanding under the recognized moral premise of loyalty to the monarch and patriotism. As an ideal martyr, later generations have greatly inspired him; His way of establishing the world was also cited as an example by upright literati in later generations.

Qu Yuan's works express strong and tragic feelings with unrestrained writing style. Han Confucianism once said that Li Sao and Xiaoya in the Book of Songs were both works of "complaining without hurting". In Xu Xiaoxiu's poems, Yuan Hongdao, a poet of Ming Dynasty, retorted that Li Sao was "extremely resentful", which not only directly criticized Chu people, but also was "content with complaining without hurting", and pointed out that "vigorous and rich, steep and exposed" was Chu. His opinion is obviously correct. Moreover, Qu Yuan's praise of his personality is spontaneous and true. Sing the love of the gods, passionate and incisive; The sacrifice of praising martyrs is passionate, generous and tragic ... In short, compared with the overall restrained and gentle emotional expression in 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. Due to the need of this kind of emotional expression, Qu Yuan can't be satisfied with plain writing techniques, but borrows a lot of mythological materials from Chu and uses beautiful fantasies to greatly expand the realm of poetry and show magnificent features. This opens up a new way for the creation of China's classical poems. Poets with strong personality and emotion in later generations, such as Li Bai and Li He, were greatly inspired.

Qu Yuan is a poet who loves beauty. He does not deny the beauty of all kinds of art with a narrow utilitarian view. In "Nine Songs" and "Evocation of Soul", there are warm scenes of music, songs and dances and the feelings caused by them everywhere. In Qu Yuan's works, it is a beautiful scene of "forcing prostitution to entertain people, and the viewer forgets to return". Similarly, his poems also like a lot of colorful words. He also developed the figurative techniques in The Book of Songs, endowing plants, fish, insects, birds and animals, Yun Ni and other natural things with human will and life, so as to pin their thoughts and feelings and increase the aesthetic feeling of poetry. Generally speaking, the schools of literary beauty in China ancient literature can be traced back to Qu Yuan.

In the form of poetry, Qu Yuan broke the short and pithy system of The Book of Songs, and created a "Sao-style poem" with long or short sentence patterns, grand length and rich and complicated connotations, which is also of great significance.

In a word, The Songs of the South and The Book of Songs * * constitute the two major sources of China's poetry and even the whole China literature, and have exerted infinite influence on later literature. However, due to the development of the times and the cultural differences between the north and the south, the Songs of the South has made remarkable progress compared with the Book of Songs. Therefore, its influence on later literature is more on the Book of Songs. (Anonymous)