Chu Ci:
Chu Ci is a new style of poetry created during the Warring States Period by Chu poets who absorbed the essence of southern folk songs and integrated them with ancient myths and legends. The Songs of Chu broke the rigid four-character and one-sentence format of the Book of Songs, and was a great liberation for the development of ancient Chinese poetry. Chu Ci adopts sentence patterns of varying styles from three to eight characters, and the length and capacity can be expanded arbitrarily according to needs. The lively and diverse form makes Chuci more suitable for describing complex social life and expressing rich thoughts and feelings. The representative writers of Chu Ci include: Qu Yuan.
The name "Chu Ci" was first seen in "Historical Records·Biography of Zhang Tang". It can be seen that this name existed in the early Han Dynasty at the latest. Its original meaning should be a general reference to the songs of the Chu region, but later it became a specific name, referring to the new poetry style represented by the creation of Qu Yuan of Chu State during the Warring States Period. This style of poetry has a strong regional cultural flavor. As Huang Bosi, a Song Dynasty poet, said, "They all wrote Chu language, composed Chu sounds, recorded Chu places, and named Chu objects" ("Dongguan Yulun"). At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, Liu Xiang compiled the works of Qu Yuan and Song Yu, as well as the works of Han Dynasty people who imitated this poetic style. The title of the book is "Chu Ci". This is another collection of poems with far-reaching influence in ancient my country after the Book of Songs. In addition, because Qu Yuan's "Li Sao" is the representative work of Chu Ci, Chu Ci is also called "Sao" or "Sao Style". People in the Han Dynasty also generally called Chu Ci "Fu". "Historical Records" has said that Qu Yuan "composed the poem "Huaisha"", and "Hanshu Yiwenzhi" also lists "Qu Yuan Fu", "Song Yu Fu" and other titles.
The formation of Chu Ci, in terms of direct factors, is closely related to the ballads of Chu. As mentioned before, Chu is a place where music and dance are developed. Nowadays, from "Chu Ci" and other books, we can still see many names of Chu music, such as "She Jiang", "Cai Ling", "Lao Shang", "Nine Bian", "Nine Songs", "Xie Lu", " "Yangchun", "White Snow", etc. Among the existing lyrics, the earliest one is the "Song of the Child" recorded in "Mencius". It is said that Confucius heard it sung by local children when he traveled to Chu:
The water in the Canglang is clear, and I can carry my tassel with it. ; The water in Canglang is turbid, you can wash my feet.
There is also the "Song of the Yue People" recorded in Liu Xiang's "Shuo Yuan", which is said to be the song of the Yue Zhouzi translated by the Chu people:
What evening is this night? Midstream. What day will it be that I shall be in the same boat with the prince? Being humiliated and treated well is not shameful. My heart was troubled and unstoppable, and I learned about the prince. There are trees in the mountains, and the trees have branches. My heart is happy for you, but you don’t know it.
This kind of ballad was still very popular in the Qin and Han Dynasties. For example, Liu Bang has "Song of the Great Wind" and Xiang Yu has "Song of Gaixia". Its style is different from that of Central Plains ballads. It is not a neat four-character style. Each sentence can be long or short. The modal particle "xi" is often used at the end or in the middle of the sentence. These have also become the distinctive features of Chu Ci.
However, it is worth noting that although Chu Ci was born out of Chu songs, it has undergone significant changes. The Han people call Chu Ci Fu, which means "reciting without singing is called Fu" ("Hanshu Yiwenzhi"). Qu Yuan's works, in addition to "Nine Songs", "Li Sao", "Calling the Soul", and "Heavenly Questions" are all long and huge works; "Nine Chapters" is also much longer than the "Book of Songs". They are clearly not suitable for singing and should not be treated as songs. At the same time, this kind of "fu" of "reciting without singing" is not read like prose. According to ancient books, it needs to be recited with a special tone. This is roughly similar to the "chant" form of ancient Greek epics. Ballads are always short in length and simple in language. It is precisely because Chu Ci got rid of the form of ballads that it was able to use rich diction, accommodate complex connotations, and express rich thoughts and emotions. By the way, in order to distinguish Chu Ci from Han Fu, modern people do not advocate calling Chu Ci "Fu". This is not unreasonable, but it cannot be said that the Han people have any fault in calling it this way. Because originally there was "Qu Fu" first and then "Han Fu".
The Han people also said that "those who write Fu are like ancient poems" (see Ban Gu's "Preface to Fu in Liangdu"). This is probably to adhere to the Confucian classics and take into account the extravagant characteristics of Fu.
The popular witchcraft religion in the Chu region has infiltrated the Chu Ci, giving it a strong mythical color. According to historical records, after the witchcraft color of the culture of the Central Plains had obviously faded, in Southern Chu, until the Warring States Period, the monarchs and ministers still "believed in witchcraft and worshiped the temple of prostitution" ("Hanshu Geography"). King Huai of Chu once "promoted sacrifices and served ghosts and gods" and tried to rely on the help of ghosts and gods to defeat the Qin army (see "Book of Han·Jiao Sacrifice"). Folk witchcraft is even more popular. "Hanshu Geography" and Wang Yi's "Chu Ci Chapters and Sentences" all mention the custom of Chu people who believe in witchcraft and love temples. "The temples must compose songs and music to encourage and entertain the gods." It can be seen that in Qu Yuan's time, the Chu people were still immersed in a mythical world full of strange imagination and passionate emotions. Qu Yuan, who lived in this cultural atmosphere, not only created the "Nine Songs", a group of poems dedicated to gods, and "The Soul Calling" based on folk soul-calling lyrics, but also made extensive use of mythological materials and imagination when expressing his own emotions. Going to heaven and earth, wandering around the world, giving people a mysterious feeling. Even the structure of the representative work "Li Sao", from "divination of names", "Chen Ci", "Xianjie", "spiritual wandering", to "asking for divination" and "divination", all borrowed the methods of folk witchcraft.
In addition to the factors of Chu culture itself, other factors also played a certain role in the form of Chu Ci. As mentioned before, after the Spring and Autumn Period, the Chu nobles were already quite familiar with the Book of Songs, which became part of their cultural literacy. The "Ode to Orange" in Qu Yuan's "Nine Chapters" is entirely composed of four-character sentences, and the word "xi" is used at the end of every other sentence. This can be seen as the penetration of the style of "The Book of Songs" into the style of "Chu Ci".
During the Warring States Period, political strategists were very active in lobbying. They "wanted to use their lips to express their merits, so they competed for beautiful words to move people." "The aftermath gradually spread to the literary garden, and the complicated words and sentences were no longer able to be contained in the simple style of "Poetry"."—— This section of Lu Xun's "Outline of the History of Chinese Literature" correctly points out the influence of the gorgeous and extravagant diction of the Warring States politicians on the formation of "Chu Ci".
Of course, "Without Qu Yuan, there would be no "Li Sao"" ("Wen Xin Diao Long·Bian Sao").
Chu Ci is a product of Chu culture. Specifically, it is inseparable from the creation of the great poet Qu Yuan.