Li Sao is a magnificent poem cast by Qu Yuan with his ideal, experience, pain, enthusiasm and even his whole life, in which the poet's distinctive personality shines, which is the first time in the history of China literature. The creation of Li Sao is rooted in reality and full of fantasy. Ancient myths and legends are widely used in poems. Realistic figures, historical figures and mythical figures are intertwined through extremely rich imagination and association, and the earth and the kingdom of heaven, the world and the dreamland, the past and the present are intertwined, forming a magnificent, strange and colorful fantasy world, which has produced strong artistic charm. The metaphor of "vanilla beauty" is widely used in poems, which vividly shows abstract consciousness and complex realistic relationship. The so-called "Li Sao" is a poem metaphor, so good birds and exotic herbs are matched with loyalty, bad birds and smelly things are matched with arrogance, spiritual beauty is matched with princes, and Fu Fei's daughter is matched with good ministers "(Wang Yi's" Songs of the South "), which is the artistic feature. Moreover, metaphor not only stays in the analogy of individual things, but also embodies in the conception of the whole image system, thus containing the overall symbolic significance. In terms of language form, Lisao broke through the four-sentence pattern in the Book of Songs, with five, six, seven, eight and nine words in each sentence, three sentences crossed, and the syntactic level was uneven and flexible. The word "Xi" is used at the end of every sentence. Function words such as "Zhi", "Yu", "Hu", "Fu" and "Er" are often used in sentences to coordinate syllables, and some sentences do not need function words. This new form of poetic expression laid the foundation for the rise of Sao-style literature after the Book of Songs. The perfect combination of Li Sao's high artistic achievement and its rich and profound ideological content makes it a masterpiece in the history of China literature and has a far-reaching influence on later generations. Mr. Lu Xun once praised it as "an excellent speech" (an outline of China's literary history) and gave a high evaluation. 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. The schools that pay attention to the beauty of literary grace in China ancient literature can all 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.
Historical Records is the first biographical general history of China written by Sima Qian. As a general history, it is different from previous history books that only record a certain period, such as Spring and Autumn Annals and Warring States Policy. Instead, it recorded Xuanyuan, which lasted for 3,000 years from the beginning to the end of the Han Dynasty. It is all-encompassing, comprehensive in content, clear in context, prosperous in the traces of kings, beginning with the end, and declining from prosperity. As a biographical style, it is different from the chronological style used in previous history books, or the national style limited by the region, but reflects the historical content with biography as the center. This is a pioneering work with far-reaching influence in the history of historical style. From then on, from Han Shu written by Ban Gu to the Draft of Qing History in the early years of the Republic of China, the history revised in the past two thousand years, although individual names have been supplemented and changed, the most important disciplines and biographies have all followed the style of Historical Records and become a tradition. Historical Records had a far-reaching influence on the development of later historiography and literature. His original biographical method of compiling history was passed down by the "official history" of later generations. Known as the first of the "twenty-four histories". At the same time, Historical Records, as an excellent literary work, occupies an important position in the history of China literature. It is praised by Lu Xun as "a historian's swan song, and Li Sao has no rhyme", which has high literary value. Sima Qian initiated a writing method that always tells a person's life story. Paying attention to "being a man" and its complexity is Sima Qian's brushwork. When he was doing a biography, he put his views in an objective factual narrative and expressed his love-hate attitude towards the characters.
First, the establishment of an excellent general history genre "Historical Records" is the first general history masterpiece in the history of Chinese historiography. It is precisely because historical records can be written into a book, which sets a precedent and an example, so people who follow this genre to compile and edit history have begun. The style of general historians has always influenced the research and writing of modern historiography. Secondly, the independent position of historiography was established. In ancient China, historiography was included in the category of Confucian classics and had no independent status. Therefore, Liu Xin's Seven Outlooks and Ban Gu's Records of Literature and Art both attached the books of the History Department to the Spring and Autumn Annals. Since Sima Qian compiled Historical Records, there have been more and more specialized historical works. Therefore, in the Jin Dynasty, Xun Xu adapted to the new requirements and divided the ancient books into four parts: Part A recorded the Six Arts Primary School, Part B recorded the martial arts of various schools, Part C recorded the historical records of emperors, and Part D recorded poetry and singing. As a result, historiography has gained an independent position in the academic field of China. Thinking about the source of drinking water should be attributed to Sima Qian and his Historical Records. Third, the literary tradition of historical biography has been established. Sima Qian's literary accomplishment is profound, and his artistic means are particularly ingenious. Often, some extremely complicated facts are handled in a very proper and orderly manner, and then they are far-sighted, knowledgeable, vivid in words, tempered in brushwork, full of emotion, handy and vivid in image, which makes people "exclaim and clap their hands, I don't know why." However, it must be pointed out that due to the limitations of the times, Sima Qian also has some shortcomings and deficiencies. For example, there is a mysterious thought of "destiny", a disaster, and a historical cycle theory. When discussing the reasons why Qin was merged into the world, the Preface to the Chronology of Six Kingdoms pointed out that this was the result of "God's help". In the Book of the Official, when describing various special natural phenomena, it is often associated with personnel, showing more mysterious thoughts of disasters. All these show that Historical Records has not completely got rid of the influence of the theological thought of "the connection between man and nature" when it studies the relationship between man and nature.
Historical Records has a wide and far-reaching influence on ancient novels, plays, biographies and essays. First of all, on the whole, Historical Records, as China's first large-scale work mainly describing characters, provided an important foundation and various possibilities for the development of later literature. Although there are real people in the history written in Historical Records, it is actually typed by "meeting each other", that is, highlighting some main characteristics of people, comparing different people and fabricating details. In the early literature of all nationalities, there is such a phenomenon, which is a way for human beings to know themselves through artistic means. It's just that the original typed characters in China literature appear in historical works, and the situation is quite special. Therefore, Historical Records established many important prototypes for China literature. In later novels and dramas, emperors, heroes, chivalrous men, officials and many other characters evolved from the characters in Historical Records.
In terms of novels, besides the types of characters, its genre and narrative style are also obviously influenced by Historical Records. China's traditional novels are mostly in the name of "biography" and developed in the form of biographies, with the beginning and end of biographies, always taking the life of the characters as the context and unfolding the plot in strict chronological order, often with the author's direct comments. All these important features mainly come from historical records.
In terms of drama, Historical Records, with its dramatic stories, distinctive characters and sharp conflicts, naturally became a treasure house of drama materials for later generations.
In biographical literature, due to the biographical style of Historical Records inherited by later generations, a large number of biographies of historical figures have been produced. Although the literariness of later history books is not as good as that of Historical Records, there are a large number of them, and if you extract excellent biographies, it is also very impressive. In addition, other biographies, family biographies, epitaphs and other biographical forms are also related to the biographical literature tradition initiated by Historical Records.