The stylistic difference between Songs of the South and The Book of Songs lies in that one represents realism and the other represents romanticism. Compared with The Book of Songs, The Songs of Chu is extremely long, and its sentence pattern has changed from four characters to unlimited and uneven.
The Book of Songs is characterized by its simplicity, naturalness and realism, so it can be regarded as "civilian literature". Chu Ci, whether Qu Yuan's Li Sao or Song Yu's Nine Arguments, is full of artistic conception, literary talent and rich imagination.
Another major feature of The Songs of the South is to speak first and make good use of metaphors. In terms of expression, Chu Ci inherited the Fu Bi of The Book of Songs, but on this basis, it developed greatly. Poets often attach their feelings to things, endow them with feelings, integrate subjective feelings with objective things, and create many symbolic artistic images.
In Lisao, Qu Yuan's works depict fine birds and exotic herbs, bad birds and smelly things, spiritual beauty, Fu Fei's widowed daughter, Yi Long's husband and wife, floating clouds and neon lights, high crown and strange clothes, and a jade couple.
They are either loyal, comparable to monarchs, or worthy ministers, or gentlemen, or villains, or extraordinary, or pursuing. These are no longer objects of metaphor, nor exciting things, but symbols that combine the subject's emotion, personality and ideal, and become images with artistic interest.
This breaks through the limitations of metaphor in The Book of Songs, which is characterized by lyricism by borrowing things. This is a breakthrough, an innovation and a new attempt. In the history of China's traditional poetry, it is of epoch-making significance.
Chu Ci is a special name of a new poetic style with strong local color created by Qu Yuan and Song Yu at the end of the Warring States Period, that is, "writing Chu language, writing Chu sounds, remembering Chu places and naming Chu objects", and also refers to the Poems of Qu Yuan and Song Yu compiled by Liu Xiang in the Western Han Dynasty.
Chuci is a new poetic style formed in Chu at the end of the Warring States Period, and it is another peak of China's poetry after The Book of Songs. The emergence and formation of Chu Ci is different from the Book of Songs, which has ancient roots and complex background.
First of all, Chu folk songs are the direct source of Chu ci. There are obvious differences in tone, sentence pattern, rhythm, style and emotion between Chu folk songs and popular folk songs in the Central Plains, but there is an obvious inheritance relationship with Chu Ci, which is just an expanded literati Chu Song.
The Book of Songs, originally named Shi or Shi San Bai, was honored as one of the six classics by Confucianism during the Warring States Period, but it was not regarded as a classic. Han set up a doctor of the Five Classics, so the official praise is one of the Confucian classics, so it is called the Book of Songs.
The works in The Book of Songs originally refer to music songs accompanied by musical instruments, so Mozi Gong Yu said, "There are 300 string poems and 300 songs." According to different music, it is divided into three parts: wind, elegance and ode, among which elegance is divided into elegance and elegance.
The 305 poems in The Book of Songs are mainly composed of poems collected by the people and nobles of the Zhou Dynasty with the assistance of various vassal states. Such as ancestor worship, feasting, hunting, house completion and other ceremonies, as well as poems dedicated to the monarch for the purpose of satirizing and praising beautiful women.
The Book of Songs is the glorious starting point of China literature. Its appearance and high ideological and artistic achievements make it occupy a very high position in the cultural history of China and the world.
Chu Ci attracts worldwide attention for its profound thought and exquisite art, and it is a model of thought and art, so that in the later history of poetry development, it formed a romantic art and showed an excellent tradition of combining patriotism and dedication.
The poetic traditions of realism and romanticism, represented by The Book of Songs and Songs of the South, had a far-reaching influence on later literature.