Lisao is a poem written by Qu Yuan, a poet in China during the Warring States Period, and it is also the longest lyric poem in ancient China. This poem centers on the poet's life experience, experience and mental journey. The first half repeatedly devoted the poet's concern for the fate of Chu and people's life, expressing his desire to reform politics and his will to stick to his ideals and never compromise with evil forces even in times of disaster.
The second half reflects the poet's thoughts and feelings of patriotism and love for the people through the statement of dreaming, pursuing ideals and dying after failure. The whole poem uses the metaphor of beauty and vanilla, a lot of myths and legends and rich imagination.
It formed a magnificent literary talent and magnificent structure, showed a positive romantic spirit, and created a poetic form of "Sao Style" in the history of China literature, which had a far-reaching impact on later generations. Its main annotations are Wang Yi's Chapters and Sentences of Chu Ci in the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhu's Notes on Chu Ci in the Southern Song Dynasty and Dai Zhen's Notes on Qu Yuan in the Qing Dynasty.
As for the date of creation of Li Sao, Sima Qian said that Qu Yuan was exiled and wrote Li Sao in Records of the Historian, and in Bao Ren An Shu, he also said that Qu Yuan's exile was a tribute to Li Sao, just like Han Chinese. Therefore, Li Sao is regarded as the work of Qu Yuan after his exile.
Influence of later generations:
As the pioneering work of China's patriotic poetry, Li Sao opened the source of China's literary romanticism and had an important and far-reaching influence on the development of China literature and the creation of later literati. Scholars of later generations appreciate this long poem. Li Bai, a great poet in the Tang Dynasty, once declared that Qu Ping's ci and fu hung the sun and the moon, and the king of Chu stood on the empty mountain.
Many of Li Bai's works, like Li Sao, often weave a large number of myths and legends, the sun, the moon, the stars and historical figures, forming a magnificent picture with symbolic significance. When Lu Xun, the founder of modern literature in China, published Wandering on 1926, he quoted the poem Li Sao as an inscription before the book, which shows that Qu Yuan's tireless pursuit of truth embodied in Li Sao had a great influence on Lu Xun.
Li Sao created the genre of "Chu Ci" (that is, Sao poetry) in the history of literature. After the Han and Wei Dynasties, it was even called "Sao". Notes on Mountains and Seas in Jin Guo Pu quoted Tian Wen and Yuan You's Li Sao. Liang's "Wen Xin Diao Long" has an article "Distinguishing Sao", which contains all the works of Chu Ci.
Liang Xiaotong's Selected Works of Zhaoming is classified as Sao, including Li Sao, Jiu Ge and Jiu Bian. Song Zhuxi's Notes on Songs of the South are collectively called Li Sao from the first volume to the fifth volume, and later called Continued Li Sao. Others, such as Li Sao cursive script written by Wu in Ming Dynasty, Li Sao Yuan written by Zeng in Ming Dynasty, Qi Yu of Chu Sao in Ming Dynasty and Drinking Sao written by He Kuan in Qing Dynasty, are all about Chu Ci.