Qu Yuan and the Songs of Chu

The Chuci, or Songs of Chu, is an anthology of poems from the southern state of Chu, centered on the Li Sao ('Encountering Sorrow'), a long poem traditionally attributed to Qu Yuan (c. 340 to 278 BCE). Qu Yuan, in the tradition, was a loyal minister of the king of Chu who was slandered, banished, and finally drowned himself in the Miluo River. The Li Sao is a first-person lament that mixes political grief with shaman-like flights through the sky, the courting of goddesses, and images of fragrant plants as signs of the poet's integrity.¹²⁵

The anthology was put together in the Han dynasty, traditionally begun by Liu Xiang in the first century BCE and edited with commentary by Wang Yi in the second century CE. Compared with the short, collective songs of the Shijing, these poems are long, ornate and strongly marked by a single speaker, and they draw on the shamanic religion of the south. The Han fu (rhapsody) form grew out of them. A festival to remember Qu Yuan is traditionally linked to the Dragon Boat Festival on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. Modern scholars debate how many of the poems Qu Yuan wrote, and some doubt his historical role, but he remains the first named poet of China.¹³⁴