Chu
Chu Ci is a kind of literary style, and in the Warring States Period, the poets of Chu absorbed the essence of southern folk songs and integrated ancient myths and legends to create a new style of poetry. The name of "Chu Ci" was first seen in the early Western Han Dynasty.
Chu Ci broke the rigid format of the Book of Songs, which was a great liberation for the development of ancient Chinese poetry and opened the second spring of Chinese epic. Chu Ci adopts a sentence structure of three to eight words with uneven sentences, and the length and capacity can be expanded arbitrarily according to needs. The liveliness and diversity of forms make Chu Ci more suitable for expressing complex social life and expressing rich thoughts and feelings.
The state of Chu is located in the south, the country of barbarians; The cultural source, and the Zhou Tong was influenced by the Yin Shang. During the reign of King Chu Zhuang, the power of Chu was in a hurry and advanced to the north; The culture of the north and the south is blended together, and the high degree of ideology and culture of the Central Plains has been greatly absorbed by the Chu State. In the Warring States Period, the convergence of northern and southern cultures became more apparent, as evidenced by the transplantation of the Book of Songs in the south. At that time, the monarchs and ministers of Chu State were up and down, and when they spoke, the poems were clear; At the beginning, these transplants were mostly used for diplomatic rhetoric, and later infiltrated Chu literature and infected the minds of literati. Regarding the characteristics of Chu Ci, Huang Bosi of the Song Dynasty summarized in the "Preface to the Revision of Chu Ci": "Gai Qu Song Zhusao are all written in Chu language, made Chu sound, remembered Chu land, and named Chu things, so it can be described as 'Chu Ci'." (See Song Wenjian, vol. 92.) ）
The representative writers of Chu Ci include Qu Yuan, Song Yu and others, and most of the works of others such as Tang Le and Jing Cha have not been handed down. The main author of Chu Ci was Qu Yuan, who created immortal works such as "Lisao", "Nine Songs", "Nine Chapters", and "Tianwen". At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, Liu Xiang compiled the works of Qu Yuan, Song Yu and others into the book "Chu Ci", a total of 16 volumes, which has been lost. Later, Wang Yi added to his own work "Nine Thoughts", which became 17 articles, and annotated the whole book, and became the book "Chu Ci Chapters and Sentences". In Wang Yi's "Chu Ci Chapters and Sentences", the works of Jia Yi, Huainan Xiaoshan, Dongfang Shuo, Zhuang Ji, Wang Bao, Liu Xiang and others of the Western Han Dynasty are also preserved. Guo Pu of the Jin Dynasty had three volumes of "Notes on Chu Ci". "Siku Quanshu General Catalogue" said: "At the beginning, Liu Xiangpu collected Qu Yuan's "Lisao", "Nine Songs", "Tianwen", "Nine Chapters", "Far Travel", "Buju", "Fisherman", Song Yu's "Nine Arguments", "Conjuring Spirits", Jingcha's "Big Move", and Jia Yi's "Regret Oath", Huainan Xiaoshan's "Recruiting Hermits", Dongfang Shuo's "Seven Advices", Yan Ji's "Mourning Time", Wang Bao's "Nine Huai" and Liu Xiang's "Nine Sighs", a total of 16 volumes of "Chu Ci", is the ancestor of the collection. Yi Youyi wrote his own "Nine Thoughts" and Ban Gu's two "narratives", which are 17 volumes, and each is annotated. ”
Sources:Wikipedia