Emperor Wen of Han
Historical details about Qu Yuan's life are few, and his authorship of many "Chu Ci" poems has been questioned at length. However, he is widely accepted to have written "The Lament," a "Chu Ci" poem. The first known reference to Qu Yuan appears in a poem written in 174 BC by Jia Yi, an official from Luoyang who was slandered by jealous officials and banished to Changsha by Emperor Wen of Han. While traveling, he wrote a poem describing the similar fate of a previous "Qu Yuan." Eighty years later, the first known biography of Qu Yuan's life appeared in Han dynasty historian Sima Qian's "Records of the Grand Historian", though it contains a number of contradictory details.