page_title: Qu Yuan
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Qu Yuan / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: The Metropolitan Museum of Art states: The Nine Songs are lyrical, shamanistic incantations dedicated to nine classes of deities worshipped by the Chu people of south China during the first millennium B.C. The original text consists of eleven songs, ten of which are transcribed and illustrated here. The illustrations are preceded by a portrait of the poet Qu Yuan (343–277 B.C.), which is accompanied by an essay entitled "The Fisherman," recounting the poet's state of mind toward the end of his life. Zhao Mengfu's paintings for the Nine Songs in the baimiao, or "white-drawing" style, are based on compositions by Li Gonglin (ca. 1041–1106) and were a primary source for later fourteenth-century paintings of this theme by Zhang Wu (active 1333–65) and others. Because the calligraphy in the album does not compare with the best of Zhao Mengfu's writing, it is probable that these leaves represent close, reliable copies of Zhao's important work, executed during the fourteenth century. One leaf, "The Lord of Clouds," is a later replacement (no earlier than the seventeenth century).
context_page_description: Qu Yuan was a Chinese poet and politician who lived during the Warring States period. He is known for his patriotism and contributions to classical poetry and verses, especially through the poems of the Chu Ci anthology: a volume of poems attributed to or considered to be inspired by his verse writing. Together with the Shi Jing, the Chu Ci is one of the two greatest collections of ancient Chinese verse. He is also remembered in connection to the supposed origin of the Dragon Boat Festival.
  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 Li Sao, the most well-known of the Chu Ci poems. 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.
context_section_description: Qu Yuan is regarded as the first author of verse in China to have his name associated to his work, since prior to that time, poetic works were not attributed to any specific authors. He is considered to have initiated the so-called sao style of verse, which is named after his work Li Sao, in which he abandoned the classic four-character verses used in poems of Shi Jing and adopted verses with varying lengths. This resulted in poems with more rhythm and latitude in expression. Qu Yuan is also regarded as one of the most prominent figures of Romanticism in Chinese classical literature, and his masterpieces influenced some of the greatest Romanticist poets in Tang Dynasty such as Li Bai. During the Han Dynasty, Qu Yuan became established as a heroic example of how a scholar and official who was denied public recognition suitable to their worth should behave.
caption: Qu Yuan as depicted in the Nine Songs, imprint of presumably the 14th century
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