Qu Yuan

In this Chinese name, the family name is Qu (屈).

Qu Yuan (c. 340 BC – 278 BC) was a Chinese poet and aristocrat. They lived in the State of Chu during the Warring States period. He is known for his patriotism and work in classical poetry and verses. He wrote Chu Ci anthropology (also called the The Songs of the South or Songs of Chu). Chu Ci and Shi Jing are usually called some of the greatest Chinese verses. He is also remembered because he may have been connected to the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival.

Qu Yuan
Portrait of Qu Yuan by Chen Hongshou (17th century)
Born	c. 339 BC State of Chu, in modern-day Zigui County, Hubei, China
Died	278 BC (aged 62) Miluo River
Occupation	Poet, politician
Qu Yuan Chinese 屈原 Transcriptions Mandarin - Hanyu Pinyin Qū Yuán - Wade–Giles Ch'ü1 Yüan2 - IPA [tɕʰý ɥɛ̌n] Min - Hokkien POJ Khut Goân - Taiwanese Romanization Khut Guân Cantonese (Yue) - Jyutping Wat1 Jyun4 - IPA [wɐ́t̚ jy̏ːn] - Yale Romanization Wāt Yùhn

There are not many historical details about Qu Yuan's. Historians are not entirely sure if he wrote many of the Chu Ci. However, he is widely thought to have written "The Lament," a Chu Ci poem. The first mention to Qu Yuan is in a poem written in 174 BC by Jia Yi. Jia Yi was an official from Luoyang. He was slandered by other officials and was sent to Changsha by Emperor Wen of Han. While traveling, he wrote a poem about how "Qu Yuan" had something similar happen to him. Eighty years later, the first known biography of Qu Yuan's life was in Han dynasty historian Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian. However, these records have some contradictions about his details.

Qu Yuan Media

• 

  Qu Yuan as depicted in the Nine Songs, imprint of presumably the 14th century

• 

  As depicted in the album Portraits of Famous Men c. 1900 CE, housed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art

• 

  Statue of Qu Yuan on a dragon boat, on display for the Dragon Boat Festival, in Singapore

Related pages

• Dragon Boat Festival
• Tianwen-1

Bibliography

• Chang, H.K.; Ye Lang; Fei Zhengang; Wang Tianyou, eds. (2007), "Qu Yuan", China: Five Thousand Years of History and Civilization, Kowloon: City University of Hong Kong Press, pp. 205–6, ISBN 9789629371401
• Davis, Albert Richard, ed. (1970), The Penguin Book of Chinese Verse, London: Penguin Books.
• Guo Moruo (1952), 《屈原》 [Qu Yuan], Beijing: Renmin Wenxue Chubanshe. (in Chinese)
• Hartman, Charles (1986). "Ch'ü Yüan 屈原". In Nienhauser, William H. Junior (ed.). The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, Volume 1. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 352. ISBN 0-253-32983-3.
• Hawkes, David (1959), Ch'u Tz'u: The Songs of the South, an Ancient Chinese Anthology, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Hawkes, David (1974), "The Quest of the Goddess", Studies in Chinese Literary Genres, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 42–68, ISBN 0-520-02037-5.
• Hinton, David (2008), Classical Chinese Poetry: An Anthology, New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, ISBN 978-0-374-10536-5.
• Kern, Martin (2010). "Early Chinese literature, Beginnings through Western Han". In Owen, Stephen (ed.). The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Volume 1: To 1375. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–115. ISBN 978-0-521-11677-0.
• Knechtges, David R. (2010). "Qu Yuan 屈原". In Knechtges, David R.; Chang, Taiping (eds.). Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guide, Part One. Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section 4: China, volume 25/1. Leiden: Brill. pp. 745–749. doi:10.1163/9789047444664_002. ISBN 978-90-04-19127-3.
• Wen Yiduo (1956), "人民的詩人一屈原 [Rénmín de Shīrén—Qū Yuán, Qu Yuan: The People's Poet]", 《神話與詩》 [Shénhuà yú Shī, Mythology & Poetry], Guji Chubanshe. (in Chinese)
• Yip Wai-lim (1997), Chinese Poetry: An Anthology of Major Modes and Genres, Durham: Duke University Press, ISBN 0-8223-1946-2.
• Zhang Zongyi (1957), 《屈原舆楚辭》 [Qū Yuán yú Chǔcí, Qu Yuan and the Songs of Chu], Changchun: Jilin Renmin Chubanshe. (in Chinese)

Further reading

• Sima Qian (1993) [c. 90s BCE]. Records of the Grand Historian. Translated by Watson, Burton (Rev. ed.). New York: Columbia Univ. Press. ISBN 0-231-08164-2.
• Schneider, Laurence A. (1980). A Madman of Ch'u: The Chinese Myth of Loyalty and Dissent. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Waley, Arthur (1973). The Nine Songs; a Study of Shamanism in Ancient China. San Francisco: City Lights Books. ISBN 0-87286-075-2.
• Watson, Burton (1962). Early Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231086714.

Other websites

• "Qu Yuan (Chu Yuan), the great poet"
• "This article has photos of Qu Yuan's hometown before it was submerged by the dams project"
• "The Dragon Boat Festival" (article copied from Volume 1, number 2 of the newsletter of Families with Children from China of the San Francisco Bay Area)