Qu Yuan, one of the greatest poets in China, was a minister of Kingdom Chu in the Warring States period. It is his spirit of being unwilling to go along with others in devil deeds, his noble character and sterling integrity that have been always respected. Now Qu Yuan’s personality has become a symbol of the noble and persevering spirit of the Chinese people.

The new king, instead of avenging his father's death, made a humiliating peace with his enemy. This, however, did not deter Chin's aggressive designs against Chu, and Qu Yuan, who had started his exile as a result of his political failure, lived long enough to see the capital of his state plundered and ruined by the conquering army of Qin in 278 b.c. At that time, Qu Yuan was already an old man of over sixty, and the fall of the Chu capital was the last blow to his patriotic hope. He does not seem to have long survived his disaster, for the next we hear of him is that he had drowned himself in the river Mi-lo.

Li Sao is the representative work of the great ancient Chinese patriotic poet Qu Yuan. This poem contains more than 370 sentences, amounting to more than 2,400 characters. Therefore it’s regarded as the longest and the most magnificent lyrics in ancient China.

In this long poem, the poet showed his political attitude that he would never collude with evil forces, and his firm belief in revitalizing the State of Chu even if he would “die for nine times“. He also expressed his political ideals, his resolute decision that he would never leave his country even after his political belief was disillusioned, and the final determination to sacrifice his own life to the ideal. Li Sao is a grand epic casting from his whole life, flashing his brilliant and distinct personality.

The creation of Li Sao is not only deeply rooted in the social reality, but also full of romantic fantasies, where the real figures, historical figures, and myths figures are intertwined; where the kingdom of heaven and earth, dreamland and reality are interwoven. It represents a spectacular, unusual, and gorgeous imaginary world, thus producing strong artistic charm. That poem was a?? first of its kind in the history of Chinese literature.

There are some other major literature works of Qu Yuan:

?????? Jiu Ge, a set of short poems published in the Chu Ci. Though it is called Jiu Ge, it actually includes eleven pieces: Dong Huang Tai Yi, Yun Zhong Jun, Xiang Jun, Xiang Fu Ren, Da Si Ming, Shao Si Ming, Dong Jun, He Bo, Shan Gui, Guo Shang, Li Hun. Jiu Ge is the collection of the sacrificial songs polished by Qu Yuan and is one of the finest examples of shamanic poetry ever created in ancient China, featuring mythological content and elegant imagination. Jiu Ge is different from the rest of Qu Yuan's works. Except for Guo Shang, the pieces for various gods are either written as dialogs or in prose style, to express the love between gods that have aspects of human nature, and humans. This appears to be style of the love songs of that era. Qu Yuan’s authorship of Jiu Ge is often questioned.

?????? Tian Wen
?????? Jiu Zhang (Songs of the Soul, consisting of 9 pieces)
?????? Yuan You (Far Off Journey)
?????? Pu Ju
?????? Yu Fu (Song of the Fisherman) This poem presents a conversation between Qu Yuan and a fisherman on a marshbank; when Qu Yuan speaks of his grief, the fisherman responds is a Canglang Song, which states that when government is clean it is fine to work with it, but when it becomes dirty one should be happy to leave it.

The year of 1953 was the 2230th anniversary of the death of Qu Yuan. In that year, the World Peace Council elected Qu Yuan as one of the Four Famous Men of World Culture.

Qu Yuan is regarded as the first author to have his name associated with the work in China. He is considered to have initiated the so-called sao style of verse, which is named after his work. 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.

Other than his literary influence, Qu Yuan is also held as the earliest patriot in China's history. His social idealism and unbending patriotism have served as the model for Chinese intellectuals to this day, particularly following the establishment of new China in 1949.

Unwilling to see his country encountering the misery, Qu Yuan took his own life by means of jumping into the Miluo River. It is said that the local people put Zong’zi (a kind of glutinous rice dumpling) into the river to feed fish to prevent those fish from eating the body of Qu Yuan, which has been developed into a folk custom gradually. Later, in memory of this great patriotic poet, people made it a custom that on the day of his death, the fifth day of every fifth lunar month, a dragon boat race would be held and people should eat Zongzi, which is the glutinous rice ball wrapped up with bamboo or reed leaves. The tradition is still kept up to now, called the Dragon Boat Festival.

It is said that the annual boat races held on the Double Fifth Day commemorate the search of Qu Yuan by the Chinese people on the day of his death. The search for Qu Yuan stands as an exemplary act of solidarity and cooperation of the Chinese men folk for a united cause. And it has been carried down to the present with annual Dragon Boat Festivals in China and the rest of the? world on every Double Fifth Day (fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar). Today, Qu Yuan is commonly believed to be the father of Chinese poetry and has become a national culture hero in China.