Talking about Qu Yuan

First, the debate about Qu Yuan's evaluation in history.

In the history of China, Qu Yuan was a great writer who was widely respected. For more than 2,000 years, people expressed deep sympathy for Qu Yuan who was slandered by the wicked and the fatuous Chu Huaiwang who was exiled. In the process of exile, Qu Yuan witnessed the danger of Chu and the "hardship of people's lives", so he threw himself into the Miluo River with resentment.

The Nine Arguments in Liu Xiang's Songs of the South is considered by Wang Yi to be written by Song Yu, a disciple of Qu Yuan, who was "demoted for mourning his teacher". He also believes that Song Yu pitied Qu Yuan for "abandoning loyalty, worrying about mountains and rivers, losing his soul and dying, pretending that Evocation wanted to restore his spirit and prolong his life". Song Yu even imagined that Chu Huaiwang would wake up and recall Qu Yuan after seeing "Evocation". Look at this Song Yu, isn't it a rare example of respecting teachers and valuing morality in ancient and modern times? I really don't understand why the historian Guo Moruo vilified Song Yu as a traitor to Qu Yuan in the play Qu Yuan. As for "Buju" and "Fisherman", I think it is also a work of Qu Yuan's later study to mourn Qu Yuan.

Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was the first emperor who loved Qu Yuan's works. Liu An, the king of Huainan, was the first literary theorist who praised Li Sao, with 82 articles. Liu An said that Li Sao is as long as Guo Feng and Xiao Ya, which embodies Qu Yuan's personality style of "transcending floating dust" and can "win glory with the sun and the moon". Later, Sima Qian wrote a biography for Qu Yuan, which not only recorded these epigrams of Liu An, but also compared Li Sao with Chunqiu edited by Confucius. He called the former "his words are subtle, his ambition is clean, and his behavior is despicable …", which is a portrayal of Qu Yuan's great and perfect personality. It can be seen that Sima Qian is a person who worships Qu Yuan very much.

However, Ban Gu, a historian in the later Han Dynasty, did not agree with Sima Qian's evaluation and praise of Qu Yuan. His ideological tendency towards Qu Yuan and Li Sao is both positive and negative, even mainly negative. When Ban Gu criticized, he deliberately avoided Sima Qian and pointed the finger at Liu An. He pointed out that Qu Yuan and Li Sao can "win glory with the sun and the moon" and "the theory of thinking seems too true". Ban Gu's outlook on life is "all life avoids harm and does not suffer from human beings". He thinks that Qu Yuan should be as elegant as the so-called "to preserve our sanity" in the poem. He criticized Qu Yuan for "praising himself without showing his talent, blaming him for cherishing the monarch, complaining about pepper orchids, worrying about god and thinking hard, being strong but not for himself, being angry but not tolerant, and dying by sinking into the river". He also disagreed with Qu Yuan's incorporation of a large number of myths and legends into his works, and thought that the nothingness of Kunlun, ghost marriage and Fu Fei were all illegal and just. However, Ban Gu does not deny that Qu Yuan's work Li Hongbo Ya is a school of Ci and Fu. Future generations must consider its hero China as if it were empty. Therefore, his evaluation of Qu Yuan is: "Although he is not a wise man, he is wonderful. "

Wang Yi of the later Han Dynasty was dissatisfied with Ban Gu's common view. He praised Qu Yuan as "loyal, clean, straight as stone and ruddy as a painter". If you don't hide the plan, you will retreat regardless of life and death. This sincere trip, Toshihiko's British also. "As for Liu Xie's Wen Xin Diao Long in the Liang Dynasty, he summed up Wang Yi's point of view and wrote a chapter to distinguish Sao, which not only proved that Qu Yuan's works were different from Feng and Ya, but also four things were similar to the classics.

Hong Xingzu in Song Dynasty was another famous scholar who annotated Chu Ci after Wang Yi. He has won many excellent works, consulted similarities and differences, and made a book "Supplementary Notes on Chu Ci". Hong was very dissatisfied with Yan Zhitui's statement that "scholars have been frivolous since ancient times, and Qu Yuan showed his talents and showed his hegemony". He refuted the cloud from Confucian ethics: "Qu Yuan and Chu share the same surname. The same surname is also boring. " Confucius advocated "giving life when in danger". Therefore, Hong defended Qu Yuan's self-sinking, saying: "The same surname is both benevolent and righteous, but he can not die?" Then, why didn't Qu Yuan leave Chu? Hong believes that this is because "there is no one in Chu, and if you go to the country, Chu will die." Therefore, he said: "Although Qu Yuan was exiled, he lingered on and did not go to Chu, indicating that he could not strive to remonstrate when he was alive, and he still hoped for his feelings when he died." (Press: refers to the king of Chu who changed his career after enlightenment) It can also be seen that Qu Yuan "died even though he died".

Zhu is a far-reaching thinker and educator in the history of China's philosophy, and also a master in collating ancient books. He made great contributions to the study of The Book of Songs and Songs of the South. His Collection of Notes on Chu Ci is also comparable to his Biography of Poetry. Zhu is a politician with national integrity. In Li Sao, he noticed that "the servant is more sad than Ma Huaixi and can't do it". This is Qu Yuan's "promise of this trip, going up and down, and ultimately Chu Yan;" Those who are also benevolent will be exhausted. " This understanding of Qu Yuan's thoughts and feelings and his attachment to Chu can be described as a deeper level.

Second, my opinion:

Qu Yuan's life is a tragedy, a tragedy of patriots, a tragedy of reformers, and a tragedy in which justice is destroyed by evil. As a politician and reformer, he failed all his life. His ideals and career will always be regretted by future generations. But as a great thinker and writer, he succeeded. His character of caring for the country and the people, being honest and clean was praised as a model by later generations. His magnificent works and gorgeous words are masterpieces of the world literature hall. The style of "Chu Ci" created by him is unique in the history of China literature, and it is also called "coquettish" with the Book of Songs, which has a positive impact on later poetry creation. Modern scholar Liang Qichao first recommended Qu Yuan as "the ancestor of China writers". Guo Moruo commented that Qu Yuan was a "great patriotic poet", a shining star in the era of bright stars, and "especially a colorful first-class star". Wen Yiduo commented that Qu Yuan was "the only person with sufficient conditions to be called a people's poet in the history of China". The History of China Literature rated Qu Yuan as "the first great patriotic poet in the history of China". The Encyclopedia of China Literature rated Qu Yuan as "the founder of romantic literature in China".

Qu Yuan's works record his persistence in the ideal of "beautiful politics" and his struggle against the decadent aristocratic groups in Chu. His ideal of "beautiful politics" is reflected in his works, that is, "cultivating talents and empowering them, but doing things without being equal" (Li Sao). The so-called "promoting talents and empowering" is to select truly talented people to govern the country, oppose the secular world, and limit the monopoly of the old aristocracy on power. He also took the historical stories of Fu Shuo, the slave, Lv Wang, the butcher and Ning Qi, the vendor, as examples to illustrate the rationality of selecting talents regardless of their status. The so-called "following the rope without being rude" means practicing the law, that is, the law is not expensive and limiting the privileges of the old nobles.

Qu Yuan's ideal of "beautiful politics" reflects his sharp opposition to the decadent aristocratic groups in Chu and their forces, and expresses his demand for progress in getting rid of bad politics, with the ultimate goal of saving the motherland from peril and making Chu a prosperous and powerful country. Related to this, Qu Yuan's works also profoundly exposed the darkness of Chu politics, the decay of Chu aristocratic groups and the fatuity of Chu kings, and showed his fighting spirit of adhering to the ideal of "beautiful politics", insisting on moral integrity and "not regretting his death"; At the same time, it shows his determination to care about the country and the people, love the country and the people, and devote himself to the motherland.

Although Qu Yuan was exiled or even exiled, he always thought about the rise and fall of the motherland and the sufferings of the people, hoping that the king of Chu would repent and work hard to become the master of ZTE. He knew that being loyal to honesty and frankness would lead to disaster, but he always "endured but could not give up"; Knowing that he faced many dangers, he could have gone to other countries to find a way out in the era of "using Chu materials", but he refused to leave Chu. It shows his infinite loyalty to the motherland and his personality and will to win glory with the sun and the moon.

Qu Yuan's works are full of positive romantic spirit. Its main performance is that he integrated his passionate pursuit of ideals into artistic imagination and magical artistic conception. For example, Li Sao wrote that after he gave a speech to Zhong Hua, he went against the wind. He knocked at the heavenly palace first, but the emperor didn't accept it. He begged a girl who happened not to be there; He pursued Fu Fei, but Fu Fei was rude to him; He wanted Judy and Er Yao, but he didn't have a good matchmaker to deliver the news. This fantasy and pursuit of going to heaven and going to earth embodies Qu Yuan's hard pursuit of ideals in reality. In addition, Nine Songs and Tian Wen also use a lot of myths and historical legends as materials, with bold and rich imagination, which is rare in ancient and modern times.

Besides, Qu Yuan's works also use a series of metaphors to express his feelings. For example, he used flowers and herbs to describe a noble gentleman; Use smelly things and Xiao Ai as metaphors for traitors or disloyal villains; Wearing vanilla symbolizes the poet's moral cultivation. This technique of "vanilla beauty" makes a sharp contrast between loyalty, ugliness, goodness and evil in reality, and produces a concise and endless artistic effect.

Qu Yuan's works are uneven in level and flexible in form. Chu dialect is widely used in the language, full of local flavor; Most of its dialects are refined, colorful and vivid.

Qu Yuan is the first great patriotic poet in the history of China literature. He is an outstanding representative of romantic poets. As an outstanding politician and patriot, Qu Yuan's spirit and personality of loving the motherland and the people, persisting in the truth, preferring death to surrender, has inspired and nurtured countless Chinese sons and daughters for thousands of years, especially when the nation was in danger. As a great poet, the appearance of Qu Yuan not only marks that China's poetry has entered a new era from collective singing to individual originality, but also his new poetic style-Chu Ci, which broke through the expression form of The Book of Songs, greatly enriched the expressive force of poetry and opened up a new world for China's ancient poetry creation. Therefore, later generations called Chu Ci and The Book of Songs together as The Book of Songs. "Feng" and "Sao" are the sources of the two fine traditions of realism and romanticism in the history of China's poetry. At the same time, Chu Ci, represented by Qu Yuan, also influenced the formation of Han Fu.

In the history of China, Qu Yuan was the most admired and loved poet by the people. According to the records of "Continuation of Qi and Harmony" and "Geography of Sui Shu", Qu Yuan threw himself into the river on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. The custom of making zongzi and racing dragon boats on May 5th in China originated from people's commemoration of Qu Yuan. 1953, Qu Yuan was also listed as one of the four cultural celebrities in the world and was solemnly commemorated by the World Peace Council and people all over the world.

On the classification of Qu Yuan s personality and artistic spirit from Li Sao;

Qu Yuan, a well-known name. There is also the immortal work Li Sao written by Qu Yuan. Miluo swallowed and buried Qu Yuan, which became Qu Yuan's final destination, but Miluo did not swallow Qu Yuan's Li Sao, Qu Yuan's personality and artistic spirit conveyed through Li Sao, and many other things, which are the different values of material wealth and spiritual wealth.

Li Sao is the most outstanding of all Qu Yuan's works, and it has always existed and spread as a representative work of Qu Yuan. But think about it carefully, why does Li Sao enjoy this status instead of nine articles or nine chapters? In fact, in the final analysis, it is because of the content of Li Sao, which explains all the personality and spirit of Qu Yuan in a richer and more comprehensive way, which is beyond the reach of other works.

When talking about Qu Yuan's personality and his artistic spirit, we must first understand: What is personality? What is artistic spirit?

Look at personality first. Psychological personality (also called personality) refers to the stable psychological characteristics that distinguish a person from others, including a person's moral character, ability, personality, values, needs, interests and so on. This is a psychological explanation. In social life, personality is the unity of a person's position and role in society, and the sum of his dignity, reputation and value. In socialist countries, every citizen has equal personality and his personal dignity is protected by law. At the same time, we often use personality to refer to moral quality, such as "low personality" and "noble personality". These are the definitions of personality in modern society, so in Qu Yuan's era, although psychology has not been promoted to the status of a discipline, people's understanding of it can also be described as "a little knowledge", but the words about psychological description have always existed, so we can refer to the understanding of personality in modern psychology when we talk about Qu Yuan's personality and its content here. Judging from the era of Qu Yuan's life, it is difficult to unify the position and role of an individual in society, so his personality in social life is unreasonable. However, psychology is only a reference after all, and the interpretation of moral quality has a long history. So we talk about Qu Yuan's personality here, mainly from the perspective of moral quality, of course, from an interdisciplinary perspective, and should also include the understanding of personality in the sense of modern psychology.

Look at the artistic spirit again. Art is a form, but it is not an empty shell, but a meaningful form, that is to say, form contains meaning, as Mr. Li Zehou said, it is a "meaningful form". Art is abstract, so the form of art must be full of images. It comes from people's minds and is the soul of everything. It is precisely because people have a mind, and it is precisely because people's minds can create forms, so creating forms is "people's minds legislate for nature." Then the artistic spirit comes from people's attitudes and views on art forms. People in China tend to be practical, so in the view of saints in China, "art" is a kind of therapy. However, the connotation of artistic spirit is the same, and they are all attitudes and views on artistic forms, but the content of this artistic form is different.

Knowing the basic connotation of personality and artistic spirit, we can further understand Qu Yuan's personality and artistic spirit.

According to the understanding of psychology and morality, we should start with the basic aspects of morality, ability, personality, values, needs and interests.

When we talk about Qu Yuan, the first thing we see is that he is rated as a "great patriotic poet". Indeed, Qu Yuan is patriotic. Between the lines of Li Sao, Qu Yuan's thought of "beautiful politics" is revealed, that is, "cultivating talents and empowering them, not following the ink", and dropping talents in an eclectic way. This is a beautiful politics, which is incompatible with the decadent concept of aristocratic rule, so it is inevitable to encounter many setbacks. Therefore, some people say that Li Sao is a medium for Qu Yuan to vent his dissatisfaction and grievances. In fact, these angry or complaining words are just words. The real meaning should be like Lu Xun's evaluation of the people of China in the old society, which is a regret of "hating iron and not producing steel". Regret and complaint are absolutely different attitudes and views. Qu Yuan's patriotic feelings determined that he could not hold a grudge against anything. "Although he died nine times, he didn't regret it." Although he was repeatedly vilified and even exiled, he always thought about the rise and fall of the motherland and the sufferings of the people. He hoped that the king of Chu would suddenly repent, work hard and be the master of ZTE. He knows that loyalty to honesty and frankness will bring disaster, but he always "endures". He knew that he faced many dangers, and he could go to other countries to find a way out in the era of "using Chu materials", but he refused to leave Chu and finally handed himself over to Miluo River. It shows his infinite loyalty to the motherland and his personality and will to win glory with the sun and the moon. All this, like faith, is not so easily shaken.

Our evaluation of Qu Yuan is not only a poet, but also a politician. Indeed, Qu Yuan is the most statesmanlike person, and we absolutely have every reason to show his political foresight: we realize that Chu has both the potential to compete for the world and the danger of being annexed by Qin. Such a sight was not foreseen by those treacherous little people. We are sure that those little people didn't foresee it, because if they did, they would definitely accept the suggestion directly. When Qu Yuan foresaw this historic ending, the situation was still bright, and those little people had no choice to betray the country under irreversible circumstances. The reason why we call him a villain does not mean that he must be a traitor. No one is born a traitor. The deeper reason is that they are petty, have no tolerance for others and are vegetarian. However, a visionary politician is not necessarily a person with political talent. Why can Ji Xiaolan live forever in a world of whores with corrupt officials like Xiao Shenyang and his network of contacts, and exert his political talents to protect the people and rule the world? A politician with real political talent should be a man with both foresight and means, and may lose his personality and principles, but there is no doubt that history has proved that a politician without means cannot last long, which means that his political ambition has not been fully realized and adulterers and prostitutes are rampant. What about politicians with means? When he opposed it, he suppressed the adulterer and showed foresight. Perhaps this vision is gradually realized, but it can be accumulated over time. This is the golden mean, but it is definitely the best way to weigh the pros and cons. It can be seen that Qu Yuan's life ended in Miluo, which shows his lack of political ability in a certain sense.

Qu Yuan is a man of character. He has a clear understanding of his goals and needs. Under the guidance of patriotic values, adhere to your own personality, persist in being a "vanilla", give up everything, and don't go along with traitors. As the saying goes, "bend one's heart and restrain one's ambition, endure especially and pollute", and "though he died nine times, he still won't change". This noble quality is hard to find, and this spirit of persistence is hard to find. However, when reading Qu Yuan's Li Sao, there is still a feeling that Qu Yuan's character is not particularly profound, but narcissism, which runs through countless herbs before and after and is the medium that Qu Yuan uses to compare himself. It's been many years since Qu Yuan's time, so we can't verify it ourselves. But the reputation of vanilla has been passed down to this day, and the vanilla-like character is a perfect character. Is Qu Yuan suspected of narcissism by repeatedly comparing himself to vanilla? But it doesn't matter, no one is perfect. Such a small defect can't erase Qu Zi's good impression in the eyes of Chinese children for thousands of years.

As for Qu Yuan's artistic spirit, let's take a look at Zhuangzi's artistic spirit first. Zhuangzi's ideal spiritual realm is true, in fact, it is a peaceful and quiet psychological environment. In Zhuangzi's thought, the limit of life and death, the encirclement of time and fate, and the feelings of sadness and joy, which constitute the dilemma of life, are all objective existence in human life. It should be said that it is a true reflection and rational attitude to get rid of the mental troubles and form a quiet psychological environment. We say that China people are pragmatic, and Zhuangzi is an ideal living environment, but we know that Zhuangzi lived in a time when peace and prosperity were out of reach. Then, why does Zhuangzi still live happily when the ideal living environment cannot be satisfied? At that time, because the living environment here has expanded, it not only refers to the environment around us that involves our survival, but also includes our psychological environment. Similar to the situation that reality can't satisfy us, we choose spiritual self-comfort and satisfaction, but this is not just self-comfort and satisfaction in a simple sense, but a kind of inner peace and a state of enlightenment. Qu Yuan didn't choose to live a happy life in troubled times like Zhuangzi, because he wanted peace in the country and people lived and worked in peace. Of course, this "desire" is not personal, but what we advocate and even what we expect. But it was this desire that killed Qu Yuan in Miluo, while Zhuangzi lived a long life. Every one of us yearns for the ideal life realm brought by Zhuangzi's desire for nothing, but it is said to be the ideal life realm because it is really too difficult to achieve. Unless everyone in society becomes a "Zhuangzi", society will always be decorated with "ideals". Moreover, further, we are all social people, and our life, whether it is life or not, is related to society. Therefore, if I have to choose between Qu Yuan's artistic spirit and Zhuangzi's artistic spirit, I will not hesitate to choose Qu Yuan's artistic spirit: a desire to fight for the social cause of the masses, and I am willing to pay everything for it.

There are perfectionists, debaters and dissimilators in the evaluation of Qu Yuan. In short, they are all varied and indispensable. The correct one should be eclecticism, the doctrine of the mean is not extreme, but it is indeed the most perfect understanding and interpretation.