Chuci 楚辭 "Poetry of Chu" or "Poetry of the South"

The literary type of Chuci 楚辭 "Poetry of Chu" or "Poetry of the South" is a sort of poem that found its origin in the works of Qu Yuan 屈原 (d. 278 BCE), a high minister in the state of Chu 楚. After his death, many people from that region imitated his style of writing. The formal style and the themes of these poems were so different from the poems of the states in the Yellow River plain that it was always treated as a separate type of literature. The most famous poem is Qu Yuan's Lisao 離騷 "Sorrow after departing". The style of the Chuci and commentaries to these poems have been included as a separate sub-category in the collectanea Siku quanshu 四庫全書. It contains only 6 writings of and on this type of poetry.

A significant portion of the poems is attributed to the statesman Qu Yuan. The collection Chuci was compiled by the Han-period 漢 (206 BCE-220 CE) scholar Liu Xiang 劉向 (77-6 BCE) and analysed by Wang Yi 王逸 (89-158 CE). The collection includes poems by Qu Yuan and Song Yu 宋玉 (298-222 BCE), both ministers at the court of the king of Chu, along with works by Han-period scholars Jia Yi 賈誼 (200-168 BCE), Huainan Xiaoshan 淮南小山, Dongfang Shuo 東方朔 (154-93 BCE), Zhuang Ji 莊忌 (c. 188-105 BCE), Wang Bao 王褒 (90-51 BCE), Liu Xiang, and Wang Yi. All of these figures originated from the same region in modern central China, which had a distinct cultural tradition differing from that of the states in the Yellow River Plain.

Qu Yuan was a high minister of King Huai of Chu 楚懷王 (r. 328-299), to whom he suggested reforms in government and an alliance with the regional state of Qi 齊 to counter the growing power of Qin 秦. Qu Yuan was slandered by another minister called Jin Shang 靳尚 (d. 311 BCE) and consequently dismissed. When King Qingxiang 楚頃襄王 (r. 298-263) was taken prisoner by Qin, Qu Yuan wrote his famous poem Li sao 離騷, meaning "Sorrow after Departure", which can be interpreted as a kind of autobiography. Disappointed, Qu Yuan drowned himself in the River Miluo 汨羅江. Later, people started offering rice balls to his soul, and during the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival (zhongqiujie 中秋節), rice balls wrapped in bamboo leaves (zongzi 粽子) remain a popular meal in southern China.

Other poems attributed to Qu Yuan include the Nine Songs (Jiuge 九歌), the Nine Elegies (Jiuzhang 九章), "Asking Heaven" (Wen tian 問天), and others. The distinctive style of the Chuci poetry differs from northern poetry both in verse structure (notably the verse divider xi 兮, a particle expressing sighing) and in content. Northern literature tends to be more straightforward in emotion, whereas the poems from the southern state of Chu are rich with sentiment and even mystical visions. For instance, Qu Yuan is led on his horse chart to a heaven far removed from the human world. His invoking of the Goddess of the River Xiang 湘君 exemplifies shamanism, which was common in southern religion. Later, southern poetry gained great popularity among Daoists, who viewed man as a small being within the vastness of cosmos and nature.

The Chuci collection was expanded with additional poems, some of which were also written by "southerners", and others that imitated Qu Yuan's style. These include the Han-period poet Wang Bao from Sichuan, Liu Xiang, son of Liu Jiao 劉交 (posthumous title Prince Yuan of Chu 楚元王), as well as Jia Yi and Dongfang Shuo, both known for their interest in Daoism.

In the bibliography Yiwen zhi 藝文志, part of the official dynastic history Hanshu 漢書, the poems of Qu Yuan are listed as fu 賦 "rhapsodies", in 25 chapters. The bibliography treatise Jingjizhi 經籍志 in the Suishu 隋書 already lists ten books about the Chuci, of which the most significant part is lost today.