Why Qu Yuan is the Founder of Romanticism

Qu Yuan is the first great patriotic poet in the history of Chinese literature, and the founder of China's Romantic poetry tradition. His poetry marks the real arrival of a new era of poetry creation in China from the collective creation of folk to the independent creation of individual writers. His strong patriotic ideology, noble character and persistence in pursuing his ideals to the end of his life have had a profound impact on future generations. For thousands of years, in the struggle against violence, for justice, and for the dignity and interests of the motherland, people have always looked up to him as an example, and gained inspiration and enterprising power from his character and personality. His spiritual character was molded into moving and soulful poems that fed generations of progressive writers. Jia Yi, Sima Qian, Li Bai, Du Fu, Wen Tianxiang, Gong Zizhen, Lu Xun, etc., were all inheritors and promoters of Qu Yuan's spirit in their expositions and scorns of the dark realities and their concern for the people's sufferings. The tradition of romantic poetry emphasizing fantasy that he initiated has enriched the expressive power of Chinese literature and art.

After the release of Li Sao, it was regarded as a model of classical Chinese poetry and the highest standard of poetry. He developed the technique of "Poetry Classic", making it integrated with the main body and blending with the scene, forming a series of independent images, which play the role of symbols and allegories in the poem. This expressive method of "sending feelings to objects" and "using objects to satirize" greatly improved the level of poetry in ancient China, and was widely inherited by writers of later generations. The different sentences of Chu Rhetoric broke through the four-sentence format of the Classic of Poetry and paved the way for the creation of five- and seven-sentence poems. The literary style he created also directly gave birth to the new literary genre of fugue.