The Songs of Chu

The Songs of Chu is the earliest collection of Romantic poetry and the source of Romantic literature. The name “Songs of Chu” first appears in the “Biographies of Harsh Officials” chapter of Records of the Grand Historian, showing that the term was in use by the early Han dynasty at the latest. It originally referred broadly to songs from the state of Chu, and later became the name for a distinct poetic style represented by the works of Qu Yuan, a poet of Chu during the Warring States period. In the late Western Han, Liu Xiang compiled works by Qu Yuan and Song Yu, along with poems by Huainan Xiaoshan, Dongfang Shuo, Wang Bao, Liu Xiang, and others who followed or imitated them. The collection contained sixteen pieces and was titled Songs of Chu, making it the earliest anthology. Wang Yi later added his own “Nine Longings,” bringing the total to seventeen pieces: “Encountering Sorrow,” “Nine Songs,” “Questions to Heaven,” “Nine Chapters,” “Far-off Journey,” “Divination,” “The Fisherman,” “Nine Changes,” “Summoning the Soul,” “The Great Summons,” “Lament for the Past,” “Summoning the Hermit,” “Seven Admonitions,” “Lament for the Times,” “Nine Reflections,” “Nine Sighs,” and “Nine Longings.” This seventeen-piece structure became the standard version handed down to later generations.