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Hermits United

Qu Yuan

Poet and statesman during the Warring States

Qu Yuan did for Chinese poetry what Victor Hugo did for French verse: a liberation of metres, an accentuation of feelings, an image of the romantic poet emerging, all this in the fourth century BC. The first great Chinese poet, whose biography the first grand historian Sima Qian wrote, Qu Yuan chanted in his verses the anguish of exile and a yearning for his homeland. As his country was conquered by force, in despair he threw himself into the river. For centuries, people in East Asia have sailed boats on the day of Qu Yuan’s death to keep imaginary dragons from eating his body. Could there be a more loving way of remembering a poet?

Photo of Qu Yuan