Qu Yuan, one of the greatest poets in China, was a minister of Kingdom Chu in the Warring States period (about 300 B.C.). Slandered by treacherous court officials, he was dismissed and exiled thrice. It is said that he always walked around the Miluo River district (at Northeast of Hunan Province nowadays), singing sad poems. On May 5, 278 B.C., he eventually jumped into the Miluo River holding a big stone. His spirit of being unwilling to go along with others in devil deeds, his noble character and sterling integrity have been always respected. Now Qu Yuan’s spirit has become a symbol of the noble and persevering spirit of the Chinese people.
Qu Yuan’s works and The Book of Songs in his time are two miracles in Chinese literature history. His works depict in his brilliant and passionate language the love between people and gods, the wild and weird persons, ancient legends, as well as deities and apparitions. This kind of style is called “Elegies of Chu” by later generations, and Qu Yuan is reputed as the first Romantic poet in China. The Elegies of Chu were created by Qu Yuan based on folk songs of Chu Kingdom. Due to its profound influence, his masterpiece Li Sao is referred directly as Elegies of Chu by the later generations.
Unwilling to see his country encountering the misery, Qu Yuan took his own life by means of jumping into the Miluo River. It is said that the local people put Zong’zi (a kind of glutinous rice dumpling) into the river to feed fish to prevent those fish from eating the body of Qu Yuan, which has been developed into a folk custom gradually. Later, the fifth day in the fifth lunar month of each year is established as the Dragon Boat Festival, on which people eat Zong’zi and row dragon in honor of this great patriotic poet.
The year of 1953 was the 2230th anniversary of the death of Qu Yuan. In that year, the World Peace Council elected Qu Yuan as one of the Four Famous Men of World Culture.