The Songs of the South is an anthology first compiled in the second century A.D. Its poems, originating from the state of Chu and rooted in Shamanism, are grouped under seventeen titles and contain all that we know of Chinese poetry's ancient beginnings. The earliest poems were composed in the fourth century B.C. and almost half of them are traditionally ascribed to Qu Yuan.

The prodigious aristocrat Qu Yuan was a minister of Chu, a major power during the Warring States. Pressing for Vertical Alliance but not listened to, he was twice exiled. Bewailing affliction, he wrote verses in the Chu dialect, and liberated poetry from the four-syllable metre. Qu Yuan's vers libre, like his suicide, has been immortalised in East Asia, as one honours the Romantic poet and a wounded statesman, ill-treated and loyal to the end. Attribution to Qu Yuan has at times been disputed; some opuses stand emblematic. Two prose pieces and two poems are offered in a new translation by Mingyuan Hu. This book is part of the Erstwhile Series.

The Songs of the South is an anthology first compiled in the second century A.D. Its poems, originating from the state of Chu and rooted in Shamanism, are grouped under seventeen titles and contain all that we know of Chinese poetry's ancient beginnings. The earliest poems were composed in the fourth century B.C. and almost half of them are traditionally ascribed to Qu Yuan.

The prodigious aristocrat Qu Yuan was a minister of Chu, a major power during the Warring States. Pressing for Vertical Alliance but not listened to, he was twice exiled. Bewailing affliction, he wrote verses in the Chu dialect, and liberated poetry from the four-syllable metre. Qu Yuan's vers libre, like his suicide, has been immortalised in East Asia, as one honours the Romantic poet and a wounded statesman, ill-treated and loyal to the end. Attribution to Qu Yuan has at times been disputed; some opuses stand emblematic. Two prose pieces and two poems are offered in a new translation by Mingyuan Hu. This book is part of the Erstwhile Series.