Sources show Qu Yuan (?340-278 BCE) was the first person in China to become famous for his poetry, so famous in fact that the Chinese celebrate his life with a national holiday called Poet's Day, or the Dragon Boat Festival. His work, which forms the core of the The Songs of Chu, the second oldest anthology of Chinese poetry, derives its imagery from shamanistic ritual. Its shaman hymns are among the most beautiful and mysterious liturgical works in the world. The religious milieu responsible for their imagery supplies the backdrop for his most famous work, Li sao, which translates shamanic longing for a spirit lover into the yearning for an ideal king that is central to the ancient philosophies of China. Qu Yuan was as important to the development of Chinese literature as Homer was to the development of Western literature. This translation attempts to replicate what the work might have meant to those for whom it was originally intended, rather than settle for what it was made to mean by those who inherited it. It accounts for the new view of the state of Chu that recent discoveries have inspired.

Relatively unknown in the West, Tian Wen: A Chinese Book of Origins is a fascinating, though often baffling, archaic collection of 186 “questions” about the origins of life and the meanings of a wide variety of happenings startling and mundane, earthly and celestial. Because the poem has no single narrative thread, the most informed speculation posits group authorship by a number of roving Taoist scholars, each contributing riddles about the history and legends of his own province as well as ironically posed inquiries into the nature of the universe. The enigmatic and sometimes Sphinxlike conundrums may have been originally intended for debate––to give the popular and prominent dialecticians of over 2,300 years ago a tool for honing their convoluted responses. But however the poem took on its present shape and content, it remains the single most comprehensive catalogue of ancient Chinese mythology and pre-Imperial legend in existence. This translation by Stephen Field of The College of William and Mary combines sound scholarship with an artful grace to produce the 186 questions in couplets that both tease and enchant. In addition to a historical introduction that clearly explains what is known and not known about the poem, Field provides extensive notes to help the English-speaking reader understand the basic Chinese myths alluded to in the questions.

Sources show Qu Yuan (?340-278 BCE) was the first person in China to become famous for his poetry, so famous in fact that the Chinese celebrate his life with a national holiday called Poet's Day, or the Dragon Boat Festival. His work, which forms the core of the The Songs of Chu, the second oldest anthology of Chinese poetry, derives its imagery from shamanistic ritual. Its shaman hymns are among the most beautiful and mysterious liturgical works in the world. The religious milieu responsible for their imagery supplies the backdrop for his most famous work, Li sao, which translates shamanic longing for a spirit lover into the yearning for an ideal king that is central to the ancient philosophies of China. Qu Yuan was as important to the development of Chinese literature as Homer was to the development of Western literature. This translation attempts to replicate what the work might have meant to those for whom it was originally intended, rather than settle for what it was made to mean by those who inherited it. It accounts for the new view of the state of Chu that recent discoveries have inspired.

Sources show Qu Yuan (?340-278 BCE) was the first person in China to become famous for his poetry, so famous in fact that the Chinese celebrate his life with a national holiday called Poet's Day, or the Dragon Boat Festival. His work, which forms the core of the The Songs of Chu, the second oldest anthology of Chinese poetry, derives its imagery from shamanistic ritual. Its shaman hymns are among the most beautiful and mysterious liturgical works in the world. The religious milieu responsible for their imagery supplies the backdrop for his most famous work, Li sao, which translates shamanic longing for a spirit lover into the yearning for an ideal king that is central to the ancient philosophies of China. Qu Yuan was as important to the development of Chinese literature as Homer was to the development of Western literature. This translation attempts to replicate what the work might have meant to those for whom it was originally intended, rather than settle for what it was made to mean by those who inherited it. It accounts for the new view of the state of Chu that recent discoveries have inspired.

Relatively unknown in the West, Tian Wen: A Chinese Book of Origins is a fascinating, though often baffling, archaic collection of 186 “questions” about the origins of life and the meanings of a wide variety of happenings startling and mundane, earthly and celestial. Because the poem has no single narrative thread, the most informed speculation posits group authorship by a number of roving Taoist scholars, each contributing riddles about the history and legends of his own province as well as ironically posed inquiries into the nature of the universe. The enigmatic and sometimes Sphinxlike conundrums may have been originally intended for debate––to give the popular and prominent dialecticians of over 2,300 years ago a tool for honing their convoluted responses. But however the poem took on its present shape and content, it remains the single most comprehensive catalogue of ancient Chinese mythology and pre-Imperial legend in existence. This translation by Stephen Field of The College of William and Mary combines sound scholarship with an artful grace to produce the 186 questions in couplets that both tease and enchant. In addition to a historical introduction that clearly explains what is known and not known about the poem, Field provides extensive notes to help the English-speaking reader understand the basic Chinese myths alluded to in the questions.

Sources show Qu Yuan (?340-278 BCE) was the first person in China to become famous for his poetry, so famous in fact that the Chinese celebrate his life with a national holiday called Poet's Day, or the Dragon Boat Festival. His work, which forms the core of the The Songs of Chu, the second oldest anthology of Chinese poetry, derives its imagery from shamanistic ritual. Its shaman hymns are among the most beautiful and mysterious liturgical works in the world. The religious milieu responsible for their imagery supplies the backdrop for his most famous work, Li sao, which translates shamanic longing for a spirit lover into the yearning for an ideal king that is central to the ancient philosophies of China. Qu Yuan was as important to the development of Chinese literature as Homer was to the development of Western literature. This translation attempts to replicate what the work might have meant to those for whom it was originally intended, rather than settle for what it was made to mean by those who inherited it. It accounts for the new view of the state of Chu that recent discoveries have inspired.