Chuci

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Chuci ( Chinese  楚辭  /  楚辞 , Pinyin Chǔcí , W.-G. Ch'u-tz'ŭ ), meaning elegies or chants from Chu , are a collection of poems from southern China . The Chuci are considered to be the earliest complete written testimony to the shamanistic culture of Central Asia.

Origin and structure

The anthology as it exists today was compiled by a scholar named Wang Yi in the 2nd century AD. The dating and authorship are unclear, Wang Yi himself refers to Liu Xiang (77–6 BC). The origin of the Chuci is believed to have been around 300 BC. BC - 150 BC Estimated. The alleged author of the poems Li Sao and the chants is Qu Yuan , mentioned by Sima Qian in the Han period in the historical work Shiji , but nowadays the authorship of the Chuci can no longer be traced, and only the poem Li Sao can Qu Yuan can be safely attributed. The Tian Wen or questions of heaven are also assigned to Qu Yuan. According to tradition, the poet was inspired to write this 185 line long poem, which consists of 183 questions without answers, from looking at wall paintings in the ancestral temples of the Chu kings, which is why this text is sometimes called “the oldest document on Chinese art history “Is apostrophized. It is believed that the puzzles belonged to a ritual manual that already existed in Qu Yuan's time. The state of Chu was a state of ancient Chinese that had its own culture that shaped the Chuci.

The chuci are divided into different sections:

  • the poem Li Sao (for example, "Sage of Despair"), a political poem,
  • the Jiu Ge (Nine Chants), which are of shamanistic origin,
  • the Tian Wen (questions of heaven), puzzles on mythological subjects,
  • Jiu Zhang (Nine Explanations), imitations of Li Sao,
  • 13 poems describing mystical journeys and political or national tragedies in imitation of Li Sao or Jiu Ge.

content

  1. 離騷 Li Sao experience of fighting
  2. 九歌 Jiu Ge Nine Chants
  3. 天 問 Tian Wen Heavenly Questions
  4. 九章 Jiu Zhang Nine Poems
  5. 遠遊 Yuan You Long Journey
  6. 卜居 Bu Ju Oracle
  7. 漁父 Yu Fu the fisherman
  8. 九 辯 Jiu Bian Nine Changes
  9. 招魂 Zhao Hun invocations of the soul
  10. 大 招 Da Zhao The Great Admonition
  11. 惜 誓 Xi Shi complaint of broken loyalty
  12. 招 隱 Zhao Yin reminder to withdraw
  13. 七 諫 Qi Jian Seven opposing ideas
  14. 哀 時 Ai Shi [Ming] Oh that my lot would be drawn
  15. 九 懷 Jiu Huai Nine Regrets
  16. 九 歎 Jiu Tan Nine lawsuits
  17. 九 思 Jiu Si Nine Desires

Song style and Sao style

Most of the poems are written in one of two styles, the song style and the Sao style. The Sao style refers to the poem Li Sao. This poem is about the complaint of a minister who was rejected by his king. It is a catalog of the virtues in symbolic language of the subject of the poem who goes on a long journey because he is disappointed in his master. On this journey the subject searches for a goddess who will be his companion, but no matter where he goes, to the gates of heaven or to the mythical west, the lyrical subject experiences nothing but disappointment and frustration. The poem ends with despair and disappointment when the subject looks down from the heights of heaven and sees his old home.

All Chuci poems that are written in the Sao style have some features in common. They are all written in the 1st person, they all speak about the purity and integrity of the lyric subject in the face of an evil and corrupt world, all tell of a journey to escape this evil world. The lawsuit in the face of a corrupt world is highly formalized. The journey is either a real journey in a scenery of rivers and mountains, or it is a journey into an imaginary, fairy world populated by mythical creatures. In all the poems the disappointment and anger of the lyric subject are repeated over and over again. The Sao Poet is not supposed to be an ordinary neurotic, but a kind of magician who feels that he belongs in a supernatural world that is purer than the earthly world. The Sao poet's frustration is that of an immortal spirit forced to live in the human world.

The poems of the Chuci are said to be of shamanistic origin and the plaintive tone of the Sao poems probably comes from the chants of the shamans to fickle deities.

The metric of the Sao-style poem xxxuxx xi is said to have been more suitable for reciting narrative poems than for singing. The song style of the Chuci poems, on the other hand, is said to have been suitable for the sung interpretation. A verse consists of two segments separated by Xi, a particle with no meaning. The particle Xi in each verse is a characteristic of all the poems of the Chuci. You could translate it as “oh”.

While the Sao-style poems are more of a political and secular content, the song-style poems are more shamanistic. In Chu, a state in southern China, shamans seem to have played an important role.

In the nine chants of the Chuci, shamans address the deities as well as their loved ones and above all show concern and disappointment, as in Li Sao. The catalog-like expression of suffering and melancholy is striking. That the poems are of shamanistic origin is, among other things, a. can be recognized by the fact that a formula-like liturgical language is used, as can still be found in ritual books in the Han period . The poems don't tell, but count in the sense of a kind of name magic . The fact that there is a religious origin here can also be seen from the fact that there are thematic connections with the practices of later Daoism , especially Shangqing , e.g. B. ecstatic flights, mystical wanderings of the soul or cosmic fluids as food.

Tristia and Itineraria

In the Chuci, apart from the style, one can distinguish two main categories of poems, the Tristia and the Itineraria, which can also be found later in the Fu poems of the Han period .

Tristia express the worries of the lyric subject, also in the face of worldly circumstances, e.g. B. in the face of bad government.

Itineraria describe a journey of the lyrical subject, occasionally real journeys, but more often imaginary journeys that lead to supernatural realms.

Possibly the plaintive tone of the Tristia comes from the shamanistic chants of fickle and elusive deities, but overall the Tristia are worldly shaped, which z. B. is clear from the mention of historical references.

The ritual journey, which is made for the purpose of acquiring power or demonstrating power, appears in the later Chinese tradition in the most varied of references, so it is a topos of the later Fu poetry of the Han period. The journey is always magical, but it can be real or be imaginary and the traveler is a mystic , a magician or a king. The journey leads through a symmetrical cosmos in which different powers rule and which can be influenced by the appropriate and correct ritual . The symmetrical cosmos is seen as circular (see mandala ) and a complete circling leads to supernatural power, the traveler becomes a master of the universe.

It is possible, however, that the shamanistic poems also have a political background. One could also interpret these poems allegorically , in the sense that the shaman is a virtuous minister who has been cast out by his king or prince. The Confucian scholars have interpreted the poems in this way, and there are indications from later dynasties for this interpretation. In the Song era , for example, there was the so-called palace lyric , art poems that were mostly written by men and in which a concubine or palace lady lamented about her lost love, isolation, age, etc.

Along with Shi Jing , the book of songs , the Chuci are the oldest poems in China.

Translations

Modern Chinese

  • Guō Mòruò郭沫若 (translator): Qū Yuán fù jīnyì《屈原 賦 今譯》. Beijing: Rénmín chūbǎnshè 人民出版社, 1957.

German

  • Qu Yuan 屈原: Chu Ci《楚辞》 ( Library of Chinese Classics / Dà Zhōnghuá wénkù大 中华 文库). Beijing: Publishing House for Foreign Language Literature, 2015. Translation by Chén Míngxiáng 陈鸣祥 and Peter Herrmann.

English

  • David Hawkes: Ch‛u-tz‛ŭ. The Songs of the South. An Ancient Chinese Anthology . Oxford: Clarendon, 1959; New edition: The Songs of the South: An Anthology of Ancient Chinese Poems by Qu Yuan and Other Poets . Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1985; ISBN 0-14-044375-4 .
  • Chu Yuan [Qu Yuan 屈原]: Li Sao and other poems of Chu Yuan . Beijing: Foreign Languages ​​Press, 1953. Several reprints. Translation by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang .

literature

  • Rita Keindorf: The mystical journey in the Chuci. Qu Yuans (c. 340-278 BC) Yuanyou against the backdrop of contemporary philosophy and poetry. Diss. Frankfurt a. M. 1992. Shaker, Aachen 1999, ISBN 3-8265-6330-1 .
  • Wolfgang Kubin: History of Chinese Literature. Volume 1: The Chinese Poetry. KG Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-24541-6
  • Michael Schimmelpfennig: Qu Yuan's Transformation From Realized Man to True Poet . Heidelberg 2000
  • Gopal Sukhu: Attraction, Reversal and Repulsion: Prolegomena to the Li Sao . Columbia 1993
  • Arthur Waley: The Nine Songs: a Study of Shamanism in Ancient China. London 1955
  • Arthur Waley: The Nine Chants: A Study of Shamanism in Ancient China. German by Franziska Meister. von Schröder, Hamburg 1957
  • Geoffrey R. Waters (Ed.): Three elegies of Ch'u. An introduction to the traditional interpretation of the Ch'u Tz'u. The Univ. of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisc. u. a. 1985 ISBN 0-299-10030-8

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer : History of Chinese Literature. Scherz Verlag , Bern 1990, pp. 36f and 77.