“A LOST TREASURE”: ON FOLK ORIGINS OF THE VERSES OF CHU (CHUCI)

Abstract

This article is focused on analysis of the hypothesis of the local song folklore origins of the famous poetic phenomenon chuci (elegies/songs of Chu) that represents the literary heritage of the southern (Yangtze Basin) region of the Ancient China (the Zhou epoch, 11th–3rd centuries B. C.) and is associated with the emergence of the Chinese poetry. Although today the thesis about the folklore origins of chuci, or rather of the poetic pieces presented by the Chuci (Verses/Elegies of Chu, Songs of the South) collection, is generally accepted, the author argues that, first, during the 1st–7th centuries A. D. the chuci poetry was stable considered within the Chinese book knowledge to be created by exclusively the literary genius of Qu Yuan (4th–3rd centuries B. C.), the great poet of the Chu Kingdom (11th–3rd centuries B. C.). Secondly, the views on chuci as an autochthonous (“southern”) poetic tradition dating back to the local folk art emerged in the 12th–13th centuries and finally established itself in the Chinese literature studies of the first third of the 20th century, all these under the influence of the ideological processes, caused by synchronic historical and political events. Thirdly, although the existence of developed song-poetic folklore in Chu Kingdom seems quite permissible, it for some reason remained out of fixation by that day written sources, including transmitted texts and archaeological materials (epigraphic inscription and excavated manuscripts). Therefore, almost nothing is known as a matter of fact of the hypothetic Chu song folklore what makes it impossible to recognize its true influence on origins and further on evolution of the chuci tradition.