Abstract:

WANG Yi’s Annotation on The Songs of Chu not only laid a foundation for the study of The Songs of Chu, but was also significant in the history of literary criticism in the Han Dynasty. During Emperor An’s reign that lasted for around two decades, the political situation was messy and sycophantic. In the court, however, many ministers were brave enough to admonish the emperor severely. The imperial court encouraged political criticism. In such an atmosphere, as a collating officer, WANG Yi developed his thought while collating classic books. Different from the moderation of YANG Xiong and BAN Gu, WANG highly praised QU Yuan’s spirit of satire. The royal family in Nanyang emphasized the responsibility of protecting the country of the Han Dynasty by developing the idea that “the sons of Duke had no righteousness to leave the country” from Chuqiu Fanlu while compiling ritual propriety of the Han Dynasty. This affected WANG to elaborate for the first time on QU Yuan’s idea that people with the same surname of Chu would be not righteous to leave the country.

Key words: Emperor An in the Han Dynasty, satire, WANG Yi, The Annotation on The Songs of Chu, ritual propriety of the Han Dynasty