Sung Yü

Born 290(?) B.C.; died 222(?) B.C. Chinese poet.

Sung Yü’s world view was similar to that of Taoism. Sources mention 16 fu (odes) written by him. His career was closely associated with the life of the court. The works of Sung Yil appeared immediately after those of Ch’ü Yuan. Sung Yü’s poetry, like that of Ch’ü Yuan, is didactic, but it is somewhat less complex. Many aesthetic elements in the fu of Sung Yii were borrowed from the preceding literary tradition, particularly from philosophical prose and from ch’u stanzas. Sung Yü laid the foundation for the genre of the ode.