On Asking Heaven's Myths And Legends

Asking Heaven, known as "the most splendid essay", is a long poem composed of myths and legends. These myths and legends were not only based on that typical social background but also the accumulation of QuYuan's thoughts. Detailed materials compared and summed up, this paper expresses some personal opinions about the myths and legends in Asking Heaven: Firstly, by definiting "myth" and "legend", this paper analyzes, verifies and classifies myths and legends in Asking Heaven vertically in order to establish the important role that Asking Heaven plays in the myth history. Secondly, following what had been done above, it discusses ancient society, QuYuan's thoughts and the phenomena of mythology historicizing and history mythologizing, in another word, it probes myths and legends in Asking Heaven deeply horizontally.