Was Suicide the Only Ending?: Plural “Qu Yuan” Figures and Sima Qian’s Choice

Abstract This article reexamines the construction of Qu Yuan 屈原 personae in his Shi ji 史記 biography, the foundational yet problematic source for our understanding of both the figure and related poems. While scholars have long noted the biography’s inconsistencies, they have either dismissed the text as unreliable or attributed its flaws to authorial oversight or later interpolations, overlooking the formative role of Sima Qian’s 司馬遷 narrative. This study argues that these “defects” reflect the heterogeneity of Sima’s sources, particularly the first-person, self-expressive poems in the Chu ci 楚辭. By discarding the uncritical assumption that these poems were authored by a single historical Qu Yuan, we uncover a range of distinct personae, each responding differently to a shared plight. Sima selectively drew upon this diverse tradition to construct a relatively coherent figure of Qu Yuan, centered on suicide. This interpretive act produced a narrowly defined yet enduring image of Qu Yuan that has profoundly shaped subsequent readings of the Chu ci .