This concept refers to literary geniuses creating timeless works of greatness and originality through meticulous honing of form and content. This phrase was used by Southern Dynasties literary critic Liu Xie (465?-520? or 532?) in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons to give his heartfelt high praise of the works of Chuci (or odes of Chu) style created by Qu Yuan (340?-278? BC). Liu Xie emphasized the importance of following the classics, but at the same time, he also advocated for variations, pointing out that literary works needed constant innovation in both content and form. Works of Chuci style, represented by “Lisao,”were such masterpieces of literature that brought about completely new changes while following the tradition of The Book of Songs. Intense emotional catharsis and individual expressions break the gentle and refined traditional poetic style, which lead to unprecedentedly unusual themes and wild, totally uninhibited imaginations. They also developed free and varied sentence patterns, often using the auxiliary word xi (兮) at the end to highlight deep worries and lamentations from the heart, thus enforcing rhythm, breath and the lyrical functions of such modal particles. Qu Yuan, a literary genius, not only originated this new form and pattern of artistic rendition, but also inspired later writers to fully understand the significance of implementing changes and to be more creative in writing.

Looking at the subject matter which forms the bone structure and the choice of language that constitutes the flesh of Chuci, while these works incorporated the essence of The Book of Songs in style and technique, they also created masterpieces of greatness and originality that became models for later generations to follow. (Liu Xie: The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons)

To desist from treading in the footsteps of previous authors is what can be called creating masterpieces of greatness and originality. (Ren Guang: Guide to Words and Allusions in the Classics)

We know for certain that the key to writing is, on the grand scale, to gather and adopt strong points of all great writers of the past and create masterpieces of greatness and originality; while on the lesser scale, it is to study closely the works of past sages to establish outstanding themes of significance. (Li Xiang: On Prose Writing of Tongcheng School)