communist individualism - the case of qu yuan

It has been a while. Many roads leading to various destinations other than my blog have kept me from being active around here for some time, but now I am back, so HURRAY... - but I doubt that anyone is actually reading this, so let's just get on with it.

In the course of the past months of reading, I was confronted repeatedly with the importance of individuals in Chinese literary historiography. Take, for example, the famed proto-master of Chinese lore Qu Yuan 屈原 and his treatment in post-1949 literary histories- why is it that the Chinese Communist literary critics were so incredibly into proving the man's individual existence? I mean: even if in a period of transition and cultural redefinition it becomes of vital importance to establish some kind of factual basis for one's own literary tradition, why is it that they needed the INDIVIDUAL Qu Yuan to exist?

A short referential note: Hu Shi 胡适, in his usual bourgeois revolutionary manner, had attempted to question the existence of the poet laureate in his treatment of the Chinese literary tradition (Baihua wenxue shi 白话文学史, 1928. Beijing: Dongfang chubanshe). The reaction during the Anti- Hu Shi-campaign 1954/55 was indignant defense of Qu Yuan's personal space, mind and body. How dare Hu Shi call into question such an important representative of the Chinese literary heritage? How dare he suggest - like those imbeciles in Europe doubting the existence of William Shakespeare - that Qu Yuan's work was the collective effort of many a distant talent?!

To the day I have not really been able to grasp why it should be so important for Communist literary historiography to point out and to an impressive extent rely on the existence of prominent individuals of past times in order to legitimize their cultural narrative - if the work has been deemed worthy, why should it matter so much how many people contributed to its existence? Perhaps it has to do with the symbolic value of the master-disciple relation inherent in Qu Yuan and later poets indebted to his work. Perhaps it is related to the question of the power of leaders in cultural development and revolution. I don't know - but if anyone has an idea, I would be intrigued to hear it.