The History of the Book of Songs - (Color Illustration Classic Collection)

Author: Qian Faping
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-03-01
Features: The Book of Songs expresses the spiritual essence of the Han Chinese during the era of the Book of Songs. The gentleness, simplicity, and purity of the Book of Songs are the inner remnants of that time. Yet such an inner spirit is so universal and easily relatable, it beats with the landscapes, customs, labor, and rituals of the era. As long as we delve into it, we can immediately read the Book of Songs with deep emotion. The Book of Songs is an ancient collection of Chinese poetry, regarded as the cornerstone of Chinese poetry. It consists of three parts: "Feng," "Ya," and "Song." "Feng" refers to tunes from folk music, totaling 160 poems; "Ya" are musical pieces conforming to court rituals, totaling 105 poems; and "Song" are hymns used in court and temple sacrifices, divided into "Zhou Song," "Lu Song," and "Shang Song," totaling 40 poems. In terms of editorial format, this book breaks the traditional model of selected editions of the Book of Songs and adopts the "Left History, Right Poetry" format, where the left page introduces the historical background of the Book of Songs, and the right page provides annotations and analyses of the works. This innovative format offers readers two lines of reading: one introduces the life conditions of emperors, feudal lords, high officials, scholars, and commoners from the early Western Zhou to the mid-Eastern Zhou (approximately 600 years), as well as the rituals and customs of the time; the other line focuses on the annotations and analyses of the Book of Songs. This is also the unique feature that distinguishes this book from other contemporary selected editions of the Book of Songs. For many years, Chinese undergraduates in universities generally read about 10 poems from the Book of Songs, while graduate students majoring in classical literature read about 70–80 poems. This book selects works based on this standard and makes appropriate extensions, with the included poems sufficient for a broad readership. The book provides detailed introductions to jade, plants, birds, and primitive idioms in the Book of Songs, and the appendix explains the system and related terms of the Book of Songs. The book includes over 400 exquisite illustrations. These images not only reflect the actual living quarters, clothing, life decorations, and sacrificial utensils of the royal nobles and commoners of that time but also the artistic interpretations of the Book of Songs' poetry by masters since the Han and Tang dynasties.