Book of Songs

Author: Chen Xuguo
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Publish Date: 2004-05-01
Features: The earliest poetry anthology in China is the Book of Songs. The Book of Songs is the forefather of Chinese rhymed literature. The Book of Songs is an important source of ancient Chinese literature. These propositions have long become common knowledge among the Chinese people. The Book of Songs is divided into three parts: Feng, Ya, and Song. The two Nans have always been included in the Feng poems, and it is not without reason that they are kept separate from the Feng poems. My former teacher, Mr. Guo Junzhong, said: "Zhou Nan and Zhao Nan, Zhou refers to Duke Ding of Zhou, Zhao refers to Duke Mu of Jin, 'they are the descendants of Dan Shi,' 'Nan refers to the southern regions of the Yangtze and Han rivers,' 'thus they are roughly consistent with the themes sung in the two Nans,' yet they originally belong to the Feng poems." Generally, Feng poems are believed to be folk creations, the ballads of laboring people. In fact, this is not entirely true. It can even be said that out of the 300 poems in the Book of Songs, only a small portion were truly created by laboring people. For example, the Ya and Song poems outside the net poems are basically free of works by laboring people. While some Feng poems retain the features of folk songs to this day, most are not folk songs. Many of them were originally composed by the aristocracy. Some were refined by aristocratic scholars, making them seem less like the works of laboring people. However, researchers should not, therefore, deny or undervalue the worth of the "300 poems of the Book of Songs."