Book of Songs: The Collector's Edition

Author: Yu Guanying
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2006-10-01
Features: The original name of the Book of Songs was Poetry or Three Hundred Poems. Since the Han Dynasty, it has been revered as a Confucian classic and was renamed The Classic of Poetry, becoming one of the "Five Classics." During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the era of the eight-legged essay examination, only by excelling in several essays could one pass the imperial examinations to become a jinshi and enter officialdom. The topics for these essays were drawn from the "Four Books" and "Five Classics," making these texts essential reading for scholars. More importantly, all poetic critics' readings, appreciations, and studies of poetry, as well as the creative works of poets, have all taken this book as a standard. Today, people value the Book of Songs because it is an important classic that has influenced the development of traditional Chinese culture. In the history of Chinese poetry, it serves as the origin. The China Youth Press publishing the Book of Songs is highly meaningful, allowing young people to encounter this important cultural classic during their middle school years. The Book of Songs is an ancient Chinese collection of poems. Originally called Poetry or Three Hundred Poems, it was later renamed The Classic of Poetry after Confucian scholars of the Han Dynasty revered it as a classic, and this tradition continued. The Book of Songs was compiled during the Spring and Autumn Period, including poems created from the early Western Zhou Dynasty (11th century BC) to the mid-Spring and Autumn Period (7th century BC), approximately five hundred years in total. Most of these poems were folk songs, while some were composed by scholars and officials. The Book of Songs contains 305 poems, categorized into three parts based on music: "Feng," "Ya," and "Song." Zheng Qiao once said, "Feng refers to the music of local customs, Ya to the music of the court, and Song to the music of the ancestral temples" (Chronicles of the Tongzhi). This is also the consensus among scholars today. The "Feng" consists of the "Fifteen States' Feng," which are folk songs from fifteen states: Zhounan, Xiaonan, Bei, Xun, Wei, Wang, Zheng, Qi, Wei, Tang, Qin, Chen, Cao, and Song, totaling 160 poems. In these poems, "the hungry sing of their food, the weary sing of their labor," reflecting the lives, struggles, and emotions of the common people: some reflect the awakening and resistance of the people; some show the hardships brought by war and corvée labor; some depict social turmoil and the licentious lives of rulers; and more are songs of "men and women singing together, each expressing their feelings," revealing the rich emotional world of our ancestors. The "Ya" poems are the court songs of the Zhou royal domain, which the Zhou people called "Xia." Since "Ya" and "Xia" were often used interchangeably, it was called "Ya." The "Ya" contains 105 poems, divided into "Great Ya" and "Small Ya" due to differences in era and musical tunes. The "Great Ya" has 31 poems, while the "Small Ya" has 74 poems. Most of the "Great Ya" are from the Western Zhou Dynasty, while the "Small Ya" were mostly composed after the decline of the Zhou royal family. The content of the "Ya" poems mainly includes political satirical poems, epic poems of the Zhou clan, love poems, agricultural poems, banquet poems, poems praising virtue, poems of aristocratic grievances, and poems reflecting the suffering of the people. Compared to the "Feng," the "Ya" poems reflect a broader range of social life. The "Song" poems consist of 40 poems, including 31 "Zhou Songs," 4 "Lu Songs," and 5 "Shang Songs." These are mostly sacrificial songs and poems of praise, used by rulers in ancestral temple rituals to celebrate the achievements of their ancestors and the power of deities. Generally, the literary value of the "Song" poems is not very high, but they do hold certain historical value. The Book of Songs employs three techniques: "Fu," "Bi," and "Xing." "Fu" means "to lay out" or "to state directly," "Bi" means "to compare one thing to another," and "Xing" means "to mention something else to lead into the poem" (Zhu Xi's Commentary on the Book of Songs). Fu is direct narration; Bi is metaphor, including simile and allegory; and Xing evokes association and enhances the atmosphere. The "Feng" mostly uses Bi and Xing, while the "Great Ya" mostly uses Fu. The use of Fu, Bi, and Xing techniques gives the Book of Songs its captivating artistic charm. The Book of Songs primarily uses four-character poems with alternate rhymes, but it also includes variations such as two-character, three-character, five-character, six-character, seven-character, and eight-character lines, making it flexible and rhythmic. In terms of structure, it features repeated lines and verses, often using reduplicated words, alliterative words, and rhyming words, which enhance the imagery and musicality of the language. Some poems in the Book of Songs excel in description, painting vivid details. July depicts the life of a farmer throughout the four seasons, as if it were a series of beautiful folk life paintings. The Book of Songs is the origin of Chinese poetic history, accumulating rich cultural connotations from ancient times and holding immortal significance in poetic history. It pioneered the path of Chinese poetry in caring for the present world, focusing on the hardships of the people, and reflecting the emotions of ordinary people. Its techniques of Fu, Bi, and Xing became the fundamental principles of poetic expression in later generations. During the Han Dynasty, there were four schools of transmission for the Book of Songs: the Qi, Lu, Han, and Mao schools. Later, only the Mao Commentary gained widespread popularity. Many scholars throughout history have annotated the Book of Songs, with the most influential including Zheng Xuan's Annotations on the Mao Commentary (late Han Dynasty), Kong Yingda's Correct Interpretation of the Mao Commentary (Tang Dynasty), Zhu Xi's Commentary on the Book of Songs (Southern Song Dynasty), Ma Richen's Comprehensive Explanation of the Mao Commentary (Qing Dynasty), and Chen Huan's Annotations on the Mao Commentary (Chen's Commentary). Yu Guanying's Selected Poems from the Book of Songs selects 106 poems, each annotated and translated into modern Chinese. This anthology features a well-chosen selection, concise annotations, accurate etymologies, and translations that are both fluent and poetic.