诗经

"The Book of Songs" is the beginning of ancient Chinese poetry. It is the earliest collection of poems from the early Western Zhou Dynasty to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period (from the 11th century to the 6th century). There are 311 poems, of which 6 are Sheng poems, that is, only The title, without content, is called the Six Sheng Poems (Nan Gai, Bai Hua, Hua Su, You Kang, Chong Wu, You Yi), reflecting the social outlook from the beginning to the end of the Zhou Dynasty for about 500 years.

Most of the anonymous authors of "The Book of Songs" have not been able to be verified, and they are passed down as collected by Yin Jifu and compiled by Confucius. "The Book of Songs" was called "Poems" in the pre-Qin period, or "Three Hundred Poems" in whole numbers. In the Western Han Dynasty, it was revered as a Confucian classic, first called "The Book of Songs", and it is still used today. The Book of Songs is divided into three parts: "Wind", "Ya" and "Song". "Wind" is a ballad from all parts of the Zhou Dynasty; "Ya" is the Zhou people's righteous and elegant music, divided into "Xiaoya" and "Daya"; "Ode" is the ritual song of the royal court of the Zhou Dynasty and the aristocratic ancestral temple, divided into "Zhou Songs, Songs to Lu and Songs to Shang.

Confucius once summarized the tenet of "The Book of Songs" as "innocent", and taught his disciples to read "The Book of Songs" as a standard for establishing words and actions. Among the pre-Qin scholars, many people quoted the "Book of Songs". For example, Mencius, Xunzi, Mozi, Zhuangzi, Han Feizi, etc. quoted more sentences in the "Book of Songs" to enhance their persuasiveness when discussing theoretical evidence. By the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the "Book of Songs" was regarded as a classic by Confucianism and became one of the "Six Classics" and "Five Classics".

"The Book of Songs" is rich in content, reflecting labor and love, war and corvee, oppression and resistance, customs and marriage, ancestor worship and banquets, and even astronomical phenomena, landforms, animals, plants and other aspects. It is a mirror of social life in the Zhou Dynasty.