The Book of Songs is poetry.
The Book of Songs is my country's first collection of poems, with a total of 305 poems (another 6 with titles and no poems). The age of its works covers from the early Western Zhou Dynasty to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period, spanning time. About six hundred years ago, it is an important material and corpus that reflects the political, cultural, customs and language development of that time.
There are generally three theories for the formation of "The Book of Songs": "Wang Guan collected poems", "Confucius deleted poems" and "The theory of presenting poems", among which the "Confucius deleted poems theory" is the most popular. This statement was first seen in "Historical Records". It is said that there were 3,000 original ancient poems. Confucius compiled and selected them according to the standards of etiquette and justice, and compiled a total of 305 "Poems". Zhu Xi of the Song Dynasty also basically affirmed this statement. Extended information
The "Book of Songs" as a whole is an image reflection of China's social life during the five hundred years of the Zhou Dynasty's rise and decline. It includes hymns about ancestors' entrepreneurship and music for worshiping gods and ghosts; There are banquets and interactions between nobles, and the resentment of uneven work and rest; there are also touching chapters reflecting labor, hunting, and a large number of love affairs, marriages, and social customs.
The "Book of Songs" has 305 existing chapters (in addition to 6 chapters with no poems and 311 chapters), it is divided into three parts: "Wind", "Ya" and "Song".
"Wind" comes from folk songs from various places and is the essence of the "Book of Songs". It contains songs about love, labor and other beautiful things, as well as laments about nostalgia for the homeland, longing for people, and resistance to oppression and bullying. Anger and anger are often chanted repeatedly using the technique of duplication. Each chapter in a poem often differs only by a few words, which reflects the characteristics of folk songs.
"Ya" is divided into "Daya" and "Xiaoya". They are mostly sacrificial poems by nobles, praying for good harvests and praising ancestors' virtues. The author of "Daya" was an aristocratic scholar, but he was dissatisfied with the real politics. In addition to banquet songs, sacrificial songs and epic poems, he also wrote some satirical poems that reflected the people's wishes. There are also some folk songs in "Xiaoya".
"Ode" is a poem for worship in the ancestral temple. The poems in "Ya" and "Song" are of great value for examining early history, religion and society.
Among the above three parts, there are 40 poems in "Song" and 105 poems in "Ya" (there are 6 poems in "Xiaoya" with no poems, not included), and "Wind" has the largest number. , ***160 articles, a total of 305 articles. The ancients took the integer and often said "three hundred poems".
The Book of Songs actually comprehensively reflects the history of the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Period. It records the historical development and reality from the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Spring and Autumn Period in an all-round, multi-faceted and multi-angle manner. It covers a wide range of areas, including almost It covers all aspects of society - politics, economy, military, folklore, culture, literature, art, etc. When historians of later generations described this historical stage, they largely relied on the records of the Book of Songs.
Baidu Encyclopedia-Book of Songs