The Book of Songs is a group of poems mainly produced in the Yellow River valley from the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty (1 1 century BC) to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period (6th century BC), which may need to be collected and protected for political or practical purposes. At that time, it was called "Poetry" or "Poetry 300", and it was not until the Han Dynasty that it was promoted to one of the five classics and called "The Book of Songs".
The emergence of The Book of Songs is a mystery, because there is no clear record in history, but there is a saying in Guoyu Zhou Yu in the pre-Qin period that officials and scholars dedicate poems. "Book of Rites. Five systems "was written out again, ordering Chen Shi to abide by the folk customs. Although the collection of poems is not credible, it is possible to present poems and Chen poems. If officials and scholars at that time not only wrote their own poems, but also paid attention to recording and disseminating poems from all sides, then the formation of the Book of Songs can be known.
Speaking of the content of the Book of Songs, there is a traditional "six meanings" theory, which means: wind, elegance, praise, fu, comparison and glory. Kong Ying Da's "Justice of the Five Classics" explains: "Style, elegance and praise are variations of poetry; Fu, ratio and sheng are different words of poetry. " The so-called variation refers to different poetic styles; Different words mean different expressions. There are also many sayings about the meaning of wind, elegance and praise in past dynasties. Usually, according to Zhu's explanation in Song Dynasty, "Wind is a poem of folk songs; Elegance is also true, and so is the song of music; Singer, the music of the ancestral hall. "
The Book of Songs is characterized by four sentences, rhythm and rhyme. The four-sentence structure not only has neat formal beauty, but also facilitates the use of disyllabic phrases. It established the basic rhythm form of China ancient poetry with two syllables as a ton, and also created the rhyming system and mode of poetry.
In the 4th century BC, in the southern State of Chu, another new form of poetry appeared: Chu Ci. Chuci was originally the general name of ancient Chu people's poems, and Chuci has two meanings: broad sense and narrow sense. In a broad sense, Chu Ci refers to the poems of Chu people at that time and the ancient works that later generations learned about the characteristics of Qu Yuan's poems. In a narrow sense, Chu Ci refers to Qu Yuan's poems.
Qu Yuan (about 340-278 BC) was originally a nobleman with the same surname as the King of Chu. Because his ancestors sealed it, he took Qu as his surname. When he was young, Qu Yuan had a good cultural accomplishment and lofty political aspirations, which was highly valued by Chu Huaiwang. However, due to the ignorance of the king of Chu and a small group of people, Qu Yuan was exiled twice. Finally, when he heard that the capital of Chu had been conquered by Qin, he threw himself into the river.
Most of the poems in Songs of the South were written by poets during their exile. The lush vegetation and beautiful mountains and rivers in Chu gave the poet inspiration and artistic talent. Lu You wrote in "Thoughts on Reading Old Manuscripts":
If you spend a lot of money, you can get help from Jiangshan. Can there be poetry if you can't get to Xiaoxiang?
Li Sao is a masterpiece of Qu Yuan and China's literary history! The whole poem has 373 sentences and 2490 words, which is a rare long poem in Chinese poetry. There are also masterpieces such as Tian Wen, Nine Songs and Nine Chapters, which cover mountains and rivers, fairy tales, historical legends, fate and personnel, real life, etc., as well as music songs that praise the soldiers who died in Chu. It truly expresses the poet's thoughts, feelings and spiritual course in various periods.
The characteristics of "Songs of the South" are very distinct. The first is the unrestrained romantic spirit. With his rich and profound knowledge, wonderful and open imagination, magnificent and fiery passion and gorgeous rhetoric, Qu Yuan galloped in the vast space between the human world and the divine world, expelling vegetation, controlling the wind and cloud, denouncing evil, worrying about the country and the people, and having strong patriotic enthusiasm and lyrical meaning. Secondly, the poetic expression of "vanilla beauty" was created.
The so-called "vanilla beauty" is not only a symbol of a virtuous minister and a king, but also a symbol of "political ideal" and "noble personality". In a broad sense, the technique of "vanilla beauty" also belongs to the technique of "bi xing", and later "vanilla beauty" became a special poetic term.
Chu Ci is different from the four-sentence style in The Book of Songs, with five words, six words and seven words as the main sentences, and a few sentences reach nine words, which is a miscellaneous poem. The usage of function words in poetry is quite different from that in The Book of Songs. In addition to the prominent use of exclamation marks, there are a large number of commonly used structural auxiliary words and conjunctions in prose, such as "Zhi", "Hu", "Zhe" and "Ye". The rhythm of poetry is more changeable, and its prosaic tendency directly breeds the emergence of Han Fu.
These are the two main sources of China's poems: poems from the south to the north.