The 305 poems in The Book of Songs can be divided into reaction to class oppression, marriage and love, corvee, production and life, political satire and so on.
Among them are July, Cut Tan and Storytelling, which reflect class oppression. Take July as an example:
This poem describes the working scene of laborers for one year, and compares laborers with the rich, reflecting the strict hierarchy of Zhou and the oppression of the slave owners and nobles on laborers.
Marriage and love have many expressions, such as Guan Ju and Yao Tao, which we are most familiar with.
The content of Guanju is very simple. It's about a gentleman's pursuit of a lady. If he doesn't get a lady, he will be upset and can't sleep over and over. I was very happy when I got a "lady". I invited people to play music to celebrate and make the "lady" happy. This is undoubtedly a love poem, but it turns out to be a wedding song, which is the praise of the man's family for the bride and the happiness of marriage. The whole poem is formed for harmony. Many ballads in The Book of Songs, National Style, have not only general lyrical significance and entertainment functions, but also practical etiquette.
And "Yao Tao":
This poem shows that a girl should not only have a peach-blossom appearance, but also have the inner beauty of "comfortable room" and "IKEA". This poem congratulates people on their marriage, but unlike other poems that congratulate people on their marriage, it either boasts how prominent the man's family background is or shows how rich the woman's dowry is. But repeatedly said "suitable for his home" and wanted to make the home beautiful. From these two poems, we can see that most of Zhou's love poems are simple, strong and simple.
There are also performances in the corvee, such as "a gentleman in service".
This is a poem about a wife who misses her husband who served abroad. The so-called "serving a gentleman" does not know its exact meaning. In most cases, it should mean going to the border to defend. This poem expresses the heroine's extreme thoughts and worries about her long-distance husband in simple language. It also reflects the heavy burden of the corvee who doesn't know what day it is.
The poems that show political satire include Min Lao, Half Companion, Dang, Sang Rou, Zhan Ang, Xiaoya's South Mountain, the First Month, the Turn of October, The Rain is Wrong, Xiao Min, Clever Words and Xiang Bo.
In addition, in order to keep up with the rhythm of music, almost all poems in The Book of Songs adopt the method of repeating chapters and sentences, so every song in The Book of Songs can be sung, just like Guanju is a wedding song. Moreover, it is said that there was an official who collected poems in the Zhou Dynasty. Every spring, he shakes Muduo and goes deep into the folk to collect folk songs. After sorting out the works that can reflect the people's joys and sorrows, he gave them to the Taishi to compose music and sing them to the Emperor of Zhou as a reference for administration.
Therefore, The Book of Songs reflects the cultural customs of the Zhou Dynasty and records the life of the people of the Zhou Dynasty. It is the first collection of poems in the history of China, which is of great significance and status in the history of literature, and is also of great significance for us to understand the history from the early Zhou Dynasty to the late Zhou Dynasty.