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The author of The Book of Songs is anonymous. The book is divided into three parts: abundance, elegance and praise. It collected poems from the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty to the mid-Spring and Autumn Period, reflecting the social outlook of about 500 years from the early Zhou Dynasty to the weekend. The Book of Songs was written in the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period, and the earliest record was in the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, originally called The Book of Songs.
* * * There are 305 poems (there are six poems with topics and no content, which are called sheng poems), so it is also called "300 poems". Confucianism has regarded it as a classic since the Han Dynasty, so it is called The Book of Songs. Mao Heng in Han Dynasty annotated The Book of Songs, so it was also called Mao Shi. Most of the authors of the poems in The Book of Songs cannot be verified.
Most of the poems recorded in The Book of Songs come from the people. It is said that in order to observe the folk customs and political gains and losses, the Zhou Dynasty set up a special poetry collector to collect folk songs. Most of the poems in The Book of Songs come from this place. The other part is a poem dedicated by officials and scholars to Zhou Tianzi, praising virtue and whitewashing peace.
Among them, some poems have been verified by the author, while others are speculative and well-founded. The poems recorded in The Book of Songs span a long time, from the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period, covering a wide area, from the north of the Yellow River to Jianghan Basin. In the Han Dynasty, when there were three schools, namely Lu, Qi and Han, he stood as a scholar, followed by Shi Mao.
After the popularity, three poets, Qi, Lu and Han, passed away one after another. Many people have interpreted the Book of Songs in the past dynasties, such as Zhuxi's Biography of Poetry in the Song Dynasty, Wang Fuzhi's The Book of Songs in the Qing Dynasty, Ma's Notes on Mao's Poems and Wang Xianxuan's Poems.
The Book of Songs consists of 305 articles, which are divided into three parts: style, elegance and ode.
Wind has fifteen national styles and is a folk song of all countries in the world. This part of literature has the highest achievements, including praising beautiful things such as love and labor, complaining and angry about homesickness, thinking about people and opposing oppression and bullying. Elegance and vulgarity are divided into elegance and vulgarity and Xiaoya, and most of them are poems that offer sacrifices to noble people, pray for a good harvest and praise their ancestors. Xiaoya also has some folk songs.
Ode is a poem dedicated to the ancestral temple. The poems in Ya and Ode are of great value to our study of early history, religion and society. Confucius once summarized the purpose of the Book of Songs as "innocence" and educated his disciples and children to read the Book of Songs as their standard of speech and action.
Among the pre-Qin philosophers, many people quoted The Book of Songs, such as Mencius, Xunzi, Mozi, Zhuangzi and Han Feizi. Quote the sentences in the Book of Songs to enhance your persuasiveness. Later, The Book of Songs was regarded as a classic by Confucianism and became one of the Six Classics (including Poetry, Calligraphy, Rites, Yue, Yi, Spring and Autumn) and Five Classics (without Yue).