It was compiled into a book in the middle of the 6th century BC, and its author can't be verified. The poems in The Book of Songs are originally lyric poems with music, and retain the form of three combinations of ancient poetry, music and dance. Later, due to social changes, music scores and dances were lost, leaving only lyrics, which became the poetry collections we see now.
The Historical Position of The Book of Songs
The sentence patterns in The Book of Songs are mainly four-character poems with miscellaneous words, which are flexible and changeable. The basic style is characterized by simplicity and naturalness, being good at expressing thoughts and feelings in texts, rich vocabulary, harmonious rhythm, and extensive use of rhetorical devices such as reduplication, polyphony and rhyme, which enhances the effect of musical beauty and rhetorical beauty. The rhetorical sentence-making methods and language skills in The Book of Songs have a great influence on later poets.
The Book of Songs has been widely circulated in the Spring and Autumn Period, and Confucius used it as a textbook. After being burned by the Qin Dynasty, it was re-circulated in the Han Dynasty. There are mainly Qi, Lu, Han and Mao. After that, Qi, Lu and Han gradually declined, and only Mao's poems have survived to this day. The Book of Songs, with its rich content, high ideological and artistic achievements and the spirit of reflecting and describing the reality extensively and profoundly, created the excellent tradition of China's poetry and had a far-reaching impact on the development of later literature.