It means that Confucius deleted the poem. According to the historical records. Confucius family. Historical records of Confucius' family. It is said that there are more than 3,000 ancient poems, and 300 poems that can be applied to etiquette and righteousness have been removed, all of which were sung by Confucius in order to combine martial arts with elegant sounds. Later generations took Sima Qian closer to ancient times, so what he said must be well-founded, so we should believe it more.
However, there are also skeptics. For example, Tang Kong said in "Poems": "History books say that before Confucius, there were many poems, and the poems cited in the case books were seen by many people, but there were few dead people, so Confucius couldn't afford nine places, and Ma Tan had more than 3,000 ancient poems, which is not credible."
1, Delete Poetry refers to the Spring and Autumn Period. There are many poems, and according to Sima Qian, there are more than 3,000. Later, Confucius took one of the ten poems and compiled it into a collection, leaving 305 poems.
2. The problem of "deleting poems" is a major case in the history of The Book of Songs. There was no debate before the Tang Dynasty, but it lasted for more than 1000 years from the Tang Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty. It was not until modern times that people basically agreed that Confucius' "deleting poems" could not be established.
3. The theory of deleting poems originated from Sima Qian and was supported by Ban Gu and Zheng Xuan. It was not until Confucius in the Tang Dynasty compiled Justice of Mao Poetry, that is, Zheng Xuan's poems, that he began to put forward different views. But Confucius only said that Confucius wouldn't delete so many poems, but he didn't publicly deny Confucius's "deleting poems".
4. Later, the famous figures who supported the theory of deleting poems were Ouyang Xiu, Cheng Hao, Wang Yinglin, Ma Duanlin, Gu, Zhao Tan, Wang Hao and others. The main arguments against deleting poems are Zhu, Ye Shi, Zhu Yizun, Wang Shizhen, Zhao Yi, Wei Yuanfang Yurun and so on. The main opponents in modern times are Liang Qichao, Hu Shi, Gu Jiegang and Qian. Contemporary scholars of The Book of Songs basically disagree with Confucius' view of "deleting poems".
5. The reasons for supporting Confucius' view of "deleting poems" are nothing more than: out of trust and respect for historical records; From the basic situation, it is impossible to have only 300 poems in 500 years; Because of what Confucius said about his handling of "poetry" in The Analects. Going back to the last question, since there is a large-scale "poetry-picking" behavior, there must be a lot of poems collected.