The Book of Songs is the first collection of poems in the history of China literature. It consists of 305 poems, each of which has a preface to introduce its content and significance. The first book Guanju has a general preface besides a small preface, which is the first poetic monograph in ancient China.
Extended data
Zheng Xuan, a Confucian scholar in the Eastern Han Dynasty, wrote an annotation for Mao Zhuan, and Confucius wrote an annotation for Mao Shi Zheng Yi in the Tang Dynasty.
There are four schools of Chinese poetry and Mao's poetry, which are called the four schools of poetry. The last three schools are Lu (biography of Shen Peigong), Qi (biography of Yuan Gusheng) and Han Shi (biography of Han Ying). These three schools, also known as the three schools of poetry, all adopted Jinwen, and the study of Jinwen Confucian Classics was established in the Western Han Dynasty. The study of this school is called Jinwen Confucian Classics.
However, after Mao's poems came into being, they gradually replaced the status of the three schools, and the three schools were gradually lost. Because Shi Mao used classical Chinese, the study of this subject is called the study of classical Chinese classics. In the Tang Dynasty, Mao Zhuan and Jian Zheng became the officially recognized annotation basis of The Book of Songs, which was highly praised by later generations.
References:
Baidu Encyclopedia-Shi Mao