The Book of Songs is the first collection of poems in China, including 305 poems from the early Western Zhou Dynasty to the mid-Spring and Autumn Period, which was regarded as a classic by Confucianism in the Han Dynasty.
The composition of the authors of The Book of Songs is very complicated, and the region is very wide. But these poems, by their very nature, are the lyrics of songs. It can be seen from the pre-Qin works that the original function of poetry is singing, which is the product of aristocratic sacrifice and banquet. Judging from its universal four-character poem format, it is obviously compiled to adapt to percussion instruments such as chimes.
However, if we simply look at the content, this poem is obviously written for a specific purpose. National Style is a part of Xiaoya. In a sense, it is a folk song. In the scene it depicts, we can see the complexity of its environment. But the so-called folk songs here are folk songs, not folk songs in the general sense. Its creative group was literati and aristocratic intellectuals at that time, and it was difficult to see the words reflecting the sufferings of the people except July in the description. The ode poem is mainly "Zhou Song", which is a poem dedicated to the ancestral temple by the Zhou royal family. It came into being in the early Western Zhou Dynasty. In addition to simply praising their ancestors' achievements, some people prayed to God for a bumper harvest in spring and summer or thanked God in autumn and winter, which reflected the social characteristics of Zhou people's founding the country by agriculture and agricultural production in the early Western Zhou Dynasty. Fu poetry is of great significance for studying the history of the Western Zhou Dynasty and even the Shang Dynasty, but it can't be compared with Xiaoya, the national wind, in terms of literary achievements.
Most of the works in The Book of Songs are lyric poems. They don't pay attention to characterization, or even ignore the event itself. They convey the author's understanding and feelings about society, or just a kind of literary compassion. In most love poems, we don't see the long narratives in western and Indian poems at the same time. Just to sing an emotional expression of love. This has a great influence on our later literature, which will last for thousands of years.
Judging from the materials in The Book of Songs, it has obvious realism. The Book of Songs almost covered all aspects of social life at that time. Its attention to politics and society made it shed the cloak of myths and legends, which was of certain positive significance at that time, although it was largely only a small number of people's literary attention to the lower classes. However, it is undeniable that it slightly distracts people's attention from rights and struggles. We can't say that the theme of The Book of Songs is to oppose the tyranny of the ruling class, but it has given the later generations a tradition, so that our later generations' literature will not be too indulged in the narrow aesthetic scope, thus defining the development direction of poetry. However, we should also see that the excessive emphasis on social responsibility also hinders the free expression of literary emotions and inhibits the development of literary diversity.
However, the lyricism of The Book of Songs is not as passionate as that of modern western operas, but generally restrained. The lyric of The Book of Songs is mostly known for its sadness. It is not a strong outpouring of grief and anger and a strong joy, but a euphemistic ups and downs. This also makes The Book of Songs appear meticulous and meaningful in lyrical expression. We are reading the Book of Songs now, and we can't even imagine that it was originally used as a carrier of secular songs. It is a simple literary form. In addition, although the lyrics of The Book of Songs are generally peaceful, they are still sincere and moving, and there are many lively, cheerful and interesting works. Later Confucianism said that all the works in The Book of Songs were written for political and moral purposes, which could not erase the appeal of those lyrical works, especially love poems. Therefore, in the era of feudal autocracy, when the tendency of literature moralization and preaching becomes too serious, poetry
In a word, The Book of Songs is the glorious starting point of China's poetry and even the whole China literature. It showed the colorful real life of that era in many ways, reflected the joys and sorrows of people from all walks of life, and opened up a unique road for China's poetry with its sober reality.
As the inheritor of The Book of Songs, Han Yuefu inherited its excellent tradition and perfected it in many aspects.
The mainstream literature of Han Dynasty was created by literati, while the mainstream of literati's creation was Ci Fu. The similarities between Yuefu folk songs and The Book of Songs are both folk creation and non-mainstream culture. Although there are similarities with literati literature, they are more inconsistent. This non-mainstream folk creation has gradually influenced the creation of literati with its strong vitality, and finally promoted the vigorous rise of poetry, replacing the rule of Ci and Fu on the literary world.
Yuefu folk songs in Han Dynasty have a strong flavor of life, especially the first concrete and in-depth reflection of the hardships and pains of the daily life of the lower classes. In the literati literature of Han Dynasty, political comments and ci fu did not involve the life of the lower class, and Yuefu poems just made up for this vacancy. Its exposure to social reality is very direct, even naked, and the scenes described in the titles of the 15th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the Battle of the South can no longer be explained only by complaints. It is an accusation against the dark social reality. Even in the poem "Journey to the East Gate", this accusation is directly transformed into resistance, which is not found in the Book of Songs. The folk songs of Han Yuefu reflected this point concretely and profoundly for the first time, which was a great progress in China literature and provided an important and extensive theme for later poems. As many poets have inherited the tradition of folk songs in Han Yuefu, reflecting the sufferings of people's livelihood has gradually become a prominent feature of China's poems.
Secondly, the folk songs of Han Yuefu laid the foundation of China's ancient narrative poems. Since China's poetry, lyric poetry has occupied an overwhelming advantage. There are only a few immature narrative works in The Book of Songs, and the songs of Chu are mainly lyrical. When the folk songs of Han Yuefu appeared, although it was not enough to change the mainstream situation of lyric poetry, it also made narrative poetry occupy a place in literary themes. Moreover, the narrative poems in the folk songs of Han Yuefu are mostly short stories. Often choose a typical life segment to express, so that the contradiction is concentrated in one focus, which not only avoids too much explanation and elaboration, but also shows a broad social background. This is undoubtedly an epoch-making progress in the development history of classical literature. The later narrative poems can be said to be completely developed on the basis of the folk songs of Han Yuefu, and the later narrative poems generally belong to Yuefu poems in classification. This is literature on another level.
Another great progress in Yuefu poetry is the emergence of a literary theme similar to fable, such as a dead fish crossing the river and crying. It has a more vivid and flexible form of expression than the Book of Songs, so it can express feelings that were not easy to express before. This is a major feature of Yuefu poetry and has become a model of later literature. The rich associations and flexible expressions in Tang poetry cannot be said to be directly influenced by them.
Judging from the development of China literature, the rise and fall of any literary form are closely related. As the original text literature, The Book of Songs provided the foundation for the prosperity of Yuefu poetry. Even the Book of Songs itself is Yuefu poetry, but Yuefu poetry is only the inevitable progress of the Book of Songs in the progress of the times. Under their influence, China's classical literature gradually moved from naivety to maturity, from single theme to diversification. Today, we analyze the relationship between The Book of Songs and Yuefu Poetry, in order to find the essential relationship within literature, find the basis for the revival of our traditional literature and even Chinese civilization, and find a practical way out. Here, we will find that the prosperity and development of a civilization is not untraceable. Before its regular interior appears, we have reason to believe that everything we are looking forward to now is the future it will reach, and it is not far away.