The Book of Songs contains 305 poems from the early Western Zhou Dynasty to the mid-Spring and Autumn Period.
Poems quoted from pre-Qin documents are generally within the scope of the existing Book of Songs, and there are few so-called poems of the Book of Changes beyond this, from which we can infer the collection period of the Book of Songs. In the Analects of Confucius, Confucius mentioned "three hundred poems" many times (such as "governing the country and politics" and "Luz").
"Historical Records Confucius Family" "350 articles, all written by Confucius, in order to combine the voices of Shao, Wu, elegance and praise."
The Book of Songs is divided into three parts: style, elegance and ode. "Wind" includes fifteen "National Wind" and one hundred and sixty poems; Elegance includes 3 articles of Elegance1and 74 articles of Xiaoya. Ode includes thirty-one Zhou Song, five Shang Odes and four Truffles.
"Wind" is music with local color relative to the "Wang Ji" directly ruled by the Zhou Dynasty. The Tenth Five-Year Plan "National Wind" is a folk song in the Tenth Five-Year Plan.
Elegance is the joy of "Ji Wang" and is called "Summer" by Zhou people in this area. "Ya" and "Xia" were commonly used in ancient times. Elegance also means "positive". At that time, Ji Wang's music was regarded as a positive tone-a model music. There are different opinions about the difference between "Elegance" and "Xiaoya", and their musical characteristics and applicable occasions are also different.
Ode is a kind of music dedicated to offering sacrifices to ancestral temples. One is as part of various ceremonies, the other is entertainment, and the third is to express opinions on social and political issues.
The composition of the authors of The Book of Songs is very complicated, and their geographical sources are also very extensive. In addition to the music songs produced by music officials in the Zhou Dynasty and presented by officials and scholars, there are many folk songs that were originally circulated among the people.
There are different opinions about how these folk songs came to the court. Some scholars in the Han Dynasty believed that the Zhou Dynasty sent special poets to collect folk songs and understand the advantages and disadvantages of politics and customs. There is another saying: these folk songs are collected by musicians all over the world.