What is China's first book of poetry?

The Book of Songs is China's first collection of poems. It collected 305 poems from the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period. The Book of Songs was written in the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period. It was originally called poetry. Confucius mentioned this name many times, or called the number of poems "three hundred poems". It was originally just a collection of poems.

Since the Han Dynasty, Confucian scholars have regarded the Book of Songs as a classic and included it as the Five Classics. Its original literariness has become a textbook closely related to politics and morality, which is the so-called "poetry teaching".

The Book of Songs as a whole is an image reflection of China's social life during the 500-year rise and fall of the Zhou Dynasty, including the ancestor's entrepreneurial ode and the movement of offering sacrifices to ghosts and gods; There are also banquet exchanges between nobles and resentment against uneven work and rest; There are also touching chapters reflecting labor, hunting and a lot of love, marriage and social customs.

Extended data

The 305 poems in The Book of Songs are divided into three parts: style, elegance and ode.

"Wind" is the local wind, wind ballads, that is, folk songs around the country. The Wind contains 15 local folk songs, namely the Wind of Fifteen Countries, with a total of 160 pieces.

"Ya" is a formal and elegant music and an orthodox court music song. "Elegance" is divided into "Elegance" (used for grand banquets) and "Elegance" (used for general banquets), with article 105.