The Book of Songs is the first collection of poems in China, including 305 poems from the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period, which are divided into three parts: style, elegance and ode. The Book of Songs is the glorious starting point of China literature, and its appearance and ideological and artistic achievements are the symbols of the development of China literature, which occupies a very high position in the cultural history of China and even the world. Together with Songs of the South, it is called the two sources of the development of China's ancient poetry. The Book of Songs is represented by realism, while Lisao is represented by romanticism. These two works laid the basic style of China's ancient poetry, which can be used for reference by future poets in terms of content, writing techniques and forms of expression. The realistic spirit of The Book of Songs, especially the folk song "Hungry people sing about their food, and laborers sing about their affairs", has the greatest influence on later literature. It urges poets and writers to care about the fate of the country and the suffering of the people, and not to regard literature as something to linger and entertain. Folk songs of past dynasties are its direct biography, and this spirit has been deeply reflected from Han and Wei Yuefu to modern folk songs. Progressive literati in past dynasties advocated "Bi Xing" and "Elegant Style" in their creation, which is essentially the realistic spirit of The Book of Songs. Therefore, The Book of Songs really follows the mass line, adheres to the mass viewpoint and is inspired by the real life of ordinary people. It can be said to be an epic work.
Although The Book of Songs has a few epic narratives, it is mainly a lyric work. For example, Feng Weimeng is a kind of poem that is biased towards narration, and its narration also serves for lyricism, so it cannot be simply called narrative poem. The Book of Songs can be said to be mainly a collection of lyric poems, which produced so many lyric poems with such a high level more than 2,500 years ago, which is rare in the literature of all countries in the world. From the Book of Songs, it shows the national literature characteristics of China's lyric poems. Since then, China's poetry has advanced along the road of expressing feelings and aspirations opened up by The Book of Songs, and lyric poetry has become the main form of China's poetry.
The enthusiasm of paying attention to reality, strong political and moral consciousness and sincere and positive attitude towards life shown in The Book of Songs were summarized as the spirit of elegance by later generations, which directly influenced the creation of later poets.