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Shijing 詩經 "The Book of Songs or Poetry" or Mao Shi 毛詩 "The Books of Songs, Tradition of Mao" | Literature by A to Z Literature by time Literature by theme | ||
The Book of Songs or Poetry contains some of the oldest pieces of Chinese literature. It is said to have been compiled by Confucius himself, who has chosen out some 300 poems out of 3000. During the Former Han Dynasty, there were still existant four versions of the collection: in the states of Lu 魯 (by Shen Gong 申公), Qi 齊 (by Hou Cang 后蒼 and Master Sun 孫氏) and Han 韓 (by Han Ying 韓嬰), and the private collection of Duke Mao 毛公. Only the last has survived until now, the commentaries to the Han version have survived in the collection Han Shi Waizhuan 韓詩外傳. The four divisions of the Book of Songs are the "Airs of the states" (Guofeng 國風), mostly songs of love and emotions, the Minor Odes (Xiaoya 小雅), partially with social critics, the Major Odes (Daya 大雅), concerning the praise of the Zhou Dynasty, and the Hymns (Song 頌), ritual songs of the house of Zhou 周, the dukes of Lu 魯 and the descendants of the house of Shang 商. All poems have a small preface (xiaoxu 小序), the first poem has a Great Preface (Daxu 大序). The content of these prefaces is a moral or even political interpretation of songs that surfacially seem to be simple love songs. The characteristic of these songs is that the initial verse creates a certain mood, in most cases using a picture of nature, birds or plants. Almost all scholars of Han, Tang and Song wrote commentaries to the Book of Songs, because it was an integral part of Confucian teaching and had to be learned by heart by generations and generations of scholars. The chapters of the Shijing are:
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