The Shijing (The Book of Poetry) is the fountainhead of Chinese poetry. The three
hundred–odd poems that make up this anthology are the earliest extant Chinese
verse. The edition used today was compiled by a certain Master Mao during the
Han dynasty; thus it has become a convention to refer to the poems by their titles
and their Mao numbers (1–305). The poems are divided into three sections (some-
times considered three subgenres), given here in their presumed chronological
order: song (hymns, laudes [Mao nos. 266–305]), ya (elegantiae or odes, subdivided
into greater and lesser ya [Mao nos. 235–265, 161–234]), and feng (airs [Mao nos.
1–160]). There are three subsections of hymns: those of the state of Lu (from the
late Spring and Autumn era), those of the Zhou court (the earliest poems dating
from the early Western Zhou), and the pieces imitating those of the preceding
Shang dynasty (written in the late Western Zhou period). The greater elegantiae
are concerned with the Zhou kingdom and its conquest of the Shang, and the
lesser elegantiae are often connected to the various regional courts of the states
under Zhou control. The airs, sometimes referred to as the “airs of the states”
(guo feng), are broken into fifteen sections, thirteen ascribed to northern states or
places and two purported to be collections of songs (referred to as nan [southern
songs]) of the southern regions under Zhou rule. These poems treat a broad range
of subjects and themes, from dynastic songs of cultural heroes to paeans of battles
or warriors, court rituals or sacrifice, hunts and feasts. More than half the poems,
most found in the “airs of the states” section, are love poems, long considered by
most readers to be the most interesting texts. They are thus the primary focus of
this chapter. Regardless of a poem’s subject, however, three basic modes of presen-
tation have been identified by scholars: fu (exposition), bi (comparison), and xing
(affective image). Although we have little evidence concerning the conditions of
composition, it seems clear from the poems themselves that the hymns and ele-
gantiae were probably composed at court, while the airs were originally folk songs
that were standardized (in terms of prosody as well as content) for presentation at
court.
These folk songs were composed in a social setting that predated Confucian
mores. Thus liaisons between unmarried young men and women were not only al-
lowed but encouraged (as the Zhou li [Zhou Ritual] tells us). This, in turn, resulted
in many love affairs that ended in disappointment and despair, especially for the
young women involved. Many of the airs are plaints apparently sung by these aban-
doned lovers.
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Tetrasyllabic Shi Poetry
The Book of Poetry (Shijing)