Classic of Poetry
Also known as: Shijing, Book of Odes, Book of Songs, Shi King, Odes
The Classic of Poetry is a Zhou-era anthology of 305 songs—folk airs, court hymns, and great odes—preserving ritual praise, historical memory, and everyday emotion central to early Chinese thought.
Description
The Classic of Poetry (Shijing) gathers 305 compositions arranged as Airs of the States, Lesser Court Hymns, Greater Court Hymns, and Hymns. Its songs span love lyrics, labor and seasonal pieces, and high ritual odes celebrating Zhou ancestors and kings. Frequently invoking Heaven (Tian) and Supreme Deity (Shangdi), the hymns encode an ideology of moral rulership, agricultural order, and ancestral sacrifice. Historicizing odes commemorate the rise of the Zhou house and key figures such as King Wen, King Wu, and the Duke of Zhou, while mythic-historical hymns recall the miraculous birth of the culture hero Hou Ji, patron of grain. Canonized within the Confucian corpus, the collection became foundational for ethics, state ritual, and literary education across imperial China.
Historiography
Early Shi traditions circulated with music and multiple school recensions (Lu, Qi, Han). The received text follows the Mao recension, traditionally linked to Mao Heng and Mao Chang and systematized with Zheng Xuan’s Eastern Han commentary and Kong Yingda’s Tang sub-commentary. Musical settings were lost, but textual exegesis shaped classical readings. The anthology’s 305-poem count became orthodox in the Han.
Date Notes
Many poems likely formed during Western and early Eastern Zhou; textual stabilization and canonical transmission via the Mao recension in early Han.
Archetypes
Symbols
Major Characters
- King Wen of Zhou
- King Wu of Zhou
- Duke of Zhou
Myths
- Ancestral and State Hymns
- Court Hymns of the Zhou
- Airs of the States
- Ritual Songs for Sacrifice
Facts
- The anthology contains 305 poems arranged as Airs (Guofeng), Lesser Court Hymns (Xiaoya), Greater Court Hymns (Daya), and Hymns (Song).
- Confucian tradition counted it among the Five Classics and used it for moral and political instruction.
- The received text follows the Mao recension; alternative Lu and Qi traditions are known from citations.
- Commentaries by Zheng Xuan (Han) and Kong Yingda (Tang) shaped the orthodox interpretation.
- Many hymns praise Zhou kings and recount the Mandate of Heaven ideology.
- “Sheng Min” preserves the miraculous birth narrative of the agrarian culture hero Hou Ji.
- Folk ‘Airs’ record regional customs, courtship, labor, and military musters in early Zhou states.
- Original melodies are lost; the poems were once performed with music and dance in ritual settings.
- The work influenced diction, imagery, and parallelism across classical Chinese poetry.
- Canonical counting as 305 poems became fixed during the Western Han.