The Shijing詩經 (Classic of Poetry; Book of Odes)

Abstract

The Shijing, or Book of Odes (aka Classic of Poetry, Book of Songs, etc.) is the fountainhead of the Chinese literary tradition. An anthology of 305 undated and anonymous poems that probably arose from the regional courts of the Eastern Zhou period (770–256 bce) and according to tradition was arranged by Confucius (551–479 bce), it contains, in this order, 160 “Airs of the States” (guofeng國風), 74 “Minor Court Hymns” (xiaoya小雅), 31 “Major Court Hymns” (daya大雅), and 40 “Eulogies” (song頌). The poems are customarily believed to have been composed between 1000 and 600 bce; ancient accounts mention their recitation as texts and performance as musical pieces. Recent finds of ancient bamboo manuscripts show that written versions of the anthology, especially of the “Airs of the States,” existed since at least the fourth century bce, though no complete anthology including all four sections of the text is documented yet from before the Western Han (202 bce–9 ce). Numerous short quotations from the poems appear in Warring States period (453–221 bce), philosophical texts to invoke the weight and authority of tradition. These testimonials mark the Shijing as the single most quotable and most widely known text in Chinese antiquity and as the cultural hallmark of the educated elite. While the “Hymns” and “Eulogies” were performed in the religious and political rituals of the Zhou royal house to recall the glory of the founding and heyday of the Western Zhou (1046–771 bce), the original context of the “Airs of the States” remains uncertain. Their simple, repetitive structures are often taken as evidence of their origins in folk song, even though the poems have survived only in the writings of the ancient elite. Unlike especially the “Major Court Hymns,” none of the “Airs” offers a sustained narrative, and few contain any historical reference at all; already in antiquity, their semantic ambiguity gave rise to widely different interpretations. At the Western Han imperial court, the Shijing was officially canonized as one of the Five Classics, the core of Confucian learning. Since then, it has attracted thousands of commentaries, subcommentaries, and studies on all of its literary, historical, and linguistic aspects. In recent decades, new discoveries of ancient manuscripts dating from the last four centuries bce have led to yet another flood of books and articles on the Shijing, in particular from Mainland China.