The Shijing : The Beginnings of Chinese (and East Asian) Poetry

Abstract

The poems of the Shijing are the earliest poems recorded in Chinese, and one of the foundations of the classical Chinese literary tradition. The Shijing is an anthology of 300 ancient Chinese poems, whose selection is traditionally attributed to Confucius. More recent scholarship suggests the poems were created from c. 900 to c. 500 bce , and compiled in their present form beginning around the late fourth century bce . The four sections of the anthology ( Airs of the States, Lesser Odes, Greater Odes , and Temple Hymns ) contain a wide variety of poems on themes ranging from love and daily life among the people to the mythology and history of the Zhou dynasty. The traditional interpretation of the collection was strongly moralizing, but modern scholars have argued that many of the poems may have had a popular, oral, and non‐political origin.