The Shih King Book Of Poetry PDF Download

The Classic of Poetry, also Shijing or Shih-ching, translated variously as the Book of Songs, Book of Odes, or simply known as the Odes or Poetry is the oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry, comprising 305 works dating from the 11th to 7th centuries BC. It is one of the "Five Classics" traditionally said to have been compiled by Confucius, and has been studied and memorized by scholars in China and neighboring countries over two millennia. Since the Qing dynasty, its rhyme patterns have also been analysed in the study of Old Chinese phonology.Early references refer to the anthology as the 300 Poems (shi), with a typically inexact use of "three hundred". The Odes first became known as a "classic book", in the canonical sense, as part of the Han Dynasty official adoption of Confucianism as the guiding principles of Chinese society. The same word shi later became a generic term for poetry. In English, lacking an exact equivalent for the Chinese, the translation of the word shi in this regard is generally as "poem", "song", or "ode". Before its elevation as a canonical classic, the Classic of Poetry (Shi jing) was known as the Three Hundred Songs or the Songs.The Classic of Poetry contains the oldest chronologically authenticated Chinese poems. The majority of the Odes date to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BC). A final section of 5 "Eulogies of Shang" purports to be ritual songs of the Shang Dynasty as handed down by their descendents in the state of Song, but is generally considered quite late in date. According to the Eastern Han scholar Zheng Xuan, the latest material in the Shijing was the song "Tree-stump Grove" in the "Odes of Chen", dated to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period (c. 700 BC).The content of the Poetry can be divided into two main sections: the "Airs of the States", and the eulogies and hymns. The "Airs of the States" are shorter lyrics in simple language that are generally ancient folk songs which record the voice of the common people. They often speak of love and courtship, longing for an absent lover, soldiers on campaign, farming and housework, and political satire and protest. On the other hand, songs in the two "Hymns" sections and the "Eulogies" section tend to be longer ritual or sacrificial songs, usually in the forms of courtly panegyrics and dynastic hymns which praise the founders of the Zhou dynasty. They also include hymns used in sacrificial rites and songs used by the aristocracy in their sacrificial ceremonies or at banquets. Pieces of poems not collected was recorded in Zuo Zhuan.Whatever the origin of the various Shijing poems as folk songs or not, they "all seem to have passed through the hands of men of letters at the royal Zhou court". In other words, they show an overall literary polish together with some general stylistic consistency. About 95% of songs in the Poetry are written in a meter of a four-character line, with a slight caesura between the second and third words. Lines tend to be syntactically related couplets, with occasional parallelism; and, longer poems generally are divided into similarly structured stanzas. This style later became known as the "Poetry" style for much of Chinese history.One of the characteristics of the poems in the Classic of Poetry is that they tend to possess "elements of repetition and variation".