Shijing
The Classic of Poetry (Shijing), one of the Five Classics of the Confucian canon and the oldest surviving collection of poetry from China, an anthology of three hundred and five ancient Chinese poems of anonymous, collective authorship, probably compiled between the eleventh and seventh centuries BC from oral and written material from various regions and periods, and traditionally attributed — though on scant historical grounds — to an editorial selection made by Confucius himself from a much larger original corpus. The work is divided into four sections of markedly different character and tone: the 'Airs of the States' (Guofeng), the largest and most celebrated section, made up of folk and popular songs from fifteen different regions dealing, with remarkable liveliness and frankness, with themes such as love, courtship, agricultural labour, daily life and, often, social criticism of unjust rulers; the 'Lesser Odes' (Xiaoya) and 'Greater Odes' (Daya), more formal, courtly compositions relating to banquets, ceremonies and affairs of state among the Zhou aristocracy; and the 'Hymns' (Song), solemn ritual texts intended for ancestor worship and dynastic sacrifices. Incorporated early on into the Confucian educational curriculum as one of the fundamental texts every scholar had to master, the Shijing was subjected to systematic moralising interpretation by later Confucian tradition, which read even the simplest love poems as political or ethical allegories — a reading modern criticism has largely challenged in favour of a more direct appreciation of its original literary and ethnographic value. Confucius himself, according to the Analects, considered the study of this work indispensable for awakening moral sensibility, sharpness of observation and the capacity for social relations.