On the issue of the collection of poems in the Book of Songs, according to legend, the Zhou Dynasty in China had officials who specialized in collecting poems, and every spring, they would go deep into the folk with wooden duo to collect folk songs, and put the works that could reflect the joys and sorrows of the people to the officials in charge of music and sing them to the Son of Heaven as a reference for governance.

There is a record in the "Historical Records": The Guanzhong Plain is fertile for thousands of miles, and when King Wen was alive, there was a bumper harvest here year after year. The people of later generations left the legacy of the previous kings, loved to work, and planted grains here to multiply. From here, we can see that the Zhou Dynasty was already an agricultural society, and the ancestral home of the Zhou Dynasty was also very suitable for agricultural development. Judging from the poems such as "Shengmin", "Gongliu" and "Mian" in Daya, the Zhou people did rely on agriculture to prosper and develop. "July" is a complete account of the relationship between the agricultural activities of the laborers during the year and the hierarchical oppression of the society at that time. In addition, in the "Book of Songs", "Nanshan", "Chuci", "Datian", "Fengnian", "Liangyun" and other articles, there are records about agriculture.

The development of agriculture promoted the progress of society, and the Zhou people became the co-masters of the world after King Wu's war. The patriarchal system of the family, the private ownership of land, the private ownership of slaves, and the rule of the aristocratic lords became the social and political characteristics of this historical period, and religious beliefs and social politics were integrated, which is why there are many sacrificial hymns and elegant poems in the Book of Songs. According to the record in the Book of Rites, when Zai I once asked Confucius what ghosts and gods were, Confucius replied to him: Qi is the vigor of the gods, and spirit is the vigor of ghosts; Sacrificing both ghosts and gods, this has reached the perfection of Shintoism. In order to further explain, Confucius also said: It is not enough to convince the people of ghosts and gods, there should be clothing, palaces, and writings about ghosts and gods, so that the people will be convinced. By understanding the hymns and psalms in the Book of Songs from these perspectives, we can understand more clearly.

The Zhou Dynasty was laid by King Wen and King Wu, King Cheng and King Kang prospered, and the rule of Cheng Kang was said to be more than 40 years without punishment in history, which was the golden age of the Zhou Dynasty. After King Zhao and King Mu, the state of the Zhou Dynasty gradually weakened. Later, King Li of Zhou was expelled for abusive government, King You was killed, King Ping moved east, established the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, and opened the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. During the Spring and Autumn Period, the royal family declined, the princes merged, and the society was in serious turmoil. The Book of Songs, which reflects the social life from the early Zhou Dynasty to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period, is, on the whole, a visual reflection of the social life of China during the past 500 years.

In the Book of Songs, there are odes to the founding of the ancestors, and there are movements of sacrificing to ghosts and gods; There are also banquets and drinks between nobles, and resentment of uneven work and rest; There are also moving chapters that reflect labor, hunting, and a lot of love, marriage, and social customs. Literature is a reflection of life, and life has a profound historical character. If we want to better study the Book of Songs, it is necessary to understand the historical and social basis that produced the Book of Songs. Because the poems in the "Book of Songs" were produced in the early Western Zhou Dynasty to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period for more than 500 years.

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There are not many poems in the Book of Songs that can determine the specific age of writing. Roughly speaking, "Song" and "Ya" were produced relatively early, basically in the Western Zhou Dynasty; Except for some poems in Bīn, Zhounan, and Zhaonan, most of the poems in Guofeng were produced in the early and middle Spring and Autumn periods.

In terms of the nature of the poems, the poems in "Ya" and "Song" are basically composed for a specific purpose, they are all musical songs used on specific occasions, and most of them are folk songs in "National Style". Some of the poems of "Xiaoya" are similar to "National Style", which is also a folk song. The folk songs we are talking about here are actually just a general reference, and their characteristics are just the opposite of the characteristics of "Ya" and "Song", which are ordinary lyrical songs written by unknown authors and circulated in society. The identity of most folk song authors is not easy to explore.

If the identity of the author is inferred from what is described in the poem, then the author includes both laborers and soldiers, as well as a considerable number of characters belonging to the noble class and the gentleman class. At that time, Shi belonged to the lowest level of nobility, and Junzi was a general term for nobles. In addition, there are still many authors who cannot be identified. Therefore, this kind of folk song is a work with a broad social base.

Because of the nature and purpose of the poems, each poem is correspondingly different in what it describes. Below, we will select a few of the more important types to appreciate.

The poem "Song" is mainly "Song of Zhou", which is the sacrificial poem of the temple of the Zhou royal family, which was produced in the early Western Zhou Dynasty. In addition to simply singing the praises of the merits of the ancestors, there are also some songs to pray to the gods for a good year in spring and summer, or to thank the gods in autumn and winter, which reflects the social characteristics of the Chinese nation as a country based on agriculture and the agricultural production in the early Western Zhou Dynasty. As sung in "Harvest Year": In the harvest year, there is a towering granary on the side of the grain field, and hundreds of millions of grains are well stored. Thousands of cups of fine wine are brewed and offered before the spirits of ancestors. Various festivals were held one by one, and the blessings of Monkey King descended on all households.

On the day of the harvest, people happily and solemnly sacrifice to their ancestors, hoping that they will give more blessings to their descendants. The poem reads: King Cheng sighed softly and prayed, I have invited the first prince and the first king. I will lead these many farmers to sow the grains. The rulers of the fields are pushing your plows over these thirty miles of fields. Cooperate vigorously with your cultivation, and ten thousand people will be cultivated together into five thousand pairs.

What a spectacle it was to have tens of thousands of farmers working at the same time on a vast field! At the same time, we will also take into account that in such a powerful and powerful collective activity, the value of individual existence is easily ignored and erased; But this is again the price that must be paid at such a particular historical stage and economic conditions.

"Mian" recounts the precious history of the tenth grandson of Gong Liu, the grandfather of King Wen of Zhou, Gu Gong's father, who migrated from the land to Qixia until King Wen was ordained. In the poem, it is written that the father of the ancient prince migrated from Feng to Qixia, married Jiang Nu, built a house in Qixia, settled in Qixia, engaged in agricultural production, repaired the temple and palace, appointed officials, and then established the country, exterminated the Yi people, and finally wrote that King Wen was ordained. The poem "Mian" is well-organized in narrative and rigorous in structure, and has reached a very high level. Among them, when writing architectural scenes, a lot of onomatopoeia is used, which is very imposing, such as: fill the soil with a full load, fill the soil and make a roar. Dengden Deng is to pound the soil, and to rely on the basis is to cut the wall. Hundreds of walls were built at the same time, and the drums could not be heard. The sound of the poem holding the soil, pouring the soil, pounding the soil, and cutting the soil covers up the huge drum sound.