The New Chinese Classics Rhymes and Reasons: The Chinese Classic
of Poetry E Bruce Brooks and A Taeko Brooks The Chinese Shr Jing
(Classic of Poetry) has been the least suspected of the
Confucian classics; the one the archaeologists are most ready to
cite. Its place as a witness to the Jou dynasty, and its
aftermath down to about 0600, seems to be secure in majority
scholarly opinion. The external evidence suggests that the Shr
began to be collected, as a text in its own right, in the early
05th century and was largely stabilized by the end of that
century, and that new material continued to be added until late
in the 04th century. This does not directly challenge the
traditional dating (many of the poems may easily have been much
older than their date of inclusion), but it does reopen the
subject. This book brings together a number of specialized
studies of the Shr in a comprehensive treatment of its formation
process, and finds that little of the material predates its
collection. Among the aspects explored