Liuyi or "Six Principles"
 

What exactly these six "principles" mean is unclear.  In fact, "principle" may not be an appropriate rendition of yi here.  At any rate, it is commonly said that the first (feng), the fifth (ya), and the sixth (song) refer to the classification of poems by the content and the nature of the poems, whereas the second (fu), the third (bi), and the fourth (xing) are different poetic methods.  Though this explanation cannot explain the sequence in which the six principles appear, this explanation has been generally accepted.

The first group of three, feng, ya, and song, is indeed the names of three parts of the Shijing.  The classification seems to be based on the content, origin, and the use/function of the poems.

The meaning of the three terms in the second group, fu, bi, and xing, has generated many theories, but we are far from reaching any reasonably common understanding of the terms.  Therefore, the suggested English renditions here must be viewed as tentative.

The meaning of the term fu is relatively less controversial than that of the other two.  It is often defined as a direct narration of an event, a description of a scene or an enumeration of things that involve no figurative use of language.  However, this term proves to be also quite complex because it is the name of one of the major poetic genres that appeared in the Han dynasty.  Poems written in this genre are likely to contradict the notion that fu  is a poetic method that involve only unfigured language.  It is not so much the presence or absence of tropes as how the seemingly direct description of a scene is related to the poet that needs to be considered in defining fu.  In other words, that which is written in the fu mode should be a direct narration or description of what is presently on the poet's mind.

Bi and xing seem to be the poetic methods that involve figurative use of language.  However, the question as to how the two can be distinguished from one another is not easy to answer.  In fact, the two terms are often combined, bixing.  Bi seems to involve a comparison, both direct and indirect.  Therefore, both simile and metaphor are subsumed by bi.  Xing, on the other hand, seems to be a reliance on the image of a thing to give rise to verbalization.  Because the character, xing, means "beginning" or "stimulating," it may be particularly applicable to the way a chain of association is initiated by invoking a physical image.  It may be an interesting project to examine and classify various types of poetic methods employed in the Shijing to see if the distinction between bi and xing does emerge.
 

(Hyong Rhew)