"The Great Preface"
 

Poems in the Mao's edition of the Shijing, the only complete version transmitted to us, have a brief account of their content or the historical background before each poem.  These are called shixu, or "the prefaces."  The preface to the first poem, "Guanju," is the longest, while those attached to other poems are fairly brief.  The preface to "Guanju" does more than explain the meaning of a particular poem.  Rather, it includes one of the most influential statements on poetry.  Therefore, the preface to the first poem is called shi daxu, or "the Great Preface," and the others, "the prefaces" or xiaoxu, "the Lesser Prefaces."  Some scholars have tried, though unsuccessfully, to contradict this definition by asserting various other definitions.

The authorship of the prefaces has been a matter of continuous dispute.  The competing theories can be grouped as follows:

1) They were written by Zixia, a disciple of Confucius.
2) They come from Confucius own hands.
3) Master Mao, of the Han dynasty, and his disciples wrote them.
4) Historians at the time that the poems were collected inserted them.
5) Poets themselves wrote them.
6) The Great Preface was written by Zixia, and the Lesser Prefaces were co-authored by Zixia and Master Mao.
7) They were co-authored by Zixia and Master Mao, and edited by Wei Hong of the Eastern Han.
8) They were written by Wei Hong of the Eastern Han.

Most of these theories, except, perhaps, the last one, have not been substantiated by documentary evidence.  As for the theory of Wei Hong's authorship, his biography in Hou Hanshu, or "The History of the Later Han," says:

Wei Hong, styled Jingzhong, is a man from the province of Donghai.  When he was young, he and Zheng Xing of Henan were all fond of the study of antiquity.  At the beginning, Xie Manqing of Jiujiang, who was well versed in Mao's Poetry, explained the meanings [of the poems].  [Wei] Hong studied with [Xie] Manqing, and wrote the prefaces to Mao's Poetry.  [The prefaces] articulate the meaning of "Airs" and "Odes" very well, and are transmitted to the present day.

However, there is still insufficient evidence to draw any definitive conclusion concerning the question of authorship.  It is safe to say, however, that "the Great Preface" reflects the understanding of the nature and function of poetry in the Han dynasty, which is derived from a long standing tradition that goes back to very early traditions recorded in the Book of Documents.  At any rate, it is not so much the authorship as the content of the prefaces that interests us.  That is neither because the information in the preface is useful nor because the interpretation of the poems makes sense.  On the contrary, the prefaces often show how poems can be used irrespective of the seeming authorial intention.  The assigning of authorship by allegoresis to the body of anonymous poems in the Confucian commentary presents an interesting question of how the Chinese understood the literary mechanism.  (Allegory is presumed to be authorial; allegoresis is an interpreter's use of allegorizing to explain what seems lacking proper meaning.)
 

(Hyong Rhew)