The value of “The Book of Songs” (詩經，Shi Jing), the earliest collection of Chinese Poetry, is indelible in literature, history, philosophy and politics, in addition to classics. The interpretation or textual research of “The Book of Songs” has done by the scholars for dynasties, and the research of academic significance has been published constantly in the current paper journals in modern times.
After Zhu Xi’s “Shijizhuan”(《詩集傳》) was promulgated by the imperial court of Yuan Dynasty as the final version of the imperial examination, scholars in the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties delved diligently into the purport of the poetry, the syntactic and semantic analysis, the rhyming, the viewpoint of lewd poems, denominating of things and the exegesis in Mr. Ziyang’s three hundred poems. There were eighteen volumes in Liu Yuru’s “Shizuanxu” (《詩纘緒》), which could not be found in any bibliography of various schools and was seldom cited by the annotators of “The Book of Songs”. It was due to the fact that Liu’s status during his lifetime was not prominent, and the book was not widely spread. Liu’s birth and death years were not seen in historical records, and there was no discussion of Liu’s deeds, either. However, Liu wrote a preface to Zhou Tingzhen’s “Shichuji” (《石初集》). At the end of the preface, it dated “Hongwu Guichou Mengxia Chu Ji” (洪武癸丑孟夏初吉，at the beginning of the fourth month of the lunar calendar in the year of Guichou in Hongwu period). This shows that Liu was still alive in the sixth year of Ming Taizu Hongwu period (1737 AD) , hence his year of death should be later than that time. This dissertation, based on the fragmented scrolls, attempts to realize Liu’s academic style and interpretive standpoint, and tries to make a shallow understanding of the thinking of Liu’s veneration for Zhu Xi and his elaboration of Zhu Xi’s teaching.
“Shizuanxu” (《詩纉緒》) has not been handed down for a long time. Nevertheless, quite a lot of its contents was collected in “Yongle Dadian” (《永樂大典》，the encyclopedia compiled in Yongle period in Ming Dynasty). In Liu’s book, some of the three hundred and five poems are lost: fourteen chapters on the reginal folk songs, fifteen chapters on the court music and songs, four chapters on the sacrificial lyrics. Thirty three chapters are absent in total. Some among the reginal folk songs are intact: ‘Yong Feng’ (〈鄘風〉，the folk songs in Yong), ‘Wang Feng’ (〈王風〉，the folk songs in royal castle), ‘Qi Feng’ (〈齊風〉，the folk songs in Qi), ‘Wei Feng’ (〈魏風〉，the folk songs in Wei), ‘Chen Feng’ (〈陳風〉，the folk songs in Chen), ‘Kuai Feng’ (〈檜風〉，the folk songs in Kuai), ‘Cao Feng’ (〈曹風〉，the folk songs in Cao), ‘Bin Feng’ (〈豳風〉，the folk songs in Bin). Among the three sacrificial lyrics, only "Lu Song" (〈魯頌〉，the sacrificial lyrics of Lu) is complete.
Liu Yuru, a scholar that specialized in “The Book of Songs” in the Yuan Dynasty, honored Zhu Xi School. This dissertation tries to expound the influence of “Shizuanxu”on the genres in later generations, the style and method of planning the text, the position of interpretation, the order of the table of contents in “The Book of Songs”, the attitude to the rhyming theory of Zu Xi and the supplementary discussion on the missing volumes of “Shizuanxu”. Though the views here might be restricted, there must be something worthy to be accepted. This is what the author has hoped for long.