民國以後，學界對於中國有無敘事詩之爭議，始終爭論不斷。故本文擬先辨明敘事詩意涵，由文獻考察中，梳理出｢敘事｣在中國文學中的發展流程，進而歸納出中國敘事詩之定義及其表現特徵，再將中國第一部詩歌總集通篇檢索，分析《詩經》中的敘事表現，透過此研究進程，試圖由《詩經》論證中國敘事詩早期面貌及發展歷程。若以敘事文學的角度來看待《詩經》，則大小〈雅〉所含的敘事材料最多，其中的〈大雅〉更含有不少史詩性質的敘事詩。故本文擬先由敘事成分較多的大小〈雅〉詩切入，探察其敘事表現，再分析〈頌〉詩及〈國風〉中的敘事表現，以全面性論述中國敘事詩的早期風貌，及其在詩歌史上所揭示的意義。由《詩經》中詩篇之時代先後來看，其中呈現出一條詩歌發展歷程：時代較早的〈周頌〉與〈大雅〉，自是呈現出以敘事詩為主的局面；可見西周早期的詩，統治階級的敘事詩佔了主要地位，且敘事詩之源起比抒情詩來得早，此可說是符合一般世界文學史的發展現象。之後，時代最晚的〈國風〉與〈魯頌〉、〈商頌〉，就其詩歌內容表現而言，已是抒情詩取得主流地位。總之，一部《詩經》所涵蓋的自周初至春秋中期五百多年的詩歌發展史，其中實是有一段興起又式微，但從未間斷的敘事詩史存在其間，對於研究中國文學史或詩史者而言，此課題實值重視。

Since the birth of Republic China, the academia has been arguing about the existence of narrative poetry in China for a long period. Therefore, this article is to clarify the meaning of narrative poetry, to investigate the evolutional process of narrative literature in Chinese literature from historical document, and then to derive the definition of Chinese narrative poetry and its symbolic characteristics from the result. Furthermore, the first episode Chinese poetry collection will be fully searched and analyzed for the narrative characteristics of Shijing. Through this investigative process, this article will demonstrate the early look of Chinese narrative poetry and its evolutional history. If we look at Shijing at the angle of narrative literature, Da-Ya and Xiao-Ya includes the most narrative materials, and Da-Ya even contains a number of heroic poetry. Thus, this article will start the study from Da-Ya and Xiao-Ya that have more narrative components, explore their narrative features, analyze the narrative features of Song and Guo-Feng poetry, and fully discuss and further explain the early look of Chinese narrative poetry and is representative meaning in the history of heroic poetry. Based on the times of pre-Shijing and post-Shijing, there is a historic line for the development of heroic poetry: earlier Zhou-Song and Da-Ya mainly presents the appearance of narrative poetry; consequently, the early western-Zhou poetry mainly represents the narrative poetry for governing hierarchy. Moreover, narrative poetry was founded earlier than expressive poetry, which matches the common development of global literature. Later, the later Guo-Feng, Lu-Song, and Shan-Song represents the mainstream of expressive poetry according to their content and characteristics. To make a conclusion, what the Shijing covers is a 500-year history of historical development of poetry from Zhou dynasty to Chun-Qiu ages. During the period, the narrative poetry actually rose and fell but never disappeared. For those who would like to study the history of Chinese literature or heroic poetry, this argument deserves their attention.