《诗序》的作者,有孔子、子夏、毛公合作、国史、卫宏、诗人自制诸说,卫宏一说影响尤其大。但经过有关经、史材料的搜辑排比,则可以发现卫宏和国史之说皆不可信。对于前人所说的续序,也应该具体看待,有些被认为是续序的,其实在《毛传》中已有相应的文字,所以不一定都是出于后人所增。

This article extends the discussion from the arguments in the history of the studies related to the Book of Songs(《诗经》)about who was the author of Mao’s Prefaces to the Book of Songs(《毛诗序》). The possible candidates in the long list included Confucius, Zixia (子夏), Mao Heng (毛亨), Mao Chang (毛苌), national history writers (国史), Wei Hong (卫宏) and various poets who contributed to the Books of Songs. Among these candidates, the view of Wei Hong as the real author was most influential. Through studying and organizing relevant materials from Confucian classics and histories on the Book of Songs, we find that neither the view of Wei Hong as the real author nor the view of the national history writers as the real authors are believable. As for those so-called follow-up prefaces mentioned by our predecessors, this article holds that they should be concretely taken into consideration. Some of the prefaces that were thought as follow-ups actually had their corresponding writings in Mao’s Commentary Notes on the Book of Songs (《毛传》), and therefore they were not necessarily added by scholars of later generations.