Since the early 20th century, a critique of traditional exegeses of the Shijing 詩經 (Book of odes) has become prevalent among scholars both in China and outside it. The critique takes various forms, but tends to hold that the Mao Commentary of the Han Dynasty politicizes and allegorizes poems that originally had a more straightforward meaning. As a corollary to this view, James Legge's Victorian translation of the Book of Odes is seen as similarly flawed, since it hews too closely to the traditional interpretations, most of which are derived from the Mao Commentary.

The modern critique is surely correct with regard to several of the poems, in particular a few of the "Airs of the States" whose main subject seems to be romance and not political commentary. But then, this critique was already put forth convincingly during the Song Dynasty and is not entirely new. When applied wholesale to the Book of Odes in its entirety, however, the critique is grossly misguided. Fortunately, the tendency in some recent Chinese-language scholarship has been to rehabilitate—or at least to be much more cautious before overturning—the traditional interpretations. The Mao Commentary, as interpreted and transformed by later Chinese philologists, remains an indispensable resource for understanding the poems.

Thus the corollary dismissal of James Legge's translation likewise needs to be reevaluated. In historical hindsight, the bold interpretations of Waley do not always rely on any solid evidence having to do with early China at all. Yet Legge's sometimes awkward, often prejudiced translations and commentary nonetheless attempt a complex negotiation among the Mao Commentary, Zhu Xi, and Qing philology, not to mention the language of Victorian Protestantism. Legge does not aim to or achieve scientific objectivity, but rather, inspired by the accidental alignment between his own rigid convictions and certain Confucian principles, seeks to participate in a transcultural dialogue with his scholarly predecessors in China. The result is a many-layered work that still has much to teach us about how the meaning of the Book of Odes has evolved since the Han Dynasty.