与舞蹈和音乐相伴的歌谣跟口头流传的神话，远在文字出现之前就已大量产生。中国的文学正是发端于此。不过歌谣本是人们在生活中随兴而发的东西，上古时代也没有保存和记载它们的手段，因之也就很快湮灭，不留痕迹。我们只能从一些古籍书中推断它们的存在。古书中记载了一些据称年代非常久远的歌谣，但是大多出于后人的伪托，能够断定朝代的歌谣要到《诗经》里才能看见。从这点来看，古代神话对中国文学的影响更为显著。
Long before the emergence of the written word, ballads, accompanied by music and dance,and myths, passed around by word of mouth, were widely popular. Chinese literature finds its origins in these traditions. However, ballads were what people improvised out of daily life, and due to lack of means to record and preserve them in ancient times, they quickly disappeared without leaving much of a trace. Today, we can only deduce their existence from ancient books, which recorded some time-honored ballads, though most of these are belived to be derivatives of later generations. Ballads in the Book of Songs are the earliest writings that can be dated. From this point of view, ancient mythology obviously has had a great influence on Chinese literature.
