First of all, Preface to Mao Poetry reveals the artistic essence of the unity of lyricism and lyricism. Its cloud: "Poets have aspirations" clarifies that the origin of poetry creation lies in "aspirations", which constitutes the content of poetry, and is in the same strain as the viewpoint of "poetry expressing aspirations" produced in the pre-Qin era. From this, we can further realize that the Preface to Shi Mao was written by Han Confucianism, which was integrated with the whole Confucian ideological system, and "poetry expressing ambition" was gradually brought into this system and was studied. Moreover, Preface to Mao's Poems further puts forward the viewpoint that "emotion moves in the middle and form in words", and compares the expression of "heart is ambition and words are poetry". Although the relationship and connotation between ambition and emotion have not been clearly explained in Preface to Mao Shi, it is believed that they can be unified. Lyricity was mainly used in the theory of music earlier, and the expression of lyricism in the preface can be said to come from Xunzi's theory of music or The Book of Rites. It can be seen that there are still many musical factors in the poetics of Preface, because the essence of poetry is still understood based on the close relationship between poetry and music. Because of this, Preface to Mao Poetry draws lessons from the lyric theory in the theory of music since the pre-Qin period as a necessary supplement to the theory of expressing will. If we relate the whole development history of China's ancient literary ideas, we will realize how meaningful this supplement is.
Secondly, The Preface of Poetry takes Confucianism as the perspective, paying special attention to the social function of poetry with politics and religion as the core. The so-called "getting along with husband and wife, being filial to parents and doing well in human relations" refers to a top-down educational function of poetry. The preface has recognized the relationship between enlightenment and emotion, so it says "the wind moves and educates". But the preface exaggerates the emotional function (such as "touching the world and feeling ghosts and gods") and social function. As poetry is regarded as a tool of enlightenment, in Preface to Shi Mao, every work in The Book of Songs is a metaphor of some enlightenment idea. For example, it is far-fetched to interpret Guan Yu with the virtue of empresses. At the same time, the preface thinks that politics and poetry are inseparable, so the rise and fall of politics in the times naturally has a great influence on the development of poetry, so it puts forward the theory of "changing the wind into elegance". Later, Liu Xie said in the article "Wen Xin Diao Long Time Series": "The times have changed, and the quality has changed", which is similar to the viewpoint in the preface.
Thirdly, the theory of "six meanings" put forward in the preface has rich theoretical connotation. Later generations have different specific interpretations of "six meanings", but generally speaking, style, elegance and ode are the classification of poetry, and fu, comparison and xing are the writing techniques of poetry. This paper does not give a concrete explanation of Fu, Bi and Xing, but it provides a set of enlightening categories for later poetry planning theory. The preface focuses on style, elegance and praise, and the strong political and religious meaning running through it is consistent with the whole tone. This paper puts forward the viewpoint of "remonstrating the main text", demanding that poetry achieve the purpose of satire and remonstration in a euphemistic and implicit way, which is obviously another manifestation of the Confucian concept of "gentle and honest" poetry teaching. However, this requirement is similar to artistic creation. As the saying goes, "Emotion ends with propriety and righteousness", while pointing out the lyrical characteristics of poetry, it further requires that emotional expression should strictly accept the norms of Confucian moral teachings. This view has a great influence on later literature, and it is also very complicated.
In a word, The Preface to Poetry is not only a summary, but also has a far-reaching influence on the development of later literary concepts. Although this influence is very complicated, both positive and negative, it constitutes an important part of the Confucian poetic tradition.