The main content of Nineteen Ancient Poems roughly reflects the life, thoughts and feelings of the lower classes in the late Han Dynasty. One is to describe the lovesickness and parting feelings of wandering women, and the other is to write about the strong desire to pursue fame and gain and the depression and sorrow of career frustration. Their feelings are the same, that is, complaining about ladies, wandering abroad, unsuccessful pursuit of pleasure, and showing strong sadness about the perishable and orderly life, although this emotion is negative.
The artistic achievement of Nineteen Ancient Poems is very outstanding. In a word, one is the blending of scenes, and the feelings are expressed through scenes. For example, when the moon shines at night, the poet feels that things in late autumn are different, and the time sequence changes, resulting in the sigh that friends don't meet and the world is bleak. The artistic technique of scene blending enhances the lyricism of poetry, and the other is to express the author's inner activities through the details of life, and to highlight the image of the protagonist in the poem with plots containing narrative elements, such as jumping. Narrating the fairy tale of Weaver Girl shows the poet's indescribable lovesickness. For example, there is a tall building in the northwest, which describes the fiddling of women's tall buildings and expresses the author's feeling of being a confidant. Thirdly, metaphor is widely used, which contrasts and is concise, almost including 19 poems such as "Picking hibiscus in the River" and "Solitary Bamboo in Ran Ran". Fourth, the language is concise, natural and elegant.
The appearance of Nineteen Ancient Poems marked the maturity of literati's five-character poems, which started the precedent of Jian 'an poems and even Tang poems, and had a great influence on the development of China's poems.