Jin Shengtan wrote more than 3 poems, including Selected Poems of Thoughtful Mansion, which was written into four volumes, commenting on 18 poems of Du Fu, but not all of them were commented. In addition, he also commented on 19 ancient poems and 595 seven-melody poems of the Tang Dynasty. He advocates that poetry must pay attention to spontaneous true feelings, and that good poetry can convey the poet's thoughts and feelings, even the baby's crying can be regarded as poetry; Sincere feelings are enough to make anyone a poet, and his views are similar to those of Li Zhi. The author must seize the sudden inspiration, but also can't ignore the expressive skills. Good books all come from the author's long-term conception and careful writing, and only after thinking hard can they be free and natural. He didn't ignore the readers either, and thought that good poetry should be gentle and sincere, and follow the golden mean, which can be said to be a classical romantic. Traditional poetics, with four sentences as a "solution" and eight regular poems, is generally divided into two solutions. Jin Shengtan put forward a new theory, that is, four sentences are regarded as a solution, and two sentences are regarded as a "half solution"; The rise and fall of poetic meaning is often equivalent to the rise and fall of solution. For example, 19 ancient poems "Grass by the Qingqing River": "Grass by the Qingqing River, willow in the gloomy garden. Yingying is a woman upstairs, and her eyes are bright as a window. E-E red makeup, delicate hands. " The first two sentences are devoted to the scenery, which is for "half solution"; Sentences 3-6, written about beauty, are another "solution".
Jin Shengtan praised Du Fu's poems for their vivid narration and vivid scenery, and for their unforgettable realm. His words were ingenious and suggestive, meticulous, circuitous, concise and concise, such as "Flowers greet miscellaneous trees, dragons rejoice in a flat pool" in Suxi, which shows the infatuation of Tang Minghuang with Yang Guifei. He also respects Du Fu's personality and the greatness of Du Fu's poems, precisely because Du Fu is a great man. Jin Shengtan commented on Du Fu's poems, each poem was preceded by a brief problem solving, and the poem was generally commented. Except for short quatrains, poems are divided into several sections (solutions). Regular poems are all divided into two sections, each with four lines, and long poems are divided into different sections, such as the Northern Expedition, which is divided into 35 sections; Every poem is accompanied by a commentary. His comments are thought-provoking, focusing on the nuances of each word. For example, in Autumn Xing, one of them, "The high dew withers the maple trees, and Wushan Wuxia is gloomy", he pointed out the bleak atmosphere of these two sentences and the strong contrast between red and white in the first sentence. Another example is Qiu Xing's four words, "Smelling Chang 'an is like playing chess" and "Smelling Dao", which show that Du Fu can't bear to write directly about the turmoil in Chang 'an, and he can't believe it, expressing his inner sadness and shock. Literary historians point out that his comment on writing is "vivid and vivid, which is quite creative". For example, in the first part of Autumn Xing, it is more poetic to interpret "Kai" as a transitive verb "Kai". However, Jin Shengtan sometimes deliberately seeks novelty, depth and doubts, and makes unwarranted far-fetched explanations. For example, he thinks that the sentence "I am floating in the clouds" in "I am pregnant with Li Bai in spring" is a criticism of Li Bai's poems.