The artistic achievement of Nineteen Ancient Poems lies in profoundly reappearing the disillusionment and depravity pursued by the literati during the great transformation of social thought in the late Han Dynasty, and the awakening and pain of the soul, and expressing several basic and common feelings and thoughts in life.
The language of Nineteen Ancient Poems is simple and natural, the description is vivid and true, and it has a natural artistic style, which is called "the crown of five words" by Liu Xie. Nineteen Ancient Poems is a remarkable symbol of the humanization of Yuefu ancient poems, which expresses the social situation, spiritual life and personality temperament of literati in an artistic way.
Nineteen Ancient Poems exposes the darkness of the real society and criticizes the customs of the last days, but it also implies the poet's pursuit of lost moral standards. This helpless situation and mentality deepened the poet's belief crisis. The hope of eternal life was shattered, and the poet turned to explore the value of life from a new level.
No matter publicly claiming to get rid of poverty and fame, or publicly claiming to grasp the short life, eat, drink and be merry in time, in short, Qu Yuan's insistence has been lost. Because of the restriction of historical tradition, objective environment and self-cultural accumulation, it is difficult to obtain healthy and optimistic content and form for the impulse of life after the old rational norms are lifted.
However, it is worth noting that when the poet laments that life is short, although he is angry, he is not really willing to be decadent. Some people are still leading an honest and clean life, looking for spiritual eternity.
Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia-Nineteen Ancient Poetry