Nineteen Ancient Poems is a collection of poems compiled by Xiao Tong in the Southern Dynasties from unknown ancient poems. Its main content is to describe the changes of literati's thoughts during the period of national unrest in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. Nineteen Ancient Poems not only reveals the darkness of the real society, but also implies the poet's pursuit of lost moral principles.
The characteristics of the times of Nineteen Ancient Poems: Nineteen Ancient Poems have two characteristics, namely, the room to stir the wind and the land of the mother, which actually shows that it plays an important role in the great transformation of classical poetry from ancient times to the Middle Ages (bounded by the Jian 'an period at the end of Han Dynasty). From the aesthetic point of view, pre-ancient poems, whether the Book of Songs, Songs of the South or Hanshu, are simple. As a literary work, it can be called unconscious literary work. In the words of Jiao Ran in the Tang Dynasty, it is to tease the truth and speak from the highlands. In this 19 poem, you can already see the signs of refining words and making sentences and planning the layout of the article. In Jiao Ran's words, it is a place of ridicule and can be seen. On the other hand, it is different from Han Fu, which has no substantive meaning, and always expresses the center of creation with lyricism such as poetry and Sao. In fact, this has created an excellent tradition in China's ancient poems that both talent and emotion are equally important, and talents are controlled by qi, so that talents can achieve qi. It is precisely because of this that these anonymous ancient poems are paid more and more attention by poets and critics, and were first drafted by Lu Ji, Liu Xie and Liu Xie. Among them, 19 poems with special literary talent were collected as a group, which became the opening method of five-character ancient poems in later generations. [Limitations and Two Sides of Nineteen Ancient Poems] Things always have two sides, because the relationship between emotion and talent is a major contradiction in the history of poetry after the Middle Ages, and Nineteen Ancient Poems perfectly handles this contradiction. Therefore, whenever the formalistic poetic style rises in later generations, progressive poets always take Nineteen Poems as their own flags together with Poems, Sao and Han Yuefu, and the main role of Nineteen Poems in the history of poetry is positive. However, because the author of Nineteen Poems has a certain distance from the working people, the social life it reflects is not broad enough, and its poetic landscape is mainly implicit. Therefore, when later generations appeared in the history of thought, they all pointed to reality and were sharp. Or when promoting vigorous works and genres in style, some conservative poets and critics hold high the banner of Nineteen Poems as their weapons against these new things in the poetry world. Some works of Nineteen Poems show the idea of pursuing wealth, eating, drinking and having fun in time. In addition, the author is full of anger at reality and often confronts it with decadence and debauchery, which has become the excuse of some poets who escape from reality in later generations. In these respects, some works of Nineteen Poems show the idea of "eat, drink, eat, and be merry".