Compared with the five-character songs of Han Yuefu, Nineteen Ancient Poems has no essential difference in form except for musical factors. There are many overlapping appellations in the records of the Six Dynasties and even the Tang and Song Dynasties. For example, the ancient poem "Born less than 100 years" is also called Yuefu "Ximenxing", with similar words. For example, the ancient poem Meng Donghan said, "Guests come from afar and leave me a letter. On the one hand, it is Sauvignon Blanc, and on the other hand, it is a long separation "; And "Drinking Horses in the Great Wall Cave" by Han Yuefu says: "Guests come from afar and leave me a pair of carp. ..... words with rice, words seem to be memories. "
It can be seen that the relationship between ancient poetry and Yuefu was two in one in the Han Dynasty. Entering music is a Yuefu, while not entering music or losing one's reputation after entering music is an ancient poem. Therefore, Zhu Gan's Yuefu Justice in Qing Dynasty said: "Nineteen ancient poems are also ancient Yuefu." This nature of Nineteen Ancient Poems determines that it, like the Han Yuefu, inherited the characteristics of "feeling sorrow and joy, starting from things" since the Book of Songs, so it is called "wind surplus".
However, Nineteen Ancient Poems, which appeared as a group, is a distinctive type among many anonymous poems in the Han Dynasty. Compared with the general folk songs of Han Yuefu, there are the following similarities and differences in style:
1. Emotionally, they are both one thing and one poem, and the situation is mixed. Folk songs are more narrative, and narrative looks at feelings; Ancient poetry is more important than lyric, and it melts things with emotion. 2. From the structural point of view, both of them are muddy, and there is no trace of axe chisel. Folk songs are based on the natural order of things; Ancient poetry is driven to cut the facts according to the rhythm of emotional ups and downs.
3. Language is both natural and infectious. Folk songs, as Hu Yinglin said, are "quality without contempt, shallow and profound"; Ancient poetry is "rhyming with words, making it interesting", which was called "a scholar speaks everyday words" by Xie Zhen in Ming Dynasty. 4. The realm is determined by the above three aspects, and their styles are muddy and far-reaching. The folk song Shen Jin Shen Jue (Wang Yuyang dialect) has a profound environment; The ancient poem "I am disappointed in my feelings" (in Liu Xie's language) has a vast territory.
The fundamental reason for these similarities and differences is that the authors of Nineteen Ancient Poems are not laborers like Yuefu folk songs, but lower-level intellectuals with considerable cultural literacy. In order to better express their grievances caused by oppression, they rebelled against the fact that the upper rulers regarded literature as a minor art at that time, broke the habit of formally respecting the Book of Songs and Songs of the South only returning to sound and prose (and its flowing Han Fu), and boldly borrowed folk songs, thus separating the written language of literati from the written language of the people for more than 300 years. Taking the emerging five-character song poem-a kind of popular poem regarded by the upper-class literati as "self-cultivation, advocating music and multi-purpose" as the main creative means, and further developing the existing tendency of separating narrative and lyric in Han Yuefu, so that their own creation shows the similarities and differences compared with Han Yuefu, thus producing a new generation of "thrilling, one word is precious" (Zhong Rong language) poetry style and its expression techniques. Since the Middle Ages,