Why is Nineteen Ancient Poems regarded as the mother of poetry?

Nineteen Ancient Poems is a short lyric poem written by a group of unknown poets in the late Han Dynasty. The Mirror of Ancient Poems evaluates it as the mother of poetry. Its content mainly reflects the pain brought to the people by the social unrest in the late Han Dynasty. It inherits the realistic tradition of The Book of Songs and absorbs the nutrition of the folk songs of Han Yuefu.

Nineteen ancient poems pay attention to lyricism and melt things with emotion; Secondly, in structure, Yuefu folk songs generally take the development order of things as the clue, and the works in Nineteen Ancient Poems mostly take the rhythm of emotional ups and downs as the main line; In terms of language, later generations evaluated Yuefu folk songs as: quality but not vulgar, shallow and deep, near and far. Nineteen ancient poems are: rhyme follows language, and interest follows rhyme. Known as "a scholar speaks a proverb". In artistic conception, Yuefu folk songs can be said to be profound, while nineteen ancient poems can be said to have far-reaching influence.

Nineteen Ancient Poems has two characteristics: abundant style and poetic mother, which shows that it plays an important role in the great transformation of classical poetry from ancient times to middle ages (with Jian 'an period at the end of Han Dynasty as the boundary). From the aesthetic point of view, the poems in the pre-ancient times, whether the Book of Songs, Songs of the South or Han Yuefu, are all natural outpouring of the author's heart, while from the literary works, they can be said to be unconscious literary works. Jiao Ran, a Tang priest, called it in his poetic style: God-given truth speaks louder than words.