Nineteen Old Poetry Analysis

The Nineteen Old Poems play an essential role in ancient Chinese literature. There are nineteen poems involved. Each of the poems expresses a unique theme.
The first poem I picked is “Nineteen Old Poems XIX” .
The poet describes the moonlight at the beginning of the poem. The description of the moonlight begins the whole poem and drives the whole content of the poem. There is only the poet himself in an unfamiliar city. The bright moonlight makes him miss for his hometown and relatives, especially during night time. According to a literary work named “Chinese poetry and its symbols”, “the moon” is one of the most popular imageries that often appears in “the lonely places of despair”. In this poem, the poet uses “the moonlight” as an imagery to express his feeling of missing for his hometown and family. The moon stands alone in the sky is like the poet himself alone lives in a city. Furthermore, the brighter the moonlight is at night makes the poet feel more depressed. The moonlight is very desolate, which is like his feeling of missing for his hometown.
Apart from the use of imagery, the poet describes his inner thoughts in the third and fourth sentence in the poem. The poet “pull on his clothes, rise and pace” because he misses for his hometown and family. As the poem says, “though travels are said to have their joys, …show more content…
Both of these two poems I have chosen express the thesis through using imageries. The use of “the moonlight” shows the poet’s feeling of missing for his hometown and the use of “the willows” shows the wife’s feeling of missing for her husband. Although these two poems use different imageries, they both express a feeling of missing for their loved ones and show a pessimistic life