Gushi shijiu shou 古詩十九首

Gushi shijiu shou 古詩十九首 "Nineteen ancient poems" is a collection of anonymous ancient regular poems (shi 詩) from the Han period 漢 (206 BCE-220 CE).

The collection known under this name first appears in the Liang-period 梁 (502-557) anthology Wenxuan 文選 of Xiao Tong 蕭統 (501-531), where they are grouped in the section miscellaneous poems (zashi 雜詩).

All nineteen poems are written in the style of five-syllable verses (wuyan shi 五言詩). They were not written by one author, but were composed over an extended period of time. The term gushi "ancient poems" emerged during the Three Empires 三國 (220-280) and Jin 晉 (265-420) periods and was used for anonymous poems from the Han period with their particular style and themes (love, friendship, farewell, mourning). At the same time, the genre of gushi was also given a standard status that contemporary writers could imitate. Many famous poets from the Jin and the Southern Dynasties 南朝 (420~589) periods wrote poems in the gushi style, for instance, Lu Ji 陸機 (261-303), Tao Yuanming 陶淵明 (Tao Qian 陶潛, c. 365-427) or Bao Zhao 鮑照 (c. 414-466).

The literary critics Liu Xie 劉勰 (d. 522, author of Wenxin diaolong 文心雕龍) and Zhong Rong 鍾嶸 (c. 468-518, author of Shipin 詩品) described the particular features of the gushi. As a critical and popular genre, gushi were also included in anthologies like the Wenxuan and Xu Ling's 徐陵 Yutai xinyong 玉臺新咏. These authors also fixed the rules for the definition of gushi as dating from the Han period and written by an anonymous author. The same criteria apply for the "music bureau poems" (yuefu 樂府) from the Han period, so that gushi are also often counted in the same category of poetry as the yuefu-style poems. The familiarity of the gushi with the yuefu poems can be seen in the outer shape, the themes, and also in the wordings, which are often very similar or even identical. Yet compared with the yuefu poems the gushi poems are more refined and skilled.

During the Liang period, there were in total 59 "ancient poems" recorded, of which only 30 have survived until today. Liu Xie, who praised the gushi for their beauty, mentioned two authors to whom some of the gushi could be attributed, namely Mei Sheng 枚乘 (d. 140 BCE), and Fu Yi 傅毅 (d. c. 90 CE). Zhong Rong wondered whether the one or the other gushi poem had not been written by Cao Zhi 曹植 (192-232) or Wang Can 王粲 (177-217), famous authors from the Jian'an reign-period 建安 (196-219) of the very late Eastern Han era 東漢 (25-220 CE). The Ming-period 明 (1368-1644) scholar Wang Shizhen 王世貞 (1526-1590) brought forward arguments for the authorship of Mei Sheng, Zhang Heng 張衡 (78-139) or Cai Yong 蔡邕 (132-192). Modern scholars date the Nineteen Ancient Poems to the second century CE.

The political conditions of that era were often unfavourable for members of the middle- and lower-class officials and literati. Many of them had to leave their homes to seek better prospects. The hardships of travel and farewelling parents and family are frequently mentioned themes, alongside the brevity of life and poverty. However, the luxurious and opulent aspects of life, enjoyed by the landed aristocracy rich enough to possess wealth, are also depicted. Themes of love between husband and wife, or the hope of achieving immortality, also feature prominently. The Nineteen Ancient Poems thus serve as an excellent insight into social life and the personal circumstances under which literate individuals lived during the Later Han period. Many poems are written from the perspective of a woman longing for her husband or mourning his infidelity or death.

The literary quality of the gushi poems is relatively high. It corresponds to the old pattern of invoking (xing 興) a situation by the description of a natural scene that then immediately goes over into the sphere of private grief. Topics, themes or wordings are often similar to those in the songs of the Shijing 詩經 "Book of Songs", but much more intimate than in this older anthology.

Apart from the Nineteen Ancient Poems, there are still some other gushi poems surviving in anthologies like Yuefu shiji 樂府詩集 or Yutai xinyong or in the encyclopaedia Yiwen leiju 藝文類聚. The oldest commentary to the Nineteen Ancient Poems is to be found in the Wenxuan.

The modern scholar Sui Shusen 隋樹森 (1906-1989) has written the commentary Gushi shijiushou jishi 古詩十九首集釋.