This poem was written after Cai Yan () left Xiongnu and returned to Han Dynasty in the 12th year of Jian 'an of Emperor Xian of Han Dynasty (2007). According to "Biography of Women in the Later Han Dynasty" and "Biography of Dong Si's Wife", there was chaos in the Eastern Han Dynasty during Xingping. Captured by the Hu people, he was forced to marry the Southern Xiongnu Zuo. He lived in Xiongnu for twelve years and gave birth to two children.
Cao Cao once made friends with Cai Wenji's father, Cai Yong, and sympathized with Cai Yong because he had no children, so he sent an emissary to redeem Cai Wenji and let her marry Dongsi again. Later, Cai Wenji was sentimental, divorced, and pursued grief and indignation. He wrote two poems of grief and indignation, one of which was a five-character poem and the other was a poem in Sao style.
Poetry appreciation
Poem of Sorrow and Indignation is the first autobiographical five-character narrative poem of China's poetry history. The whole poem consists of 108 sentences with 540 words. It vividly depicts the poet's tragic experience in the great turmoil at the end of the Han Dynasty, and also writes the blood and tears of the plundered people.
This poem records the social unrest and people's suffering at the end of Han Dynasty, with epic scale and tragic color. The poet's grief and indignation has a certain typical significance, which is the victim's blood and tears complaint against the tragedy maker. Every word is blood, and every sentence is tears. Poets are good at digging their own feelings and combining narrative and lyric closely. Although it is a narrative poem, the emotion is related to the words, the situation is commensurate, and the narrative is neither dull nor dry, nor broken or chaotic.