"Cao Jue Ge" is a song (a type of practical prose), not a poem (a type of literature), but it strictly follows the rhythm of modern poetry. There are 106 couplets in the whole text. Except for the first and last two couplets, they all use antithesis, which completely conforms to the rules of long rhythm (rhyme arrangement); the first sentence enters rhyme, ***107 rhyme, although it is not a rhyme to the end, but it all uses flat rhyme; 212 Sentences, only "Don't make Yong Weili" and "Cha Ju Rong share the same relatives" violate the "Sanping Diao", "Fields and moons become wild, seven and nine are silent" one couplet is wrong, "Knees in Tengzhong feel wronged" It loses its cohesion with the couplet "Bie Lie Kan Tou Ping" in the first couplet. It is well known in the poetry world that the rhythm of poetry originated from the new poetry style "Yongming style" proposed by Shen Yue during the Yongming period of Emperor Wu of Qi in the Southern Dynasty. It was based on Zhou Yong's discovery of the four tones of Chinese characters that were inspired by the translation of Indian Buddhist scriptures and Sanskrit phonology. It was not until the early Tang Dynasty that it matured.
The "Cao Jue Song" includes "Wang Xi's Cao Jue Song" and "Dong Qichang's Cao Jue Song". The words and sentences are the same, and the cursive techniques of the characters are also similar. The emergence of "Cao Jue Song" is not accidental. Regular script had reached its peak in the Tang Dynasty. Calligraphers in the Song Dynasty turned to seek to make achievements in cursive script and vigorously promoted calligraphy. The cursive script of the "Two Kings" was fully studied. "Cao Jue Song" should be the product of this background. Presumably the author named his painstaking work to Wang Xizhi in order to make it more authoritative in developing and standardizing cursive script.
"Cao Jue Song" can be called a treasure for learning "Youjun Cao Technique". It not only has the artistic beauty of calligraphy and the rhythmic beauty of poetry, but also has very incisive content. It only uses 1060 words to clearly explain the cursive techniques of hundreds of commonly used characters. Since the verses are closely integrated with the copybook, when reading, it feels like a good teacher is teaching the verses while demonstrating them. After memorizing the verses, it feels like you have a cursive dictionary in your mind that is easy to read. The author of "Cao Jue Song" is not only a poet and calligrapher, but also a great educator.