The three Caos refer to Cao Cao, Cao Pi, Cao Zhi and his son. They all had high achievements in literature and were collectively known as the Three Cao in history.
Cao Cao (155-220), also known as Mengde, was an outstanding military strategist, politician, and poet, with more than 20 poems extant. Some of his poems truly reflect the turbulent social reality of the late Han Dynasty and the suffering of the people. For example, "Hao Li Xing" records the darkest and chaotic period of history before and after Dong Zhuo's Rebellion in the late Han Dynasty, and depicts the tragic reality caused by warlords' struggle for power: "The armor is infested with lice, and thousands of people die. The bones are exposed in the wild, thousands of miles away." No rooster crows. The thought of a hundred people is heart-breaking." Another part of the poem expresses his ambition in life and his ambition to unify the world. For example, "Guan Cang Hai" describes what he sees and feels when he climbs Jieshi and looks out at the sea, showing the author's spirit of swallowing up the universe and his broad mind; "Guan Suo Shou" expresses the positive and enterprising spirit of growing old even though his life is over; "Dan Ge Xing" It expresses the thirst for talents and the determination to make achievements. Cao Cao creatively used ancient Yuefu inscriptions to write about current events, such as "Xing Dew Xing" and "Hao Li Xing", which were originally elegies for funerals. However, in Cao Cao's writing, they were called "Records of the Late Han Dynasty" because of their vivid reflection of reality. In addition, his four-character poems inject new vitality into an already rigid form. Cao Cao not only pioneered the trend with his own creations, but also contributed to the prosperity and development of Jian'an literature with his advocacy of literature.
Cao Cao's prose most prominently embodies the clear, simple, gorgeous and powerful style that is very different from the Han Dynasty. His representative works, "Let the County Be Mingming" and "The Order of Promoting Talents without Concerning Character and Behavior" are written in a simple and natural way, clear and concise, not restricted by etiquette and law, without any ornamentation, expressing his heart directly and sincerely.
Cao Pi (187-226), named Zihuan, was the second son of Cao Cao. In 220 AD, he abolished the Han Dynasty and established himself as Emperor Wen of Wei. There are about 40 existing poems in various forms, including four-character, five-character, six-character, seven-character, and miscellaneous words. Most of them are expressions of feelings about life and reflections on life philosophy. In terms of subject matter, except for some banquet poems about the joy of traveling and enjoying sightseeing, most of them express the wanderers missing their relatives and hometown while doing military service, and the conscripts missing their wives and missing each other. The traditional themes are used to express the atmosphere of the era of chaos, decay and resentment, as well as the sorrow, separation, and chaos caused by many stories in life. The style is elegant and graceful. The most famous are the two poems "Yan Ge Xing", which are the earliest complete seven-character poems extant in my country and have had a significant impact on the development of song-style poetry in later generations. The first one describes a woman tossing and turning in a desolate autumn night, missing someone far away. It is delicate, euphemistic, lingering and pathos, and has been passed down for generations. The language of Cao Pi's articles has gradually become more beautiful, and the anti-pornographic and lyrical meanings are relatively strong, which represents the tendency of articles from quality to elegance. For example, "A Letter to Wu Zhi" depicts the feelings of friends and his own relaxed temperament while reminiscing about old travels and lamenting the deceased. The emotions are sad and sincere, the language is fluent and tactful, and the writing is elegant and meaningful. It is a masterpiece that is both subtle and affectionate, and full of emotion and prose.
Cao Zhi (192-232), named Zijian, was the fourth son of Cao Cao. He was talented and talented. There are more than 90 existing poems, which were created in the 25th year of Jian'an and are divided into two periods.
There are two main categories of his early works. One is sentimental and sad. For example, the two poems of "Song Ying Shi" describe the desolate and dilapidated scene of Luoyang, and "Taishan Liang Fu Yin" describes the extremely poor life of the people on the border. Showing deep sympathy for the people. The other type expresses the ideals and ambitions of making achievements and is filled with optimism and romance. For example, "The White Horse" expresses his heroic feelings of "sacrifice himself to go to the national disaster, seeing death as if he were returning home" through the image of the heroic You Bing ranger who rushes to the national disaster.
In the later period, he mainly expressed his grief and indignation at being dismissed and abandoned. There are roughly four categories of themes: one is to express the anger of oneself and his friends being persecuted. The representative work is "Giving the White Horse to Wang Biao". The whole poem is divided into seven chapters, angrily accuses Cao Pi's group of cruel persecution of brothers and princes, and expresses one's own grief. , fear, desolation, anger and other tortuous and complex emotions. The second is the traditional theme of boudoir, which expresses one's own feelings through the lamentations of missing and abandoned wives. For example, "Seven Sorrowful Poems" expresses one's own experiences and emotions on behalf of missing wives, with sad feelings and novel imagination. The third is to express one's heart directly and express one's ambition. For example, the fifth chapter of "Miscellaneous Poems" directly expresses one's ambition to generously serve the country and not be willing to live idle. The fourth is the poems about traveling to immortals. Except for a few poems about seeking immortality and immortality, most of them use the traditional theme of traveling to immortals to express their yearning to live in seclusion due to the dangers of the world.
Cao Zhi’s poems are both literary and spiritual, and he has achieved high achievements. He developed the subject matter and content of poetry in many aspects. In art, he paid attention to the description of sounds and colors and the elaboration of techniques. He was creative and greatly enriched the artistic expression of poetry. Zhong Rong's "Poetry" commented on his poems: "The bones are extremely high, the words are gorgeous, the emotions are both elegant and resentful, and the style is elegant." Cao Zhi was also the first literati to write five-character poems vigorously. There are three-thirds of the existing poems. The second is a five-character poem. With his outstanding creations, he made great contributions to the transformation of my country's classical poetry from simple folk songs to literati poems with a refined quality. He is worthy of being the most outstanding representative of the Jian'an poetry circle.
Cao Zhi's prose is lyrical and expressive, and his narrative theory is concise and orderly, with a strong emotional color. He quotes from classics and classics, as if he could pick them up at his fingertips and use them with ease. For example, "Seeking Self-Examination Table" quotes extensively from classics and facts, repeatedly uses metaphors, advances layer by layer, and expresses one's loyalty and eagerness for success in a vivid and tactful way. In terms of artistic form, a large number of parallel sentences are used, but they can be alternated between parallel sentences and scattered sentences. The sentences are of varying lengths and well-proportioned, so they are neat and tidy without the disadvantage of being weak.
His "Ode to the Goddess of Luo" was written in the third year of Huang Chu (222) when Cao Zhi remembered the legend of Mi Fei, the god of Luoshui, when he was passing through Luoshui. The whole article has delicate brushwork and gorgeous diction, which vividly depicts the beautiful, smart and ethereal image of the goddess, and vividly expresses the endless sorrow and unattainable despair when humans and gods meet and cannot communicate.