China’s first female poet is: Cai Yan (Wen Ji).
Cai Yan, also known as Wenji and Zhaoji. The year of birth and death is unknown. She was a native of Yuxian County, Chenliu County (now Qixian County, Kaifeng, Henan Province) in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the daughter of Cai Yong, a great writer of the Eastern Han Dynasty. She first married Wei Zhongdao. After her husband died, she returned to her home. Later, due to the invasion of the Huns, Cai Yan was kidnapped by the Xiongnu King Zuoxian, married to the Huns, and gave birth to two children. Twelve years later, Cao Cao unified the north, redeemed Cai Yan with a large sum of money, and married her to Dong Si.
Cai Yan is also good at literature, music, and calligraphy. "Sui Shu·Jing Ji Zhi" contains a volume of "Cai Wenji Collection", but it has been lost. The only works of Cai Wenji that can be seen now are two "Poems of Sorrow and Indignation" and "Eighteen Beats of Hujia".
There are not many records of Cai Yan's deeds in history, but the story of "Wen Ji returning to Han" has been widely circulated in all dynasties.
After returning to the Han Dynasty, Cai Yan wrote two "Poems of Sorrow and Indignation", one in five-character style and one in Sao style. Among them, the five-character poem focuses on "sentiment, confusion, and separation." It is a narrative poem based on love and events. It is the first autobiographical long narrative poem created by a literati in the history of Chinese poetry.
Zhang Yugu, a poetry critic in the Qing Dynasty, once wrote a poem praising Cai Yan's five-character poems: "Wen Ji Cai wanted to overwhelm Wenjun, and wrote a long and eloquent essay "Sorrow and Indignation". Lao Du Gu Zongzong Cao Qibu, ran Xiang "It's as good as the hairpin skirt." The general idea is that Cai Yan's talent surpassed that of Zhuo Wenjun, a talented woman in the Han Dynasty. The five-character narrative poems of Cao Zhi and Du Fu were also influenced by Cai Yan.
Because the poem "Poetry of Sorrow and Indignation" in Sao style is intended to be lyrical, the first and last stanzas are relatively brief about the experience of being captured in the Hu and returning to the Han Dynasty. The large natural scenery in the middle is used to exaggerate Cai Yan's grief of leaving his hometown. Mood, in these descriptions of scenery and human feelings, Cai Yan emphasized the differences between them and her hometown in China, in order to describe her deep, sad and angry mood in this environment that was very different from China.
Reference material: Cai Wenji_Baidu Encyclopedia