For example, the History of China Literature, edited by Yuan Xingpei, writes Cao Cao and Cao Zhi together in one section and Cao Zhi separately in another. Obviously, Cao Zhi has the highest status; Zhu Dongrun's Selected Works of China Literature also contains the most works of these three people, so it is not difficult to see that this personal work is very important and needs to be read more. Poems compiled by Rong in the Southern Dynasties took Cao Zhi as the most important and ranked as the top grade. Xie Lingyun, who was never modest, suddenly lost his eggplant after reading Cao Zijian's poems. He said, I Xie Lingyun, though a scholar in the world, is only one-ninth of Cao Zijian's. I won't give too many examples. It is not difficult to draw a conclusion from these. Cao Zhi is the strongest of the three and should be given a gold medal. Is there any basis for this statement?
Admittedly, Cao Zijian is not a hollow reputation. China's evaluation of him is: he has a high backbone, adopts Hua Mao's words, is elegant and resentful, and has a literary talent. The main point is that Cao Zijian's poems are domineering, literary, elegant and vulgar. The implication is that he has all the qualities that all excellent poets have. This is not too much to say. It is said that he is strong and domineering. The typical work is "White Horse", which describes a young and brave ranger, saying that he: drives away the Huns and leaves the humble; Said he died in a national disaster, he suddenly felt that he was going to die. The whole poem exudes a heroic spirit, and today's idiom empathy comes from this. It is said that he has literary talent, such as Beauty, which is about a mulberry-picking woman who is unhappy because she can't marry a lover.
The poem says: the beauty is idle, and the mulberry road is adopted. Ran Ran is full of soft stripes and leaves are falling. The rolled-up sleeves are clearly visible in her hands, and a gold bracelet is worn on her white wrist. Jin Jue wears a hairpin on his head and has a slim waist. The pearls are shining, and corals and pearls are interspersed. Luo Yi is swaying, fluttering and returning with the wind. Her look back left a charming light, and the smell of her whistle was like the smell of orchids. This beautiful writing was hard to see in the previous generation, but Cao Zijian began to create such a large number of conscious beautiful writing. It is said that he can be elegant or vulgar, not to mention elegant. Popular works, such as the trip to Noda's oriole, show that there are many trees in Taiwan, and the sea is full of waves. If you don't have a sword in your hand, why make more friends! There are no birds in the hedge? I saw the harrier pouncing on the trap. Zhang set a net, how happy he was to see the oriole, and how sorry he was to see the teenagers struggling in Eurasia. He drew his sword to block the net, and Siskin of Eurasia was able to fly away from the land of suffering. Wings fly high into the sky, expressing gratitude to the rescued Eurasian Siskin. The general idea is that a sparrow strayed into the net to avoid a kite. The young man was brave and drew his sword and cut the net. After the bird was saved, he was very grateful to the young man. It is easy to understand both in language and subject matter, unlike fairy tales written for kindergarten children. In addition, the five-character poems were basically formed from the Yuefu of Han Dynasty, and the 19 ancient poems in the late Eastern Han Dynasty were basically formed there, while the five-character literati poems were fully mature here in Cao Zijian. Thus, Cao Zijian is indeed an accomplished poet in all aspects.
I don't object to the above statement, because the orientation of academic research is to look at comprehensive strength, but as far as personal preference is concerned, I still support Cao Cao for the simple reason that the sophistication of poetry still belongs to Cao Cao. In other words, compared with Cao Cao and Cao Zhi, Cao Zhi's poems are still slightly immature, and some chapters are somewhat artificial. In my opinion, my son is not as good as Laozi!