Cao Pi (187-226) is the second son of Cao Cao. Relying on the foundation laid by his father, Dai Han proclaimed himself emperor, with the title of Wei. Cao Pi is knowledgeable, diligent in writing and attaches great importance to literary creation. In his poems, Yuefu lyric poems and ancient poems account for about half each. A considerable number of works follow the theme of folk songs and are good at writing homesickness and homesickness. The language also has obvious characteristics of folk songs, which is popular and fluent, but slightly more refined than ordinary folk songs. Express your feelings, be good at euphemism and meticulous.
Among the five-character poems, the two-character miscellaneous poems are slightly similar to the nineteen ancient poems, with elegant words and shallow feelings. The seven words of Ge Yanxing are particularly famous, and the second word was recorded today:
The autumn wind is bleak, the weather is cool, and the vegetation shakes and exposes frost. The geese resigned and returned to Nanxiang. I miss you and your guests, and my heart breaks. I miss my hometown, so why did you send it to stay for a long time? I am alone in my room, afraid of forgetting my worries, and I don't feel tears on my clothes. Short songs cannot be long. The bright moon shines on my bed, and it's still early for the stars to flow west. Penny and Weaver looked at each other from a distance. Why should I restrict the river beam?
This poem makes use of the advantages of seven-character poem, with harmonious and soothing syllables, detailed and vivid description, touching feelings and fresh and beautiful language, achieving the unity of various effects, and successfully showing the pattern of a woman missing her husband on a sleepless autumn night, without breaking away from the spirit of folk songs and having her own creation. In the Han Dynasty, Zhang Heng's poem Four Sorrow still left traces of Sao style, and the language was relatively simple. In contrast, Xing is more mature and beautiful, which is a new symbol in the history of seven-character poetry.
Poetic style
Among Cao Zhi's father and son, Cao Pi's poetic style is the closest to folk songs. But he also has some poems with different styles. For example, Drinking Horses in the Cave of the Great Wall, Li, Going to Guangling at once, etc., describing military life is not as bleak and tragic as Cao Cao's poems, but it is also quite imposing. The first half of "Immediately Arrive at Guangling": "Look at the soldiers by the river. If the water is first-class, there will be no soup. Spears turned into mountains, and armor shone in the sun. This brave soldier is very brave. Who is a big river, a reed can sail. " It can be said that the gas field is extraordinary, but the second half is too weak to match. The other kind is poems about feasting, such as Lotus Pond Works and Yu Xuanwu's Steep Works, which are as gorgeous as Cao Zhi's poems. All these indicate that Jian 'an literati poems are divorced from folk songs.
essay
In Cao Pi's prose, there are two books with the nature of Wu that are literary. The following paragraph is particularly remarkable when recalling the previous tour:
Since the sun is hidden, the moon will follow, and we will travel in the backyard with the car. The wheels turned slowly and the participants were silent. From the cool breezy night, a touch of sadness. Happy mourning, sad and sad!
Letters were originally a practical style. Although a few literati letters in Han Dynasty are lyrical, their subjective consciousness of pursuing literary effects is not obvious. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, letters between literati became more and more popular, and beautiful words were used to write scenery and express feelings, which consciously enhanced their literary color. Cao Pi played a leading role in this trend.
Cao Zhi's writing is obviously based on the death of Cao Cao and the accession of Cao Pi. Previously, he was a handsome son, but since then, although he was worth a lot, he has been crowned king, but he has become a prisoner. He used to be a passionate teenager, but later he fell into a desolate middle age. Most of his most outstanding works were created in his later period. The early masterpiece "White Horse" has a young image, a white knight of a ranger, and a battle-hardened battlefield hero. The later masterpiece "Noda Oriole" also has the image of a teenager, but it can only "draw the sword and get the net" to save an oriole who has strayed into the net. "The oriole wants to fly, fly to the sky, thank you, young man." Cao Zhi is good at literature, but his ambition is not here. What he pursues is "loyal service to the country, benefiting the people and establishing a career, leaving a lasting legacy, and opening up the stone", and he longs for the East to destroy "Wu who is not a minister" and the West to swallow "Shu who disobeys orders" and "seclusion is not my ambition, worrying about the country and the people"! However, family reality does not allow him to do so. Fundamentally speaking, he really does not have the qualities of a politician. After all, he is famous as a writer.
Cao Zhi (192—232) is Zijian, Cao Pidi. He was once named King Chen and died of "thinking" after his death, so he was called king by the world. This is Cao Zijian. Among Jian 'an writers, he is the one whose works are the most intact, which has the greatest influence on literature at that time and later generations, and is highly appraised by most later generations.
Cao Zhi was clever and talented since he was a child, and was once favored by Cao Cao, which led him to compete with Cao Pi for inheritance. In the end, Cao Zhi failed because he was unrestrained and lacked the maturity and sophistication needed by politicians. After Cao Cao's death, Cao Zhi was severely persecuted by Cao Pi. His name is prince, but he can't move freely and is easily accused, just like a prisoner. After Ming Di and Cao Rui succeeded to the throne, Cao Zhi's situation improved, but he still could not be trusted, his ambition was empty, and he could not display it. Finally, he died of depression.
Creation stage
Cao Zhi's life and creation can be divided into two periods. There are obvious differences in content and style in his early and later works. Cao Zhi's years of turmoil in his early years witnessed great social destruction, which inevitably had a profound impact on his early works. Although only two of his poems describing social disorder have been preserved, they are still worthy of attention. Among them, the history of Ying Ying is particularly prominent:
Climb to Osaka, North Mang, overlooking Luoyang Mountain. Luoyang is lonely and the palace is burning.
The walls are squatting, and the thorns are towering. Not the old people, but the new teenagers.
If one party does not act, there will be no more fields. I have been wandering for a long time and know nothing about strangers and buildings.
Why is nakano depressed? It's a thousand miles away. I can't say where I live.
Luoyang, once the capital of the Eastern Han Dynasty, was once extremely prosperous. After Dong Zhuo rebelled, this place was in ruins. This poem, from palaces to residential houses, from cities to villages, gradually unfolds, depicting a bleak and desolate scene. Luoyang is a place with special significance. The author's mourning for Luoyang actually contains sorrow for the whole society and the whole history of the late Han Dynasty, and its connotation is very profound.
In Cao Zhi's early works, more is to express personal interests and ambitions. For example, "White Horse" is a ranger theme, but the heroic boy in the poem is actually the embodiment of the author's self. "In a strong man, not favoritism. Give your life to the national disaster, and you will feel that you are dying. " Expressed the author's pursuit of a magnificent life. "Piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, piano, piano. The boater is embarrassed, but the strong man is worried! "Show heroism. Most of these poems are cheerful and enterprising, and at the same time they are full of self-confident and conceited juvenile spirit.
In addition, because Cao Zhi lived in a wealthy environment in the early stage, together with Cao Pi, he interacted with Cao Cao's literati as a noble child, so he also wrote many poems of feasting, singing and answering, such as "Public Banquet", "Sitting with the King" and "Cockfighting", which were generally peaceful, gorgeous and very aristocratic. There are also works of this kind, such as Cao Pi and RoyceWong, among which Cao Zhi is the most prominent. Of course, this kind of poetry rarely has profound connotation, but as a literary phenomenon, it reflects the expansion of the theme of poetry in the Jian 'an era and more reflects people's daily life. At the same time, it also reflects that with the emergence of literati literature groups, the entertainment and social functions of poetry are more obvious.
In Cao Zhi's later period, under the suspicion and persecution of Cao Pi's father and son, he endured humiliation and survived, feeling extremely sad and depressed, and the content and style of his works changed obviously. That kind of elegant poetry rarely appears again, and some works that are unwilling to be idle and require to display their talents are not as heroic and confident as their early works, but appear deep and sad. More works focus on expressing disappointment with personal fate and resentment against Cao Pi's political group. These poems are full of suffering from oppression, longing for a free life, and a feeling of sadness that life will be consumed in humiliation and mediocrity and lose its due value.
Some works here are written by metaphor and symbol, which reflect the inner injustice and sadness in a tortuous way.
For example, Pretty Woman imitates the folk song Shang Mo Sang of Han Yuefu in form, but the theme has changed. After the beauty and nobility of the heroine are laid out one by one in the poem, it ends like this: "Beauty yearns for high righteousness, but it is difficult to be virtuous alone. Everyone was stunned and knew what they were thinking. In the prime of life, I am in my heart, and I sigh at midnight! " Reveal talent, ambition, difficult pain. Another example is "Xu Wei Pian", in which the images scattered around by the wind and grass symbolize the fate of being repeatedly moved and unable to get together with relatives, and express the wish of "connecting with the roots". Other works use radical language to express inner indignation. Among them, the most representative is Wang Biao for a White Horse. This poem was written in Huang Chu for four years (223). At that time, the king entered the DPRK routinely, and Cao Zhang died suddenly in Beijing. Cao Zhi and Cao Biao returned to the fief, but they were forced to go their separate ways on the way. The whole poem is divided into seven chapters, with rich and complicated feelings. The hardships of the journey, the sadness of the separation of flesh and blood, the disappointment of life, the resentment that Cao Pi didn't dare to tell, the curse of the monitor, and the open-minded encouragement of the brothers are endless and touching.
In Cao Zhi's later poems, there is also a tendency to fundamentally doubt and deny life. This is because he can't give up the pursuit of life value and can't see any possibility of solving realistic contradictions. The last chapter of "Give a White Horse to Wang Biao" says:
Why bother? The letter of destiny is suspicious, and nothing seeks longevity. Pine nuts have been bullied for a long time. Change in four books, who can keep it for a hundred years?
Destiny is suspicious, immortals are illusory, life is not eternal, and the real world is just darkness. Originally, Jian 'an literature had a cheerful and exciting tone. But this tone is based on self-confidence in pursuing the value of life. When the harsh power struggle destroyed this confidence, the style of poetry also changed. This opened the atmosphere of Zhengshi literature. But fundamentally speaking, the passionate spirit of Cao Zhi's early poems is similar to the sad mood of his later poems. It is precisely because Jian 'an literati have a passionate pursuit of free will and the value of life that their sorrow is so strong when this pursuit is suppressed. The same is true of Zhengshi literature from this point of view.
Characteristics of Cao Zhi's Poems
Although the contents of Cao Zhi's poems in the early and late periods are obviously different, they are full of emotion and have distinct personality characteristics. More importantly, through his life's creative practice, he combined the artistic accomplishment of literati, the tradition of literati literature with the characteristics of Yuefu folk songs, which not only absorbed the advantages of folk songs, but also changed the unpretentious face of folk songs. Hua Mao's poems were criticized by Shi Pin, and Huang Kan added "the quality of ballads is inseparable" in Shi Pin Shuo Shu. Cao Zhi's poems really have both sides. Specifically, the following five points are worth noting:
First, among Cao Zhi's existing poems, Yuefu poems account for nearly half. But these poems are basically sung without music. Liu Xie's "Wen Xin Diao Long" called it "Don't call it an actor, call it a thank you for the strings." This is an obvious sign of the literati culture of Yuefu songs.
Second, like other poets in Jian 'an era, Cao Zhi also wrote many poems that followed the theme of folk songs and imitated the style of folk songs. However, he did not simply imitate it, but made appropriate transformation. Sometimes, he combines the symbolism of Sao style to inject pure personal thoughts and feelings into the image of wandering women. The above-mentioned Beauty and Xu Jie, as well as several articles in Seven Injuries and Miscellaneous Poems are all the same. Such as "Miscellaneous Poems" 4:
In the south, there is a beautiful woman whose face is as fragrant as Rong Ruo peach blossom and as beautiful as plum blossom. In the morning, she came to the shore of Jiangbei, and she went to Xiaoxiang Island at night.
The breath of the world looks down on the beautiful face, but who is cypraeae concha's smile? In a blink of an eye, the years have passed, but the beauty of youth is hard to exist forever.
Here, the so-called "beauty dying" in Nine Songs is combined with the folk song style in Han Yuefu, expressing the anguish of lack of talent and regret for limited life, which is simple and elegant. Compared with Cao Pi's Ge Yanxing, which simply imitates folk songs, it is more personalized, tortuous and intriguing.
Thirdly, the structure of Cao Zhi's poems is exquisite and rarely straightforward. Especially at the beginning, we often use a few subjective feelings to describe the scenery, render a specific atmosphere and cover the whole article. For example, the phrase "How much the tree hates the platform, and the waves are lifted by the sea" in Noda's "Huangquexing" implies the author's uneven mood and sinister situation with violent and turbulent scenes; In Seven Sorrows, the phrase "The bright moon shines on a tall building, and the time drifts away" lays the sad tone of the whole poem with an ethereal and trance-like scene. Therefore, Shen Deqian said that he was "extremely skilled in intonation" ("On Poetry"). Although this is learned from the figurative sentences of folk songs, its role in the whole poem is much more important and stronger than the usual figurative sentences.
Fourthly, "Poetry and Fu desire beauty" is a common phenomenon in Jian 'an literature, among which Cao Zhi is the most prominent and has the greatest influence on later generations. Different from folk Yuefu, his poems are often brightly colored, using more written language and paying attention to beautiful, neat and nuanced descriptions. It just doesn't look profound. The most noteworthy thing here is the use of duality. Before Jian 'an, ci fu and even prose had obviously tended to be parallel prose, but no one had consciously used this rhetorical device in poetry. During the Jian 'an period, Cao Zhi and RoyceWong, as great poets of Ci and Fu, began to introduce it into poetry creation, and Cao Pi and others occasionally tried. At the same time of antithesis, it is a phenomenon of refining words. For example, in Cao Zhi's poems, "first frost shines with jade, and the breeze floats in the pavilion" ("Gift to Rockett"), "The day is full of youth, and the rain is still flying in the dust" ("Sitting in the Prince") and "Qiu Lan is in Nagano, Zhu Hua is in the pond" ("Public Banquet"), in which the verbs have been carefully tempered to obtain the warning effect. Although this kind of poetry does not account for a large proportion in his works, it is more and more common in later literati poems.
Fifthly, in Jian 'an literati's poems, more descriptions of natural scenery began to appear, with Cao Zhi as the main representative. This is also a rare phenomenon in folk Yuefu in Han dynasty, which has a great influence on later literati poems. The following is a passage from The Public Banquet:
Visit the West Park in the clear night, and fly with it. The moon is bright, and the line is uneven.
Qiu Lan was attacked by Nagsaka and Zhu Hua. Divers leap out of the clear waves, and good birds sing.
God meets Dan hub, and the optical network moves with the wind.
These are five main points of Cao Zhi's combination of literati literature and folk Yuefu in his poetry creation. His outstanding achievements in this respect made him occupy a particularly important position in the development of poetry in Jian 'an and even the whole Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.
Cao Zhi's Prose Cifu
In addition to poetry, Cao Zhi's prose and ci fu have also made outstanding achievements. In the book, Yang Zude commented on the famous contemporary scribes and poured out his heart. Because Yang Xiu is closely related to him, he speaks casually and has more lyrical elements. From the article, we can see Cao Zhi's conceited and exposed poet character. "Seeking the form of self-examination" requires the appointment of Ming Di, hoping to get the opportunity to display his talents and establish his political achievements. Cao Zhi was originally a man with lofty ideals and self-confidence, and took "making contributions forever and being perfect" as his life goal. Being idle for a long time made him deeply depressed, and he had a regret that he was useless. So this essay is impassioned and full of emotion.
There are more than 30 extant ci poems of Cao Zhi, including those lost, which shows that he has made great efforts here. These works can be said to represent the transformation of Jian 'an Ci and Fu. Its characteristics are: first, the space is short, and there is no long and huge system popular in Han Dynasty; Second, the topic is wide and the content is diverse. Among them, the Duckbilled Duck Fu wrote an animal fable with dialogue, which is rare in Fu. Third, it is lyrical and closely related to the author's life and thoughts; Fourth, the language is gorgeous and fluent, without the disadvantages of rhetoric.
Luo Shen Fu is the representative work of Cao Zhi. The content fictionalizes the story of Luoshui meeting the goddess. Previous people have speculated a lot about the moral of this article, but they can't prove it exactly. Before Cao Zhi, Chen Lin, RoyceWong and Yang Xiu all wrote Goddess Fu, all of which imitated Song Yu's Goddess Fu and Gaotang Fu, which shows that this theme was very popular at that time. Cao Zhi's Ode to Luoshen is also the product of this trend. I'm afraid he's just pretending to be a mythical figure, subliming the secular love between men and women to a poetic perfection. Compared with previous works, The Ode to the Goddess of Luo plays up the melancholy between the hero and heroine, but it can't be handed over because of the different ways of man and god, avoiding the vulgar hints that are often hidden under the myth color in this kind of works, with elegant style and sincere feelings, and high aesthetic value. The appearance and modality of the goddess are described in detail and vividly, which is unprecedented. As shown at the beginning:
Its shape is also beautiful, graceful as Youlong, glorious as autumn chrysanthemum and spring pine in Hua Mao. Like a light Yun Zheyue, like a romantic return to snow. Looking from a distance, if the sunrise rises; If you check it forcibly, it will burn like a lotus.
Here, a series of the most beautiful and ingenious images are used to compare the goddess. Gorgeous language is full of vitality and gives readers full aesthetic satisfaction.