Cao Zhi's female poetry is a further development of the poetic image of "vanilla beauty" in Li Sao, which not only shows his pursuit of a wise monarch and political ideal, but also expresses his helplessness in not being reused through "beauty being abandoned".

First, beauty

Beauty images are rare in Cao Zhi's early poems, and most of them are used as foil, not as the main object of description. For example, the phrase "There are many enchantresses in the world, and a teenager in Luo Jing" is to describe the happy life of the prodigal son. The "temptress" is enchanting and charming. Although she is a beauty, she is only trying to attract the "Luo Jing teenager". There are also poems in Cao Zhi's poems that mainly describe beautiful women, but they only describe beautiful women and have no special significance or entrustment. For example, in Belle, the singer is described as "well dressed" and "enchanting in manners" with exquisite skills, and she "plays the piano for me", which makes the author lament that youth is fleeting, and there is no other meaning.

Second, dissatisfied with his wife.

The image of disgruntled women occupies a great space in Cao Zhi's female poems, which is Cao Zhi's inheritance and development of the image of "vanilla beauty" in Li Sao. The metaphor of "beauty" expresses the poet's pursuit of ideals. By writing about the unfortunate experience of unmarried or abandoned beautiful women in their prime, it can be compared that they have empty talents and ambitions, but they are not reused, so they can only waste their time, full of sadness and sorrow. For example, the description of the beauty of picking mulberry in Beauty uses "golden rings", "pearls" and "Cuilangxuan" to express the splendor of her clothes, describes her noble temperament with "looking forward to glory, roaring like the blue sky" and describes her peerless appearance with "Let China shine, who doesn't want her to show her face", but such a stunning beauty is "in full bloom". The images of dissatisfied women in Cao Zhi's poems can be divided into two categories: thinking about women and abandoning them.

(A) Thinking about women

Cao Zhi's poems about missing women not only describe the lovesickness of a woman who lives alone in a boudoir, but also make a sober and profound analysis of the situation of her husband and woman. In fact, this is the frustration and depression of the poet who was excluded and oppressed because he missed his wife. "Fu" refers to the emperor, and the poem of thinking about women expresses the author's deep expectation for the monarch, hoping that he can be reused, make contributions and have far-reaching influence. For example, in the poem "Seven Sorrow", a woman and her husband are separated for a long time. "You have been traveling for more than ten years, and my concubine often lives alone." The woman reflected in her thoughts and deeply realized that her husband was a "road sweeper" and she was a "mud cement". She also compared Cao Pi and Cao Zhi respectively, explaining the different status and situation of brothers and ministers. Their positions are very different, and it is difficult to be harmonious in this ups and downs. At the end of the poem, the woman deeply confessed that she would like to turn into the southwest wind and throw herself into her husband's arms, but at the end of the poem, she said, "A good husband can't stay. What should I do?" This is because the author hopes to be reused and realize his loyalty to the country, but his brother doubts himself, which makes him feel helpless and sad. This poem is sad, implicit and deep. It expresses a woman's yearning for her husband through her mouth and compares her desire for a virtuous gentleman.

(2) Disgruntled wife

If the poem "Thinking of Women" expresses the poet's expectation, I hope that those in power can reuse themselves and feel helpless about the doubts of those in power. Then, the poem of abandoning a wife is the poet's resentment that he has been abandoned, suspected and slandered for no reason. However, the poet's frustration is not fully expressed in his poems, but embodies the aesthetic pursuit of "golden mean". Poetry has the artistic characteristics of complaining without anger and containing without revealing.

There are abundant female images in Cao Zhi's poems, among which there are a large number of abandoned women images. These abandoned wives are abandoned for various reasons, some because they have no children or daughters, some because they are separated, some because their husbands like the new and hate the old, and some because they are getting older and their colors are fading. The poet described their thoughts and feelings in detail. In poetry, the poet compares himself to a woman, showing his resentment and helplessness of being suspected and not being reused. In this regard, abandoned wives and poets have feelings. This kind of poetry creation is not only an excellent poem about abandoning a wife, but also an excellent political lyric poem.

Cao Zhi's poems about abandoning his wife mainly include Abandoned Wife, Duckweed, Planting Gege and so on. For example, the beginning of "Abandoned Wife" did not directly write abandoned wife, but first wrote pomegranate, pomegranate tree "green leaves shake pale green, Dan flowers burn fiercely." The leaves are green and the flowers are red, but "kingfishers come to gather and caress their wings and lament", because pomegranate is beautiful, but "Danhua is not real". The beautiful pomegranate tree is rejected because it has no reality, and it can also get the plaintive cry of birds. If a beautiful woman is abandoned without children and daughters, and no one understands this comfort, she has to "return to the motherland without children and daughters." The poem expresses the sadness of abandoning his wife through various details, but still holds the expectation of "coming late and being good", expresses a feeling of resentment without anger, and also shows the poet's unremitting pursuit of making contributions. "Reality" and "Zi" in poetry refer to achievements. In other poems, when a woman encounters "forgetting her concubine when she is newly married", "It's going to be late for the Chinese New Year, and the beauty is unfaithful" and "feeling particularly guilty for no reason", she can only hate abandoning her for no reason, complaining instead of being angry and full of helplessness, which is also the expression of the poet's mood.