Jian’an literature (建安文学) refers to the poetry and prose of the Jian’an era (196–220), when Cao Cao controlled the Han court and gathered writers at Ye. Cao Zhi and Cao Pi were leading figures; the ‘Seven Masters of Jian’an’ included Wang Can, Chen Lin, and other noted writers. Their work—often concerned with the chaos of the age, ambition, and loss—shaped later Chinese literary tradition.
Cao Zhi’s Luoshen fu (‘Rhapsody on the Goddess of the Luo’) is one of the most famous fu of the period. Jian’an verse and prose are studied as a distinct phase in the history of Chinese literature.