Taikang was a prosperous period of literature in the Western Jin Dynasty. During this period, the political situation was stable so that the literati could spend time and energy on literary creation and study. And as in such a well-off society the literati tended to forget themselves and sing praises of the emperor, the formalistic style of writing grew. In pursuit of gorgeous forms, the achievements in literary creation were not that remarkable, and the literati were self-conscious in seeking artistic expression of literary works. Therefore, literary works in this period were growing insubstantially flowery, upholding the orate style, the art of parallelism and flowers of speech. Among representatives of this mainstream, the best were Pan Yue and Lu Ji. Leading figures of Taikang literature also included three Zhangs (Zhang Zai, Zhang Xie, and Zhang Kang), two Lus (Lu Ji and Lu Yun), two Pans (Pan Yue and Pan Ni) and one Zuo (Zuo Si).

The emergence of Taikang style was an inevitable process with self-consciousness in literature. Common features of Taikang poems were elaborate language and parallel structure. Parallelism in five-character poems was, in the first place, a reform of prosaism from prosaism of the Han Dynasty to the parallel prose style of the Six Dynasties. Reviews on Taikang literature are mostly critical. The first characteristic of Taikang and Western Jin literature was the weakening of traditional spirit of religion and politics, and the second characteristic, in correspondence with the first, was the pursuit of literary skills and formal beauty. However, it has to be noted that Taikang literature was also a restoration of the late Zhengshi literature.