The Studies On Cao Pi

Cao Pi is a politician and a litterateur as well. As a politician, he has been taken as an emperor without proper achievements, bearing the name of usurping the throng in an evil way. As a littérateur, his literature achievements are similar to his political image, receiving little attention and recognition. Such inertia of stereotyped misunderstanding continues to influence today's study on Cao Pi. Among the studies on Cao Cao, Cao Zhi and Cao Pi, people pay more attention to Cao Cao and Cao Zhi and Cai Pi only plays a minor role. There are few works and papers on the studies of Cao Pi. Historical studies on Cao Pi are short of general and profound viewpoints. In fact, as an emperor, he wiped out remaining harms, tried to unite the nation and implemented some reform policies which were followed by later people. His pioneering achievements in literature and cultural history have had great influence and were widely welcomed by later generations. There exists a deep gap between the prejudice and historical reality. Why is the gap so deep? How to use academic studies to bridge the gap? This thesis will try to make a specific analysis on these points.Starting with Cao Pi's political career, this study collects and analyzes historical materials to represent the real Cao Pi in history. During choosing heir to the throne, Cao Pi tempered himself, spread the principle of "choosing the eldest son as heir", and made full use of surrounding powers. While Cao Zhi couldn't steel himself, missed his tips here and there, called together the minorities to fight against Confucius heiring principle. In this political game, Pi and Zhi had put into use quite different strategies, Cao Pi's reserve had finally won over Cao Zhi's exaggeration. When succeeding to the throne, Cao Pi steadily dealt with the difficult situations both inside and outside, carefully planned the demising process, gave special treatments to Emperor Xian of Han and his imperial clans to reduce the political resistance, and successfully realized the dynasty subrogation, showing his excellent political talents. After being the emperor, he drew lessons from previous dynasties, tried to wipe out the old bad customs, carried on new policies on imperial clans and other relatives, and worked hard to unite the country, which displayed his outstanding political courage. Cao Pi had completely changed himself in temperament and on hwo to deal with issues after he took the throne, especially showing cruelty in setting up his authority as an emperor. Cao Pi shew typical political person rationality in his life, and he worked hard to win honor and glory, having no mercy on intimidating powers. There are pursuits as well as resolution, softness as well as coldness in Cao Pi's political career. The variation in his character illustrates a real life.Cao Pi's literature writing and its influence have always been closely connected with his political career and image. The interaction between literature and politics distincted Cao Pi from his contemporary writers. He expressed his blue feelings by writing and served his political objectives in literary forms. The political indifference and literary affection are well combined with Cao pi's writing. Cao Pi's Seven-character per line poem and Mixed body poem broke a new path for people in Tang Dynasty. On Writing was the first sign of literature criticism, initiating the term"Jianan seven". This thesis made some comments and had a deep interpretation on Cao Pi's pioneering contribution. He boldly explored the literary form and always followed his heart to carry out the aesthetic literary writing with the exception of contemporary influence. Later generations'acceptance of Cao Pi's literature was often related to political ecology and philosophy. At first, it rose and fell together with the tide of respecting Cao or debasing Cao. During Ming and Qing dynasties, he had stereotyped the image of a treacherous court official. But literature criticism had gradually separated him from his political image. In general, comments on Cao Pi's literature are more debased than praised in history. During this period, Liu Xie,Wang Shizhen and other people tied to rectify the deviation, which had little effect nevertheless due to the static state of philosophy.It led to much cognition deviation for nowadays people to right and objectively receive Cao Pi and his literature. In the process of reorganizing Cao Pi's literary achievements and influence, this thesis goes to great lengths to accurately and completely describe the history of accepting and influencing of his literature.Cao Pi's literature was closely related to many writers and personalities in Jian'an period. Especially the collected literary materials about Cao Pi were involved in arising, prosperity, and disintegration. This thesis tries to validate Jianan Literature's stages and Dian Lun's composing time and offers some suggestions. It proposes that the leader of Juanan Literature was not Cao Pi but Cao Cao. On the relation between Cao Cao and Cao Pi, it maintains that Cao Pi's severe restraining of imperial clan's involvement in politics was not only directed at Cao Zhi but to standardize the whole Cao's political behaviors. Cao Zhi's Seven steps of poem was widely spread among people. Beginning from the spread of Cao Zhi's Collection and its composing settings, with reference to literature data, this thesis demonstrated from different view of points that Seven steps of poem was imposed on Cao Zhi by later people. Through studying on Cao Pi's composing intention, it shows that Dian Lun is not only of literature critic value but also is a well-known work full of political messages. Former scholars had few researches on the composing time of Cao Pi's works, lacked detailed information, and held some divergences. So this thesis makes a detailed study on his works'composing time and put forward some personal views. For instance, four poems in Poems Composed in Liyang were written in the first year of Yankang period and two poems in Mixed Poem were composed in the 19th year of Jian'an period. After the loss of some Cao Pi's works, new editions hadn't appeared until Ming dynasty, among which many were missing. More than 30 broken sentences and paragraphs were found from Assembling on Cao Pi's Works to make up its incompleteness. There exists Cao Pi's Works of Collections on Three Caos'Reference Materials. Besides, by examing various books, this thesis has got some 50,000 words of relevant materials, twice as it has been, which offers new data for more comprehensive learning of Cao Pi's political achievements and literary contributions.In general, by referring to achievements in the fields ranging from modern literature, aesthetics, management to psychology, the thesis tries to broaden the study views of Cao Pi from modern angle, provide a platform for studies on Cao Pi, and thus makes people have a more comprehensive learning of real Cao Pi and a right knowledge of Cao Pi and the influence of his works on later generations.