A Research On Cao Xun's Poems

Cao Xun(1098-1174),nicknamed Gongxian,caUed himself Songyin.The son of Cao Zu,was born in Yang Zhai(now Yu Xian,He Nan).He was an educated patriot in the period between the Northern Song Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty,with extraordinary courage and moral integrity.In his life,Cao Xun wrote many works,had collected Song Yin Corpus 40 volumes,which had a certain influence upon his and later generations.But,his works was mainly handed down only in family,rarely known by outsiders.Thus,his works were almost unknown.Undoubtedly,it is a pity in the history of literature.The dissertation is divided into three major parts:introduction,main body and conclusion.In addition,the main body is separated into four chapters.The introduction briefly introduces the significance of the study,the current situation of the conduced,the anticipating goal and so on.The first chapter reviews the life of Cao Xun.The first section is divided into four stages according to Cao Xun's life,and introduces the era and environment he lived brifely.The second section checked his descent and official career,to reproduce the basic experience of Cao Xun.Cao's personal relations was discussed in the third section,which can do help to understand his politics,literature and thoughts of Cao multi-dimensionally.Cao's works were analyzed in the fourth section.The second chapter analyses Cao's literary thought and poetry origin.Cao's literary viewpoints of instruction and satire,and his aesthetic purport of elegance are discussed in the first section.Moreover,the forming reasons of the purport are investigated from three aspects,there are time spirit,the ruler's advocacy,the family education.The second section discusses his learning from Qu Yuan,Tao Yuanming and Huang Tingjian.By comparative analysis,we can see that he absorbed a lot from previous experience,however,he was unable to surpass those achievements of "forerunners'and formed his own unique style.The third chapter focuses on Cao's poems,systematically interpretating his poems in terms of content.The first section detailedly discusses Cao's Poems of His Heart,which are also the most valuable and successful poems in his works.Especially the poems on state affairs and Shi Jin,they are not only turely reappear the turmoil of the time but also concentrately reflect Cao's anxiety on national affairs,they show Cao's broadness of mind.The second section and the third section comments on Poems on Objects and the Presentable Poems seperately,these two types have a great proportion in his poetry,but their value is not too high.The fourth chapter analyses the artistic features of Cao's poems.The first section discusses the styles which appear in his poems on the whole.There are four kinds of styles:deep and dignified,elegant and prmifive,hidden bitter and euphemistic,tranquil and leisurely.The second section concretely appreciate Cao's habitual artistic techniques in six aspects,that is,dual pair,polishing words,sound repetition,word repetition,thimble,repetition.Based on the objective study on Cao Xun and his poems in the main body,his life and poetry achievement is summarized in the conclusion.He has got some achievement,but also has defects.