San Cao And Jian'an People's Correspondence Research

During the period of Jian'an,the composition of Letters appeared a new prosperity, especially represented by Cao Cao?Cao Pi and Cao Zhi,they communicated with people who lived in Jian an Period through letters. Those letters not only retained the contact details of these people,but also reflected people s thoughts, literary proposition and daily life.Those letters are also valuable materials for scholars now to get to know people of that period. This thesis comprehensively investigates the letters of Cao Cao? Cao Pi and Cao Zhi s communication with other people in Jian an Period, hoping to reappear their communication details and investigates their expansion and artistic characteristics about letters.Chapter one:Expounds the letter communication between Cao Cao and other people in Jian'an Period. According to different people, this chapter is divided into three sections:communication with counselors and generals?political opponents and Jian'anqizi. Among the communication with counselors and generals, most letters were written to Xun Yu to talk about military and politics. The letters were short and practical,including soliciting talents?plotting military affairs?appeasing subordinate? granting a reward after the war,and mourning the deceased friends,expressing care in these letters. The letters fully inflected Cao Cao's appreciative skills and great wisdom. In the communication with political opponents,like Yuan Shao?Lu Bu?Sun Quan, Cao Cao had many kinds of political methods. He was not only showing his thoughts, but also drawing and threatening his opponents,even teasing,which all reflected Cao Cao's superb political skills.In the communication with Jian'anqizi,taking his communication with Kong Rong as a representative, demonstrated the changing process in their relationship.Chapter two:Analyzes the letter communication between Cao Pi and people in Jian'an Period.According to different people, this chapter is divided into three parts,which are friends' letters?official correspondence and family letters. Although Cao Pi was an aristocrat,he used approachable way to communicate with his friends, taking his letters writing for Wu Zhi?Zhong You for example,which were not only showing their sincere friendship, but also expanded the letters' function.They discussed about arts through letters and they propelled the usage of letters to daily life. In official correspondence, the details of Cao Cao's contacted with Sun Quan?Meng Da and other people was recorded, which reflected Cao Pi's excellent political tactics as an emperor; Although the number of family letters were small,they were incisive.Chapter three:Elaborates the letter communication between Cao Zhi and people in Jian'an Period. According to different people, this part is divided into two sections:one is contacting with friends and the other kind is contacting with Jian'anqizi.Although Cao Zhi's reserved letters were few, they had great significance.The letters writing to Yang Xiu reflected his particular literary ideology and literary criticism points. And the letters to Wu Zhi revealed his wayward character.Chapter four:Discusses Cao Cao?Cao Pi and Cao Zhi's expansion on letters'usage when contacted with people in Jian'an Period.This expansion mainly reflected in four aspects:First, the extension on Military and political subject, which mainly retained in Cao Cao's letters.Cao Cao spent all his life in the army, so he widely applied letters to military life,making further efforts to expend contents in military letters, which made the letters becoming a powerful tool in recruiting celebrated scholars and talents, appeasing subordinate,punishing or rewarding people.Second, deepened the exploring on literature and art through letters, leading by Cao Pi and Cao Zhi,the Jian'an scholars applied letters to talking about literature and art,which accelerated the fast development of the literary criticism.Third,the deepening discuss of daily life,Cao Pi and Cao Zhi wrote the daily chaos in letters,making these letters more and more secular. Fourth,the phenomenon of writing legal document for others appears.This period appeared lots of forged letters written by literati for politics.Although these letters'read powerful and Brilliant, their styles were opposite with the true writers'styles,which made them anamorphic.Chapter five:explores the different artistic characteristics of letters between Cao Cao?Cao Pi?Cao Zhi and people in Jian'an Period.Cao Cao's letters were famous for "simple and casually saying", these letters were not only simple, but also outspoken, Cao Cao used letters to reveal his special temperament and personality. Cao Pi's letters were sincere?pure and fresh. The letters were touching in content and pure?beautiful in the language. Cao Zhi's letters were wayward and talented, touching other people with their unique power. The literati's letters which contacted with Cao Cao?Cao Pi? Cao Zhi in Jian'an Period also had various features, forming a situation of "different people have different characteristic".