A Brief History Of Cao Zhi's Criticism Of The Literature

From Wei to Ming, Qing Dynasties, CaoZhi's literatures have been highly recognized by some scholars, while they have also been denounced severely by some other scholars, and the criticism on CaoZhi's literatures is a dynamic process of aesthetic formation. Though the criticism of the later scholars are based on their precursors'there exist some new changes to some extent, and it is due to the different aesthetic concept, taste, cultural trends and critical standards in different time. Based on the criticism on Cao Zhi's poetry and indexed articles in some classical anthology in different literature period, and combining criticism concept and standards of different times, this paper attempts to clarify the context of the development of Cao Zhi poetry criticism, and reveal some poetry criticism regularity and their development, and explore the causes of those regularities. All those work will enrich the academic meaning to the whole ancient literature criticism history.In WeiJin, researchers focus more on the overall evaluation of CaoZhi's literary talent and good diction, also pay some attention on the poetry's tone and multi-style literary form; In Tang dynasty, scholar criticize CaoZhi's poetry more than his other literature style. And they pay more attention to the poetry rule, poetry style ,writing method of poetry, and the origin of Yue Fu poetry. In Song, Jin and Yuan dynasty the scholars who want to restore the ancient style made affirmative recommendation to Cao zhi's poetry, but tend to favor flat style, while others show decreased enthusiasm to his poetry and the amount of the criticism is dropping.And in Ming, Qing dynasty, people summarize the becoming of the literature style, and Caozhi's Yue Fu poetry has been criticized more in this period. Two main opinions exist. The appreciative attitude can be found in Wang Shizhen's article and the depreciated attitude can be found in Wang Fu-zhi's article.There are five sections in the thesis with the introduction include, which discuss the criticism to Caozhi's poetry in five history period, Wei Jin & South and North dynasties, Sui & Tang dynasties, Song Jin & Yuan dynasties, Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty.In introduction, we define the concept of criticism and scope of CaoZhi's poetry. And the review of Caozhi's poetry criticism has been reviewed also in this section. The study method is explained here. In the paper, a brief sorting out of Caozhi's literature criticism since Wei Jin dynasty has been made, and a deep insight will be done at some key points. This kind of method on making criticism history based on given scholars is seldoml seen and so it is a quite new try.Chapter one is mainly about the criticism on CaoZhi's literature in WeiJin dynasty. In this period, along with the rise of metaphysics and flourished of buddhism, scholars gradually emerge from the ideological shackles of Confucian classics, literature become more lyrical, focusing on literary grace, rhythm and other aesthetic qualities, style and literature classification becomes more detailed. In this period, some monographs on criticism of literature such as Wen xin diao long etc have been pressed. In this period, the most prominent feature on Cao Zhi's literary criticism is overall evaluation of diction, and a high praise of his literature. And at the same time, flaws on some other literature types such as Shu, Lun etc has been pointed out. Those two kinds of trends indicate advantage and disadvantage of CaoZhi's literature creation, and also indicate the criticism standard changes on CaoZhi's literature criticism.Chapter two is mainly about the criticism on CaoZhi's literature in Tang dynasty. Tang poetry is one highlight in Chinese literature, which roots in rhetorical emphasis, conscious pursuit of the aesthetic qualities on literary creation in WeiJin dynasty. The criticism on CaoZhi's literature in this period pays more attention to poetry, especially on poetry rule, poetry style etc. The typical cases are Shi Ge of Wang Chang-ling and Shi Shi of Jiao Ran. Combining Cao Zhi's character, Critics highly praised his writing's rhythm, cultured and beautiful and Feng Gu. In Explain for Ancient Problem of Yue Fu, Wu Jing Criticize some Yue Fu poetry of Cao Zhi and also point out the origin of those Yue Fu.Chapter three is mainly about the criticism on CaoZhi's literature in Song Jin and Yuan dynasty. Along with the development of poetry innovation and spring up of large numbers of notes on poetry, the criticism on literature is booming in this period. To rectify the Ping Poetry's weak style in later Dang to early Song, and to correct the too much modification style and plagiarism in later Tang's poetry and Xikun Style, Ou Yangxiu in North Song advocate poetry innovation, encourage ancient literature, promote free writing and pursue simple and broad-minded style. In South Song, Li Theory is prevailing, which inherit ancient style movement in North Song, and pave the way of poetry development in Yuan Dynasty. In Jin and Yuan, literature criticism is neglected due to the influence of Civil Servant Examination and Li theory. The critism to Caozhi's poetry is the main trend, and the affirmative recommendation came from the school of returning to the ancient, while the attenuation arises in the school of plain writing. The rhythm, events, talent, origin, content and style and so on are found in the critical literature.In chapter four, criticism on CaoZhi's literature in Ming dynasty is studied deeply. The Criticism on CaoZhi's literature still focus on his poetry and Yue Fu poetry. The typical cases are Hu Ying-lin's Shi Sou and Xu Xue-yi's Shi Yuan Bian Ti. In Shi Sou, the origin of CaoZhi's poetry is paid more attention to in this period。Shi Sou made a hign appreciation to the origin and verified development of Caozhi's poetry, and the author think that the history and personnel factors cause the change in style and literature. The former is the key factor, which is beyond individual influence. The evolutionary proness can be detected in Hu's poetry opinion. Shi Yuan Bian Ti insist that Caozhi's poetry reveals the comparation of poetry in Han Dynasty, and the poetry method, sentence method, expression method and literature origin are discussed by Xu Xue-yi, and the political up and downs of Caozhi to his poetry influence are also studied.Chapter five is mainly about the Caozhi's literature criticism in Qing dynasty. In this chapter, the characteristics on CaoZhi's literature criticism are studied. There are two main opinions, one is appreciation, the other one is depreciating CaoZhi's poetry. In this period, critics emphasize not only on the poetry's origin, but also on the origin of FU, Biao and Shu etc. Compared with criticism in Ming dynasty, depreciating on CaoZhi's literature is a typical characteristic. The detailed criticism on CaoZhi's literature is on the diction, rhythm and writing method of those literatures. Compared with those in others dynasty, the difference of the criticism standard in Qing dynasty is it takes heavy as the first thing of criticism standard.Basing on the material about CaoZhi's literature citicism, adopting statistical methods, and using relative value, the paper conducts a more comprehensive criticism history on CaoZhi's literature, and then constructs the history of CaoZhi's literature criticism, to some extent, this will contribute to the ancient chinese history of literary criticism.