| Cao Xun was a statesman and litterateur in the late Northern Song Dynasty and early Southern Song Dynasty. He made many excellent works of poems, ci, and proses, which have been handed down for generations. But few scholars have paid enough attention on Cao Xun or made research into his ci on the whole, because he wrote a lot of ci according to emperors' order. Cao Xun was a man of insight who took the Confucianism as his own duty. He kept writing aesthetic and right ci and intended to advocate elegance and dismiss vulgarity in content and form, which made ci become intelligentsia and poem. The article intends to study on his ci through uniting the time background and Cao's life experience, and seek the cause of forming of his ci on the foundation of outlining the style of his ci. The whole article consists of four chapters.The first chapter discusses the life of Cao and printing of his anthology. Cao sincerely insisted Confucianism ideal of loyalty, filialness, benevolence and righteousness. During the chaos in 1127, Cao followed Emperor Huizong to go to Yan and went to Jin to take on the diplomatic mission about rescuing Emperor Huizong and Emperor Qinzong and peace between Song and Jin three times. The special experience brought significant influence on the style of his ci.The second chapter discusses concretely the texts of Cao's ci. The subject orientation of his ci may be divided into four kinds: singing praise of prosperous times and peaceful situation, expressing the sorrow about leaving and wandering, writing the form of some thing, chanting personality. The first three kinds of subjects are connected with the chaos in 1127. He sang praise of peaceful situation in order to express one kind of psychological approval to the resurgence of the Southern Song Dynasty, expressed the deep love to the scenery and countryside and awareness of the Buddha, which could be regarded as his spiritual compensate after failing to fulfill his will to serve the people. His sorrow on past and today and emotion on wandering were his real emotion he experienced from his staying in Jin on the diplomatic duty.The third chapter discusses the art characteristics of his ci. Cao's ci broke through the limit that ci was regarded as sexual poems and advocated elegance. But different ci had its own appearance. Elegant ci was written according to Emperors' order, graceful ci was beautiful, and unrestrained ci based on poems and regressed elegance. The style of elegant ci originated from content of ci written according to Emperors' order and the characteristics of political system. The refined ci formed in the background of "returning elegance" in the field of ci in the Southern Song Dynasty as result of chanting the popular style of ci of Cao Zu, his father. Cao Xun's ci was a kind of inheritance of Su Shi and also an expression of his view on poem by writing ci.The fourth chapter discusses his contribution in melody making. Cao Xun had good education of music. He made music with strict rules and forms of classical poem and emphasized the four tones which agreed with the content of his ci. He also diligently attempted to change the styles including tone, rhythm and meter sedulously, striving for the esthetics effect which was different from the current one.
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