The Poetry of Cao Zhi

The Poetry of Cao Zhi PDF

Author: Robert Joe Cutter

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2021-03-22

Total Pages: 430

ISBN-13: 1501507036

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This book provides a translation of the complete poems and fu of Cao Zhi (192–232), one of China’s most famous poets. Cao Zhi lived during a tumultuous age, a time of intrepid figures and of bold and violent acts that have captured the Chinese imagination across the centuries. His father Cao Cao (155–220) became the most powerful leader in a divided empire, and on his death, Cao Zhi’s elder brother Cao Pi (187–226) engineered the abdication of the last Han emperor, establishing himself as the founding emperor of the Wei Dynasty (220–265). Although Cao Zhi wanted to play an active role in government and military matters, he was not allowed to do so, and he is remembered as a writer. The Poetry of Cao Zhi contains in its body one hundred twenty-eight pieces of poetry and fu. The extant editions of Cao Zhi’s writings differ in the number of pieces they contain and present many textual variants. The translations in this volume are based on a valuable edition of Cao’s works by Ding Yan (1794–1875), and are supplemented by robust annotations, a brief biography of Cao Zhi, and an introduction to the poetry by the translator.

Cao Zhi

Cao Zhi PDF

Author: Hugh Dunn

Publisher: The Minerva Group, Inc.

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 108

ISBN-13: 0898751691

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Cho Zhi (192-323) was the son of Cao Cao (155-220), the famous -- sometimes thought infamous -- adventurer, general and politician at the end of the Later Han dynasty (25-220). Cao Zhi was a younger son but had such great talent that there was at one time a prospect that he might become his father's heir. If that had happened he could have been a king. However, his elder brother, Cao Pi (187-226), became the heir and the two brothers' rivalry over this question had a major effect on Cao Zhi's life.Their rivalry was probably aggravated by Cao Pi's jealousy of Cao Zhi's brilliance and greater poetic gifts, and possibly over a woman who, according to some stories, inspired one of Cao Zhi's greatest poems. After Cao Cao's death, China became formally divided into the Three Kingdoms which gave their name to that period of Chinese history. Many of the traditional stories in early Chinese novels and plays derived from that period. But, in all the stirring doings at the time -- the "Robin Hood" age of China -- Cao Zhi played little part. With all his gifts, his faults of character and the distrust of his brother, by now King of Wei, frustrated his chance of giving real service to the state. Many of his poems reflect that frustration.Cao Zhi is, however, a far from unimportant figure in Chinese literary history. He lived at a time of division, of change and of constant warfare and popular distress. Buddhism was spreading fast and new poetical forms were coming into use. Cao Zhi is one of the first figures in Chinese history to be remembered as a poet alone, and not as an emperor, statesman or general who also wrote poetry. He also wrote essays which contained some of the earliest literary criticism of writers of his age. He was also renowned as a calligrapher -- and as a bon viveur. His life was in large part a tragedy of wasted gifts -- but he does not lack touches of comedy.

The Poetry of Cao Zhi

The Poetry of Cao Zhi PDF

Author: Robert Joe Cutter

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2021-03-22

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 1501506978

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This book provides a translation of the complete poems and fu of Cao Zhi (192–232), one of China’s most famous poets. Cao Zhi lived during a tumultuous age, a time of intrepid figures and of bold and violent acts that have captured the Chinese imagination across the centuries. His father Cao Cao (155–220) became the most powerful leader in a divided empire, and on his death, Cao Zhi’s elder brother Cao Pi (187–226) engineered the abdication of the last Han emperor, establishing himself as the founding emperor of the Wei Dynasty (220–265). Although Cao Zhi wanted to play an active role in government and military matters, he was not allowed to do so, and he is remembered as a writer. The Poetry of Cao Zhi contains in its body one hundred twenty-eight pieces of poetry and fu. The extant editions of Cao Zhi’s writings differ in the number of pieces they contain and present many textual variants. The translations in this volume are based on a valuable edition of Cao’s works by Ding Yan (1794–1875), and are supplemented by robust annotations, a brief biography of Cao Zhi, and an introduction to the poetry by the translator.

Ode to the Goddess of the Luo River

Ode to the Goddess of the Luo River PDF

Author: Ye Luying

Publisher: Astra Publishing House

Published: 2020-01-01

Total Pages: 74

ISBN-13: 9888341944

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The Ode to the Goddess of the Luo River is an ancient Chinese poem created by Cao Zhi, a writer living in the state of Wei during the Three Kingdoms period (c. 220-280 CE). In his tale, Cao Zhi is returning from the capital to his own land when he stops at the Luo River for a rest, where he sees a vision of the goddess so powerful that he instantly falls in love with her. Cao sees a nymph of peerless beauty “as elegant as a startled swan and supple as a swimming dragon”. Though he’s swept away by her ethereal beauty, it’s a love that isn’t meant to be. With its high production values and amazingly-detailed-multi-page foldout spreads, this is a special book that will entice art lovers of all ages.

How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context

How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context PDF

Author: Zong-qi Cai

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2018-02-20

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 0231546122

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How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context is an introduction to the golden age of Chinese poetry, spanning the earliest times through the Tang dynasty (618–907). It aims to break down barriers—between language and culture, poetry and history—that have stood in the way of teaching and learning Chinese poetry. Not only a primer in early Chinese poetry, the volume demonstrates the unique and central role of poetry in the making of Chinese culture. Each chapter focuses on a specific theme to show the interplay between poetry and the world. Readers discover the key role that poetry played in Chinese diplomacy, court politics, empire building, and institutionalized learning; as well as how poems shed light on gender and women’s status, war and knight-errantry, Daoist and Buddhist traditions, and more. The chapters also show how people of different social classes used poetry as a means of gaining entry into officialdom, creating self-identity, fostering friendship, and airing grievances. The volume includes historical vignettes and anecdotes that contextualize individual poems, investigating how some featured texts subvert and challenge the grand narratives of Chinese history. Presenting poems in Chinese along with English translations and commentary, How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context unites teaching poetry with the social circumstances surrounding its creation, making it a pioneering and versatile text for the study of Chinese language, literature, history, and culture.

Rhetoric and the Discourses of Power in Court Culture

Rhetoric and the Discourses of Power in Court Culture PDF

Author: David R. Knechtges

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2012-03-25

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 0295802367

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Key imperial and royal courts--in Han, Tang, and Song dynasty China; medieval and renaissance Europe; and Heian and Muromachi Japan--are examined in this comparative and interdisciplinary volume as loci of power and as entities that establish, influence, or counter the norms of a larger society. Contributions by twelve scholars are organized into sections on the rhetoric of persuasion, taste, communication, gender, and natural nobility. Writing from the perspectives of literature, history, and philosophy, the authors examine the use and purpose of rhetoric in their respective areas. In Rhetoric of Persuasion, we see that in both the third-century court of the last Han emperor and the fourteenth-century court of Edward II, rhetoric served to justify the deposition of a ruler and the establishment of a new regime. Rhetoric of Taste examines the court’s influence on aesthetic values in China and Japan, specifically literary tastes in ninth-century China, the melding of literary and historical texts into a sort of national history in fifteenth-century Japan, and the embrace of literati painting innovations in twelfth-century China during a time when the literati themselves were out of favor. Rhetoric of Communication considers official communications to the throne in third-century China, the importance of secret communications in Charlemagne’s court, and the implications of the use of classical Chinese in the Japanese court during the eighth and ninth centuries. Rhetoric of Gender offers the biography of a former Han emperor’s favorite consort and studies the metaphorical possibilities of Tang palace plaints. Rhetoric of Natural Nobility focuses on Dante’s efforts to confirm his nobility of soul as a poet, surmounting his non-noble ancestry, and the development of the texts that supported the political ideologies of the fifteenth-century Burgundian dukes Philip the Good and Charles the Bold.

Written at Imperial Command

Written at Imperial Command PDF

Author: Fusheng Wu

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2009-01-01

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 0791478726

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This is the first book-length study of panegyric poetry—yingzhao shi or poetry presented to imperial rulers—in the Chinese tradition. Examining poems presented during the Wei-Jin Nanbeichao, or early medieval period (220–619), Fusheng Wu provides a thorough exploration of the sociopolitical background against which these poems were written and a close analysis of the formal conventions of the poems. By reconstructing the human drama behind the composition of these poems, Wu shows that writing under imperial command could be a matter of grave consequence. The poets' work could determine the rise and fall of careers, or even cost lives. While panegyric poetry has been largely dismissed as perfunctory and insincere, such poems reveal much about the relations between monarchs and the intellectuals they patronized and also compels us to reexamine the canonical Chinese notion of poetic production as personal, spontaneous expression.