BECOMING WEN: THE RHETORIC IN THE “FINAL EDICTS” OF HAN EMPEROR WEN AND WEI EMPEROR WEN

Abstract This article argues that an emperor’s “final edict” (yizhao 遺詔, yiling 遺令, zhongling 終令, or zhongzhi 終制) should be read not simply as an emperor’s instruction for his funeral and burial, but as a piece of rhetoric meant to define his image and legacy. Through a comparative reading of Han Emperor Wen’s and Wei Emperor Wen’s “final edicts”—two of the longest pieces in the early development of the genre—the author discusses their different rhetorical strategies, their different visions of emperorship, and their different imperial “personae.” In conducting the comparison, the author also examines the authority of imperial rhetoric against skepticism about such rhetoric. As her analysis demonstrates, the tension between rhetoric and anti-rhetoric is present even within a “final edict” itself and can still be felt in modern interpretations of the genre.