Du Fu

Du Fu or Tu Fu (杜甫; pinyin: Dù Fǔ; Wade-Giles: Tu⁴ Fu³), also known as Dù Shàolíng (杜少陵) or Dù Gōngbù (杜工部) (712–770) was a prominent Chinese poet during the Tang Dynasty. His courtesy name was Zǐ Měi (子美).

Works

Criticism of Du Fu's works has focused on his strong sense of history, his moral engagement, and his technical excellence.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

History

Since the Song dynasty Du Fu has been called by critics the "poet historian". The most directly historical of his poems are those commenting on military tactics or the successes and failures of the government, or the poems of advice which he wrote to the emperor. Indirectly, he wrote about the effect of the times in which he lived on himself, and on the ordinary people of China. As Watson notes, this is information "of a kind seldom found in the officially compiled histories of the era" (p. xvii).

Related Topics:
Song dynasty - Historian - Military tactic

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Moral engagement

A second favourite epithet of Chinese critics is that of shisheng (詩聖 — poet saint, or poet sage), a counterpart to the philosophical sage, Confucius. One of the earliest surviving works, The Song of the Wagons (from around 750), gives voice to the sufferings of a conscript soldier in the imperial army, even before the beginning of the rebellion; this poem brings out the tension between the need of acceptance and fulfilment of one's duties, and a clear-sighted consciousness of the suffering which this can involve. These themes are continuously articulated in the poems on the lives of both soldiers and civilians which Du Fu produced throughout his life.

Related Topics:
Epithet - Confucius - 750 - Conscript - Duties

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Although Du Fu's frequent references to his own difficulties can give the impression of an all-consuming solipsism, Hawkes argues that his "famous compassion in fact includes himself, viewed quite objectively and almost as an afterthought". He therefore "lends grandeur" to the wider picture by comparing it to "his own slightly comical triviality" (p. 204).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Technical excellence

Du Fu's work is notable above all for its range. He mastered all the forms of Chinese poetry: Chou says that in every form he "either made outstanding advances or contributed outstanding examples" (p. 56). Furthermore, his poems use a wide range of registers, from the direct and colloquial to the allusive and self-consciously literary. The tenor of his work changed as he developed his style and adapted to his surroundings ("chameleon-like" according to Watson): his earliest works are in a relatively derivative, courtly style, but he came into his own in the years of the rebellion. Owen comments on the "grim simplicity" of the Qinzhou poems, which mirrors the desert landscape (p. 425); the works from his Chengdu period are "light, often finely observed" (p. 427); while the poems from the late Kuizhou period have a "density and power of vision" (p. 433).

Related Topics:
Chinese poetry - Register - Colloquial - Allusive - Chameleon - Desert

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Although he wrote in all poetic forms, Du Fu is best known for his lǜshi, a type of poem with strict constraints on the form and content of the work. About two thirds of his 1500 extant works are in this form, and he is generally considered to be its leading exponent. His best lǜshi use the parallelisms required by the form to add expressive content rather than as mere technical restrictions. Hawkes comments that, "it is amazing that Tu Fu is able to use so immensely stylized a form in so natural a manner" (p. 46).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~