This is a Chinese name; the family name is 杜 (Dù). Personal Names in Chinese culture follow a number of conventions different from those of personal names in Western cultures. Chinese family name is one of the hundreds or thousands of Family names that have been historically used by Han Chinese and Sinicized Chinese ethnic Du (Chinese 杜) is a Chinese family name. The name is spelled Tu in Taiwan.

Du Fu (杜甫)
There are no contemporaneous portraits of Du Fu; this is a later artist's impression
Born	712
Died	770
Occupation	Poet
Influenced Bai Juyi, Su Shi, Lu You, Huang Tingjian

Du Fu (Chinese: 杜甫; pinyin: Dù Fǔ; Wade-Giles: Tu Fu, 712–770) was a prominent Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty. Employment is a Contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. A poet is a person who writes Poetry. Etymology From the Ancient greek: ποιέω, poieō: "I make or compose" Life Bai Juyi was born in Xinzheng to a poor but scholarly family Su Shi ( 1037–1101 was a writer, poet, Artist, calligrapher, Pharmacologist, and Statesman of the Song Dynasty Career Early career Lu You came from a family in which there were some government officials Huang Tingjian ( 1045—1105 is predominantly known as a calligrapher but was also admired for his painting and poetry Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin Romanization system in use Wade-Giles (ˌweɪdˈʤaɪlz) sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a Romanization system (phonetic notation and Transcription) for the Mandarin ≈ Poets who wrote or write much of their poetry in the Chinese language. The Tang Dynasty ( Middle Chinese: dhɑng (June 18 618&ndashJune 4 907 was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by Along with Li Bai (Li Po), he is frequently called the greatest of the Chinese poets. A poet is a person who writes Poetry. Etymology From the Ancient greek: ποιέω, poieō: "I make or compose" ^[1] His own greatest ambition was to help his country by becoming a successful civil servant, but he proved unable to make the necessary accommodations. See also Bureaucrat The term civil service has two distinct meanings Branch of governmental service in which individuals are hired on the basis His life, like the whole country, was devastated by the An Lushan Rebellion of 755, and the last 15 years of his life were a time of almost constant unrest. The An Shi Rebellion ( took place in China during the Tang Dynasty, from December 16 755 to February 17 763.

Initially little known, his works came to be hugely influential in both Chinese and Japanese culture. The Culture of China (traditional Chinese 中國文化 simplified Chinese 中国文化 is home to one of the world's oldest and most complex Civilizations covering a history The culture of Japan has evolved greatly over millenia from the country's prehistoric Jomon culture to its contemporary hybrid culture which combines influences from Asia Of his poetic writing, nearly fifteen hundred poems written by Du Fu have been handed down over the ages. ^[1] He has been called Poet-Historian and the Poet-Sage by Chinese critics, while the range of his work has allowed him to be introduced to Western readers as "the Chinese Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Shakespeare, Milton, Burns, Wordsworth, Béranger, Hugo or Baudelaire". Western culture (sometimes equated with Western Civilization) are terms which are used to refer to Cultures of European origin Publius Vergilius Maro ( October 15, 70 BCE &ndash September 21, 19 BCE later called Virgilius, and known in English as Virgil or Quintus Horatius Flaccus, ( Venosa, December 8, 65 BC - Rome, November 27, 8 BC known in the English-speaking world as Horace Publius Ovidius Naso ( March 20, 43 BC – 17 AD was a Roman poet known to the English -speaking world as Ovid who wrote on many topics including William Shakespeare ( baptised John Milton ( 9 December, 1608 – 8 November, 1674) was an English Poet, Prose Polemicist and Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796 (also known as Rabbie Burns, Scotland's favourite son, the Ploughman Poet, the Bard of Ayrshire Pierre-Jean de Béranger ( August 19, 1780 - July 16, 1857) was a French Songwriter. Victor-Marie Hugo ( ( February 26, 1802 – May 22, 1885) was a French Poet, Playwright, Novelist ^[2]

Life

Traditionally, Chinese literary criticism has placed great emphasis on knowledge of the life of the author when interpreting a work, a practice which Watson attributes to "the close links that traditional Chinese thought posits between art and morality". Personal Names in Chinese culture follow a number of conventions different from those of personal names in Western cultures. Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin Romanization system in use Wade-Giles (ˌweɪdˈʤaɪlz) sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a Romanization system (phonetic notation and Transcription) for the Mandarin Standard Cantonese is the standard variant of the Cantonese (Yuet language A Chinese style name, sometimes also known as a courtesy name ( zì) is a given name to be used later in life Literary criticism is the study discussion evaluation and interpretation of Literature. A biography (from the Greek words bíos (βίος meaning "life" and gráphein (γράφειν meaning "to write" is an account Art refers to a diverse range of Human activities creations and expressions that are appealing to the Senses or Emotions of a human individual Morality (from the Latin la moralitas "manner character proper behavior" has three principal meanings ^[3] This becomes all the more important in the case of a writer such as Du Fu, in whose poems morality and history are so prominent. History is the study of the past particularly the written record Those who study history as a Profession are called Historians Etymology Another reason, identified by the Chinese historian William Hung, is that Chinese poems are typically extremely concise, omitting circumstantial factors which may be relevant, but which could be reconstructed by an informed contemporary. For modern western readers therefore, "The less accurately we know the time, the place and the circumstances in the background, the more liable we are to imagine it incorrectly, and the result will be that we either misunderstand the poem or fail to understand it altogether". Western culture (sometimes equated with Western Civilization) are terms which are used to refer to Cultures of European origin ^[4]

Early years

Most of what is known of Du Fu’s life comes from his own poems. His paternal grandfather was Du Shenyan, a noted politician and poet during the reign of Empress Wu. He was born in 712 in Gong county, near Luoyang, Henan province. Gongyi ( Chinese 巩义市 Pinyin Gǒngyì Shì is a County-level city belonging to the city of Zhengzhou in Henan province Luoyang ( is a Prefecture-level city in western Henan province, People's Republic of China. Henan ( is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the central part of the country In later life he considered himself to belong to the capital city of Chang'an, ancestral hometown of the Du family. Chang'an ( is an ancient Capital of more than ten dynasties in Chinese history.

Du Fu's China

Du Fu's mother died shortly after he was born, and he was partially raised by his aunt. He had an elder brother, who died young. He also had three half brothers and one half sister, to whom he frequently refers in his poems, although he never mentions his stepmother.

As the son of a minor scholar-official, his youth was spent on the standard education of a future civil servant: study and memorisation of the Confucian classics of philosophy, history and poetry. Chinese classic texts or Chinese canonical texts ( refer to the pre- Qin Chinese texts especially the Confucian Four Books and Five Classics Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language He later claimed to have produced creditable poems by his early teens, but these have been lost.

In the early 730s he travelled in the Jiangsu/Zhejiang area; his earliest surviving poem, describing a poetry contest, is thought to date from the end of this period, around 735. ( Postal map spelling: Kiangsu) is a province of the People's Republic of China, located along the east coast of the country Zhejiang ( is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. In that year he travelled to Chang'an to take the civil service exam but was unsuccessful, to his surprise and that of centuries of later critics. Chang'an ( is an ancient Capital of more than ten dynasties in Chinese history. The Imperial examinations ( in Imperial China determined who among the population would be permitted to enter the state's Bureaucracy. Hung concludes that he probably failed because his prose style at the time was too dense and obscure, while Chou suggests that his failure to cultivate connections in the capital may have been to blame. For the Wikipedia guideline regarding editing articles see WikipediaManual of Style. After this failure he went back to travelling, this time around Shandong and Hebei. ( is a coastal province of eastern People's Republic of China. ( Postal map spelling: Hopeh) is a northern province of the People's Republic of China.

His father died around 740. Du Fu would have been allowed to enter the civil service because of his father's rank, but he is thought to have given up the privilege in favour of one of his half brothers. He spent the next four years living in the Luoyang area, fulfilling his duties in domestic affairs.

In the autumn of 744 he met Li Bai (Li Po) for the first time, and the two poets formed a somewhat one-sided friendship: Du Fu was by some years the younger, while Li Bai was already a poetic star. We have twelve poems to or about Li Bai from the younger poet, but only one in the other direction. They met again only once, in 745.

In 746 he moved to the capital in an attempt to resurrect his official career. He participated in a second exam the following year, but all the candidates were failed by the prime minister (apparently in order to prevent the emergence of possible rivals). This article is about the government position For other uses see Prime Minister (disambiguation. Thereafter he never again attempted the examinations, instead petitioning the emperor directly in 751, 754 and probably again in 755. He married around 752, and by 757 the couple had had five children—three sons and two daughters—but one of the sons died in infancy in 755. From 754 he began to have lung problems (probably asthma), the first of a series of ailments which dogged him for the rest of his life. Asthma is a chronic Condition involving the Respiratory system in which the airways occasionally constrict become inflamed, and are It was in that year that Du Fu was forced to move his family due to the turmoil of a famine brought about by massive floods in the region. ^[1]

In 755 he finally received an appointment as Registrar of the Right Commandant's office of the Crown Prince's Palace. Although this was a minor post, in normal times it would have been at least the start of an official career. Even before he had begun work, however, the position was swept away by events.

War

The An Lushan Rebellion began in December 755, and was not completely crushed for almost eight years. The An Shi Rebellion ( took place in China during the Tang Dynasty, from December 16 755 to February 17 763. It caused enormous disruption to Chinese society: the census of 754 recorded 52. 9 million people, but that of 764 just 16. 9 million, the remainder having been killed or displaced. During this time, Du Fu led a largely itinerant life, being kept unsettled by wars, associated famines and imperial displeasure. War is an international relations Dispute, characterized by organized Violence between National Military units A famine is a widespread shortage of food that may apply to any Faunal species which phenomenon is usually accompanied by regional Malnutrition, Starvation The Emperor of China ( refers to any sovereign of Imperial China reigning since the founding of the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC until the fall of This period of unhappiness, however, was the making of Du Fu as a poet: Eva Shan Chou has written that, "What he saw around him– the lives of his family, neighbors, and strangers– what he heard, and what he hoped for or feared from the progress of various campaigns– these became the enduring themes of his poetry". ^[5] Even when he learned of the death of his youngest child, he turned to the suffering of others in his poetry instead of dwelling upon his own misfortunes. ^[1] Du Fu wrote:

"Brooding on what I have lived through, if even I know such suffering, the common man must surely be rattled by the winds. "^[1]

In 756 Emperor Xuanzong was forced to flee the capital and abdicate. Emperor Xuanzong of Tang ( ( September 8, 685 Background Li Longji was born at the Tang Dynasty eastern capital Luoyang Du Fu, who had been away from the city, took his family to a place of safety and attempted to join up with the court of the new emperor (Suzong), but he was captured by the rebels and taken to Chang’an. Emperor Suzong of Tang (唐 肅[[wikt 宗|宗]] February 21, 711 (As a result later on in life Li Sisheng would feel personally indebted to In the autumn, his youngest son Du Zongwu (Baby Bear) was born. Around this time Du Fu is thought to have contracted malaria. Malaria is a vector -borne Infectious disease caused by Protozoan Parasites It is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions including

He escaped from Chang'an the following year, and was appointed Reminder when he rejoined the court in May 757. This post gave access to the emperor, but was largely ceremonial. Du Fu's conscientiousness compelled him to try to make use of it: he soon caused trouble for himself by protesting against the removal of his friend and patron Fang Guan on a petty charge; he was then himself arrested, but was pardoned in June. Fang Guan (房琯 ( 697 - September 15, 763) Courtesy name Cilü (次律 formally the Duke of Qinghe (清河公 was A pardon is the forgiveness of a crime and the penalty associated with it He was granted leave to visit his family in September, but he soon rejoined the court and on December 8, 757, he returned to Chang’an with the emperor following its recapture by government forces. Events 1609 - Biblioteca Ambrosiana opens its reading room the second public library of Europe. Events By Place Asia March 9 — A major Earthquake strikes Palestine and Syria. However, his advice continued to be unappreciated, and in the summer of 758 he was demoted to a post as Commissioner of Education in Huazhou. The position was not to his taste: in one poem, he wrote:

"I am about to scream madly in the office/Especially when they bring more papers to pile higher on my desk. "

He moved on again in the summer of 759; this has traditionally been ascribed to famine, but Hung believes that frustration is a more likely reason. He next spent around six weeks in Qinzhou (now Tianshui, Gansu province), where he wrote over sixty poems. Tianshui ( is the second largest city in Gansu province in northwest China. ( is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.

Chengdu

In 760 he arrived in Chengdu (Sichuan province), where he based himself for most of the next five years. ( located in southwest People's Republic of China, is the capital of Sichuan province and a Sub-provincial city. ( Postal map spelling: Szechwan and Szechuan) is a province in western China with its capital in Chengdu. By the autumn of that year he was in financial trouble, and sent poems begging help to various acquaintances. He was relieved by Yan Wu, a friend and former colleague who was appointed governor general at Chengdu. Despite his financial problems, this was one of the happiest and most peaceful periods of his life, and many of his poems from this period are peaceful depictions of his life in his famous "thatched hut". Du Fu Thatched Cottage ( Chinese: 杜甫草堂 Pinyin: Dù Fǔ Cǎo Táng is an idyllic 24 acre park and museum in honour of the Tang Dynasty poet ^[1] In 762 he left the city to escape a rebellion, but he returned in the summer of 764 and was appointed military advisor to Yan, who was involved in campaigns against the Tibetans. Definitions of Tibet See also Definitions of Tibet Name In English The English word Tibet, like the word for Tibet in most European

Last years

Luoyang, the region of his birthplace, was recovered by government forces in the winter of 762, and in the spring of 765 Du Fu and his family sailed down the Yangtze, apparently with the intention of making their way back there. They travelled slowly, held up by his ill-health (by this time he was suffering from poor eyesight, deafness and general old age in addition to his previous ailments). In Psychology, visual perception is the ability to interpret information from Visible light reaching the Eyes The resulting Perception is also Old age consists of ages nearing or surpassing the Average life span of Human beings and thus the end of the human life cycle. They stayed in Kuizhou (now Baidicheng, Chongqing) at the entrance to the Three Gorges for almost two years from late spring 766. Baidi or Baidicheng ( Simplified and Traditional Chinese: 白帝城 8 km east of the present day Fengjie County seat in Chongqing Chongqing ( Postal map spelling: Chungking; Wade-Giles: Ch'ung-ch'ing) is the largest and most populous of the People's Republic of China The Three Gorges ( Gorgesogg|listen now}} region is a scenic area along the Yangtze River in the People's Republic of China with a total This period was Du Fu's last great poetic flowering, and here he wrote 400 poems in his dense, late style. In autumn 766 Bo Maolin became governor of the region: he supported Du Fu financially and employed him as his unofficial secretary.

In March 768 he began his journey again and got as far as Hunan province, where he died in Tanzhou (now Changsha) in November or December 770, in his 59th year. ( is a province of China, located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting (hence the name Hunan, meaning Changsha ( is the Capital city of Hunan, a province of south-central China, located on the lower reaches of Xiang river a branch of the He was survived by his wife and two sons, who remained in the area for some years at least. His last known descendant is a grandson who requested a grave inscription for the poet from Yuan Zhen in 813. Yuan Zhen ( 779–831 Courtesy name Weizhi (微之 was an important Chinese writer and Poet in the middle Tang Dynasty known

Hung summarises his life by concluding that, "He appeared to be a filial son, an affectionate father, a generous brother, a faithful husband, a loyal friend, a dutiful official, and a patriotic subject. "

Works

Part of Du Fu's poem "On Visiting the Temple of Laozi", as copied by a 16th-century calligrapher. Calligraphy (from Greek kallos "beauty" + graphẽ "writing" is the art of writing (Mediavilla 1996 17

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" (詩史 shī shǐ). The Song Dynasty ( Wade-Giles: Sung Ch'ao was a ruling dynasty in China between 960&ndash1279 CE it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms See also History An historian is an individual who studies and writes about History, and is regarded as an Authority on it 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. Military tactics ( Greek: Taktikē, the art of organizing an army are the techniques for using weapons or military units in combination for engaging and defeating 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". ^[6]

Du Fu's political comments are based on emotion rather than calculation: his prescriptions have been paraphrased as, "Let us all be less selfish, let us all do what we are supposed to do". ^[7] Since his views were impossible to disagree with, however, his forcefully expressed truisms enabled his installation as the central figure of Chinese poetic history.

Moral engagement

A second favourite epithet of Chinese critics is that of "poet sage" (詩聖 shī shèng), a counterpart to the philosophical sage, Confucius. An epithet (from Greek ἐπίθετον - epitheton, neut of ἐπίθετος - epithetos, "attributed added" is a Confucius ( lit " Master Kung " September 28, 551 BC - 479 BC) was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher 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. Conscription (also known as the draft, the call-up or national service) is a general term for involuntary labor demanded by some established authority Duty (from "due" that which is owing O Fr deu did past participle of devoir Lat These themes are continuously articulated in the poems on the lives of both soldiers and civilians which Du Fu produced throughout his life.

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". Solipsism ( Latin: solus, alone + ipse, self is the philosophical idea that "My mind is the only thing that I know exists He therefore "lends grandeur" to the wider picture by comparing it to "his own slightly comical triviality". ^[8]

Du Fu's compassion, for himself and for others, was part of his general broadening of the scope of poetry: he devoted many works to topics which had previously been considered unsuitable for poetic treatment. Zhang Jie wrote that for Du Fu, "everything in this world is poetry",^[9] and he wrote extensively on subjects such as domestic life, calligraphy, paintings, animals and other poems.

Technical excellence

Du Fu's work is notable above all for its range. Chinese critics traditionally used the term 集大成 (jídàchéng- "complete symphony"), a reference to Mencius' description of Confucius. Life Mencius also known by his birth name Meng Ke or Ko, was born in the State of Zou (simp Confucius ( lit " Master Kung " September 28, 551 BC - 479 BC) was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher Yuan Zhen was the first to note the breadth of Du Fu's achievement, writing in 813 that his predecessor, "united in his work traits which previous men had displayed only singly". Yuan Zhen ( 779–831 Courtesy name Weizhi (微之 was an important Chinese writer and Poet in the middle Tang Dynasty known ^[10] He mastered all the forms of Chinese poetry: Chou says that in every form he "either made outstanding advances or contributed outstanding examples". Chinese Poetry is the most highly regarded literary genre in China. ^[11] Furthermore, his poems use a wide range of registers, from the direct and colloquial to the allusive and self-consciously literary. In Linguistics, a register is a subset of a Language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting A colloquialism is an expression not used in formal speech, writing or Paralinguistics. An allusion is a figure of speech that makes a reference or representation of or to a well-known person place event literary work myth, or work of art 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. Chameleons (family Chamaeleonidae) are squamates that belong to one of the best-known Lizard families Owen comments on the "grim simplicity" of the Qinzhou poems, which mirrors the desert landscape;^[12] the works from his Chengdu period are "light, often finely observed";^[13] while the poems from the late Kuizhou period have a "density and power of vision". ^[14]

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. Shi ( is the Chinese word for " Poetry " or "poem" 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". ^[15]

Influence

In his lifetime, and immediately following his death, Du Fu was not greatly appreciated. In part this can be attributed to his stylistic and formal innovations, some of which are still "considered extremely daring and bizarre by Chinese critics". ^[16] There are few contemporary references to him—only eleven poems from six writers—and these describe him in terms of affection, but not as a paragon of poetic or moral ideals. ^[17] Du Fu is also poorly represented in contemporary anthologies of poetry.

However, as Hung notes, he "is the only Chinese poet whose influence grew with time",^[18] and in the ninth century he began to increase in popularity. Early positive comments came from Bai Juyi, who praised the moral sentiments of some of Du Fu's works (although he found these in only a small fraction of the poems), and from Han Yu, who wrote a piece defending Du Fu and Li Bai on aesthetic grounds from attacks made against them. Life Bai Juyi was born in Xinzheng to a poor but scholarly family Quote "It is universally admitted that the unicorn is a supernatural being of good omen such is declared in all the odes annals biographies of illustrious By the beginning of the 10th century, Wei Zhuang had constructed the first replica of his thatched cottage in Sichuan. Wei Zhuang ( 836&ndash910 Courtesy name Duanyi (端己 was a Chinese poet and Tang period historical figure is best known for his poetry

It was in the 11th century, during the Northern Song era that Du Fu's reputation reached its peak. The Song Dynasty ( Wade-Giles: Sung Ch'ao was a ruling dynasty in China between 960&ndash1279 CE it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms In this period a comprehensive re-evaluation of earlier poets took place, in which Wang Wei, Li Bai and Du Fu came to be regarded as representing respectively the Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian strands of Chinese culture. Wang Wei ( 701–761 sometimes titled the Poet Buddha, was a Tang Dynasty Chinese poet, Musician, painter and statesman Buddhism is a family of beliefs and practices Taoism (pronounced /ˈdaʊɪzəm/ or /ˈtaʊɪzəm/ also spelled '''Daoism''') refers to a variety of related Philosophical and Religious traditions Confucianism ( is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system originally developed from the teachings of the fifth century B ^[19] At the same time, the development of Neo-Confucianism ensured that Du Fu, as its poetic exemplar, occupied the paramount position. Neo-Confucianism (/( is a form of Confucianism that was primarily developed during the Song Dynasty, but which can be traced back to Han Yu and Li ^[20] Su Shi famously expressed this reasoning when he wrote that Du Fu was "preeminent. Su Shi ( 1037–1101 was a writer, poet, Artist, calligrapher, Pharmacologist, and Statesman of the Song Dynasty . . because. . . through all his vicissitudes, he never for the space of a meal forgot his sovereign". ^[21] His influence was helped by his ability to reconcile apparent opposites: political conservatives were attracted by his loyalty to the established order, while political radicals embraced his concern for the poor. Conservatism is a term used to describe political philosophies that favour Tradition, where tradition refers to various religious cultural or nationally defined For opposition to all forms of government social hierarchy or authority see Anarchism. Literary conservatives could look to his technical mastery, while literary radicals were inspired by his innovations. Since the establishment of the People's Republic of China, Du Fu's loyalty to the state and concern for the poor have been interpreted as embryonic nationalism and socialism, and he has been praised for his use of simple, "people's language". Talk People's Republic of China) PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ARTICLE GUIDELINES Vernacular Chinese is a style or register of the Written Chinese Language essentially modeled after the spoken language and associated with ^[22]

Du Fu's popularity grew to such an extent that it is as hard to measure his influence as that of Shakespeare in England: it was hard for any Chinese poet not to be influenced by him. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland While there was never another Du Fu, individual poets followed in the traditions of specific aspects of his work: Bai Juyi's concern for the poor, Lu You's patriotism, and Mei Yaochen's reflections on the quotidian are a few examples. Life Bai Juyi was born in Xinzheng to a poor but scholarly family Career Early career Lu You came from a family in which there were some government officials Mei Yaochen (or Mei Yao-ch'en (梅尧臣 or 梅堯臣 (1002 - 1060 was a poet of the Song dynasty. More broadly, Du Fu's work in transforming the lǜshi from mere word play into "a vehicle for serious poetic utterance"^[23] set the stage for every subsequent writer in the genre. Word play is a Literary technique in which the nature of the words that are used become the main subject of the work

Du Fu has also been influential beyond China, although in common with the other High Tang poets, his reception into the Japanese literary culture was relatively late. Japanese literature spans a period of almost two millennia Early works were heavily influenced by cultural contact with China and Chinese literature, often written It was not until the 17th century that he was accorded the same respect in Japan as in China, but he then had a particular influence on Matsuo Bashō. was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan During his lifetime Bashō was recognized for his works in the collaborative haikai no renga form today In the 20th century, he was the favourite poet of Kenneth Rexroth, who has described him as "the greatest non-epic, non dramatic poet who has survived in any language", and commented that, "he has made me a better man, as a moral agent and as a perceiving organism". Kenneth Rexroth ( December 22[[ 905]] &ndash June 6[[ 982]] was an American Poet, Translator and critical Essayist He was among the An epic is a lengthy Narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation Drama is the specific mode of Fiction represented in Performance. ^[24]

Translation

There have been a number of notable translations of Du Fu’s work into English. The translators have each had to contend with the same problems of bringing out the formal constraints of the original without sounding laboured to the western ear (particularly when translating lǜshi), and of dealing with the allusions contained particularly in the later works (Hawkes writes that "his poems do not as a rule come through very well in translation"—p. ix). One extreme on each issue is represented by Kenneth Rexroth’s One Hundred Poems From the Chinese. Kenneth Rexroth ( December 22[[ 905]] &ndash June 6[[ 982]] was an American Poet, Translator and critical Essayist He was among the One Hundred Poems From the Chinese is a collection of translations of Chinese poetry by Kenneth Rexroth, first published in 1965 His are free translations, which seek to conceal the parallelisms through enjambement and expansion and contraction of the content; his responses to the allusions are firstly to omit most of these poems from his selection, and secondly to “translate out” the references in those works which he does select. Enjambment (also spelled enjambement) is the breaking of a syntactic unit (a Phrase, Clause, or sentence) by the end of a line or between two

An example of the opposite approach is Burton Watson's The Selected Poems of Du Fu. Burton Watson (born 1925 is an accomplished translator of Chinese and Japanese literature and poetry Watson follows the parallelisms quite strictly, persuading the western reader to adapt to the poems rather than vice versa. Similarly, he deals with the allusion of the later works by combining literal translation with extensive annotation. Annotation is add on information asserted with a particular point in a Document or other piece of information

See also

• Tang Dynasty art
• List of Chinese people

Notes

References

• Ch'en Wen-hua. T'ang Sung tzu-liao k'ao.
• Chou, Eva Shan; (1995). Reconsidering Tu Fu: Literary Greatness and Cultural Context. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-44039-4.
• Cooper, Arthur (translator); (1986). Li Po and Tu Fu: Poems. Viking Press. ISBN 0-14-044272-3.
• Ebrey, Walthall, Palais, (2006). East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
• Hawkes, David; (1967). David Hawkes ( July 6, 1923 -) is a British Sinologist. He studied Chinese at Oxford University between 1945 and 1947 and A Little Primer of Tu Fu. Oxford University Press. ISBN 962-7255-02-5.
• Hung, William; (1952). Tu Fu: China's Greatest Poet. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-7581-4322-2.
• McCraw, David; (1992). Du Fu's Laments from the South. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0824814223.
• Owen, Stephen (editor); (1997). An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-97106-6.
• Rexroth, Kenneth (translator); (1971). Kenneth Rexroth ( December 22[[ 905]] &ndash June 6[[ 982]] was an American Poet, Translator and critical Essayist He was among the One Hundred Poems From the Chinese. New Directions Press. ISBN 0811201805.
• Watson, Burton (editor); (1984). Burton Watson (born 1925 is an accomplished translator of Chinese and Japanese literature and poetry The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-05683-4.
• Watson, Burton (translator); (2002). Burton Watson (born 1925 is an accomplished translator of Chinese and Japanese literature and poetry The Selected Poems of Du Fu. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-12829-0.

External links

• Tu Fu's poems included in 300 Selected Tang poems, translated by Witter Bynner
• Du Fu's poems organized roughly by date written; shows both simplified and traditional characters
• Du Fu at the Open Directory Project