Du Fu (712 - 770) was a Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty, traditionally ranked alongside Li Bai as one of the greatest figures in Chinese literature. [1] Writing through the upheaval of the An Lushan Rebellion, he produced poetry of exceptional formal skill that turned directly toward war, displacement and the hardships of ordinary people. Later generations honoured him as the shisheng, or "Poet-Sage," and his roughly 1,400 surviving poems became a permanent part of the Chinese literary canon. [2]
Early life and education
Du Fu was born in 712 in Gongyi, in present-day Henan province, into a family of scholar-officials with a long tradition of state service. [1] His grandfather Du Shenyan was himself a recognised poet, and Du Fu received the classical education expected of a young man preparing for an official career.
He travelled widely in his twenties and thirties across eastern and northern China, a period that supplied much of the landscape imagery in his early work. He sat for the imperial civil service examination but failed, a setback that delayed the official appointment on which his family's standing and his own livelihood depended. [2]
Career and the An Lushan Rebellion
Du Fu spent years at the capital, Chang'an, seeking patronage and a post, and eventually obtained only minor appointments. His circumstances changed drastically with the outbreak of the An Lushan Rebellion in 755, which shattered the Tang state and drove the court from the capital. [3]
He was captured by rebel forces and held in occupied Chang'an, later escaping to rejoin the emperor's court, where he served briefly as a reminder to the throne before being reassigned and then leaving office. The remaining years of his life were spent moving through the provinces, for a time in a thatched cottage at Chengdu built with the help of friends, and finally on the rivers of the south. [1]
Poetry
Du Fu's reputation rests on the range and precision of his verse. He worked in every major form of his day and was a particular master of lüshi, the strictly regulated eight-line form, which he handled with a density of allusion and a control of parallelism that later critics treated as definitive. [2]
His subject matter set him apart from earlier court poetry. Poems such as those on conscription, on the ruined capital and on his own family's hunger record the human cost of the rebellion in concrete detail, while others turn to friendship, ageing and the discipline of the writing life.
Death and legacy
Du Fu died in 770 near Tanzhou, in present-day Hunan, in poverty and ill health while travelling by boat. [1] He was little celebrated in his own lifetime, and his standing rose only gradually over the following centuries.
By the Song dynasty he was widely regarded as the supreme Chinese poet, and his work became a model for imitation and commentary that continued into the modern era. [3] His poems have been translated repeatedly into English and other languages, and the reconstructed Du Fu Thatched Cottage in Chengdu remains a site of literary pilgrimage. [4]
