Du Fu

Du Fu (712–770) was a Tang dynasty poet whose formally ambitious poems portray warfare, political upheaval, social suffering, and ordinary life.

Spring View: A Du Fu poem written in 757, depicting a war-torn capital and the poet’s grief for his family. Its ruined Chang’an makes the An Lushan Rebellion intimate and visible.
Tang dynasty: A Chinese dynasty that ruled from 618 to 907 and is often associated with major achievements in poetry and art. Du Fu’s career belongs to the dynasty’s flourishing literary culture.
Regulated verse: A form of classical Chinese poetry governed by rules of line length, tonal pattern, and parallelism. Du Fu mastered its constraints while widening its emotional and historical range.
Wang Wei: A Tang dynasty poet, painter, and musician whose poetry often evokes landscape and Buddhist thought. Wang Wei offers a contemporary poetic career distinct from Du Fu’s historical witness.
Chinese poetry: Poetry written in Chinese across a long tradition of changing forms, languages, and literary conventions. Du Fu became one of its most influential models of formal command and moral attention.
The Song of the War Carts: A Du Fu poem condemning conscription through the voices of soldiers and their families. It turns the human cost of Tang military campaigns into direct speech.
An Lushan Rebellion: A devastating rebellion against Tang rule that began in 755 and lasted until 763. The rebellion divided Du Fu’s life and supplied many poems with their historical setting.
Five-character regulated verse: A regulated Chinese poetic form whose lines each contain five characters. Many of Du Fu’s tightly structured poems use this compact form.
Han Yu: A Tang dynasty essayist and poet who helped shape later classical prose and literary criticism. Han Yu’s praise helped establish Du Fu as a model for later Chinese poetry.
Confucianism: A Chinese ethical and philosophical tradition centered on cultivated conduct, social roles, and humane government. His concern for public duty and common hardship is often read through Confucian values.

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