 = Du Fu = 
 
 Du Fu ( Wade – Giles : Tu Fu ; Chinese : 杜甫 ; 712 – 770 ) was a prominent Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty . Along with Li Bai ( Li Po ) , he is frequently called the greatest of the Chinese poets . His greatest ambition was to serve his country as a successful civil servant , but he proved unable to make the necessary accommodations . His life , like the whole country , was devastated by the An Lushan Rebellion of 755 , and his last 15 years were a time of almost constant unrest . 
 Although initially he was little @-@ known to other writers , his works came to be hugely influential in both Chinese and Japanese literary culture . Of his poetic writing , nearly fifteen hundred poems have been preserved over the ages . He has been called the " 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 " . 
 
 = = Life = = 
 
 Traditional Chinese literary criticism emphasized the life of the author when interpreting a work , a practice which Burton Watson attributes to " the close links that traditional Chinese thought posits between art and morality " . Since many of Du Fu 's poems feature morality and history , this practice is particularly important . Another reason , identified by the Chinese historian William Hung , is that Chinese poems are typically concise , omitting context that might be relevant , but which an informed contemporary could be assumed to know . For modern Western readers , " 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 " . Stephen Owen suggests a third factor particular to Du Fu , arguing that the variety of the poet 's work required consideration of his whole life , rather than the " reductive " categorizations used for more limited poets . 
 
 = = = Early years = = = 
 
 Most of what is known of Du Fu 's life comes from his poems . His paternal grandfather was Du Shenyan , a noted politician and poet during the reign of Empress Wu . Du Fu was born in 712 ; the exact birthplace is unknown , except that it was near Luoyang , Henan province ( Gong county is a favourite candidate ) . In later life , he considered himself to belong to the capital city of Chang 'an , ancestral hometown of the Du family . 
 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 . 
 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 . 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 . In that year , he took the civil service exam , likely in Chang 'an . He failed , to his surprise and that of centuries of later critics . Hung concludes that he probably failed because his prose style at the time was too dense and obscure , while Chou suggests his failure to cultivate connections in the capital may have been to blame . After this failure , he went back to traveling , this time around Shandong and Hebei . 
 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 friendship . David Young describes this as " the most significant formative element in Du Fu 's artistic development " because it gave him a living example of the reclusive poet @-@ scholar life to which he was attracted after his failure in the civil service exam . The relationship was somewhat one @-@ sided , however . 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 took the civil service exam a second time during the following year , but all the candidates were failed by the prime minister ( apparently in order to prevent the emergence of possible rivals ) . 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 . 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 . 
 In 755 , he 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 suppressed for almost eight years . It caused enormous disruption to Chinese society : the census of 754 recorded 52 @.@ 9 million people , but ten years later , the census counted just 16 @.@ 9 million , the remainder having been displaced or killed . During this time , Du Fu led a largely itinerant life unsettled by wars , associated famines and imperial displeasure . This period of unhappiness was the making of Du Fu as a poet : Even 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 " . 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 . 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 . 
 In 756 , Emperor Xuanzong was forced to flee the capital and abdicate . Du Fu , who had been away from the city , took his family to a place of safety and attempted to join the court of the new emperor ( Suzong ) , but he was captured by the rebels and taken to Chang 'an . In the autumn , his youngest son , Du Zongwu ( Baby Bear ) , was born . Around this time Du Fu is thought to have contracted malaria . 
 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 caused trouble for himself by protesting the removal of his friend and patron Fang Guan on a petty charge . He was arrested but was pardoned in June . 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 . 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 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 more than sixty poems . 
 
 = = = Chengdu = = = 
 
 In December 759 , he briefly stayed in Tonggu ( modern Gansu ) . He departed on December 24 for Chengdu ( Sichuan province ) , where he was hosted by local Prefect and fellow poet Pei Di . Du subsequently based himself in Sichuan for most of the next five years . 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 . Many of Du 's poems from this period are peaceful depictions of his life at " thatched hut " . In 762 , he left the city to escape a rebellion , but he returned in summer 764 when he was appointed an advisor to Yan , who was involved in campaigns against the Tibetan Empire . 
 
 = = = 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 there . They traveled 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 ) . They stayed in Kuizhou ( in what is now Baidicheng , Chongqing ) at the entrance to the Three Gorges for almost two years from late spring 766 . 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 58th year . 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 . 
 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 . " 
 Below is an example of one of Du Fu 's later works , To My Retired Friend Wei ( Chinese : 贈衛八處士 ) . Like many other poems in the Tang it featured the theme of a long parting between friends , which was often due to officials being frequently transferred to the provinces : 
 
 = = 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 , critics have called Du Fu the " poet historian " ( 詩史 shī shǐ ) . 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 " . 
 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 " . Since his views were impossible to disagree with , 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 . 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 and a clear @-@ sighted consciousness of suffering . These concerns are continuously articulated in poems on the lives of both soldiers and civilians produced by Du Fu 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 " . He therefore " lends grandeur " to the wider picture by comparing it to " his own slightly comical triviality " . 
 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 " , Du 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 . 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 " . He mastered all the forms of Chinese poetry : Chou says that in every form he " either made outstanding advances or contributed outstanding examples " . Furthermore , his poems use a wide range of registers , from the direct and colloquial to the allusive and self @-@ consciously literary . This variety is manifested even within individual works : Owen identifies the , " rapid stylistic and thematic shifts " in poems which enable the poet to represent different facets of a situation , while Chou uses the term " juxtaposition " as the major analytical tool in her work . Du Fu is noted for having written more on poetics and painting than any other writer of his time . He wrote eighteen poems on painting alone , more than any other Tang poet . Du Fu 's seemingly negative commentary on the prized horse paintings of Han Gan ignited a controversy that has persisted to the present day . 
 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 ; the works from his Chengdu period are " light , often finely observed " ; while the poems from the late Kuizhou period have a " density and power of vision " . 
 Although he wrote in all poetic forms , Du Fu is best known for his lǜshi , a type of poem with strict constraints on form and content , for example : 
 About two thirds of Du Fu 's 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 " . 
 
 = = Influence = = 
 
 According to the Encyclopædia Britannica , Du Fu 's writings are considered by many literary critics to be among the greatest of all time , and it states " his dense , compressed language makes use of all the connotative overtones of a phrase and of all the intonational potentials of the individual word , qualities that no translation can ever reveal . " 
 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 . " 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 . 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 " , and his works began to increase in popularity in the ninth century . 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 . Both these writers showed the influence of Du Fu in their own poetic work . By the beginning of the 10th century , Wei Zhuang constructed the first replica of his thatched cottage in Sichuan . 
 It was in the 11th century , during the Northern Song era that Du Fu 's reputation reached its peak . 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 , Daoist and Confucian strands of Chinese culture . At the same time , the development of Neo @-@ Confucianism ensured that Du Fu , as its poetic exemplar , occupied the paramount position . Su Shi famously expressed this reasoning when he wrote that Du Fu was " preeminent ... because ... through all his vicissitudes , he never for the space of a meal forgot his sovereign " . 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 . 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 " . 
 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 . 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 . More broadly , Du Fu 's work in transforming the lǜshi from mere word play into " a vehicle for serious poetic utterance " set the stage for every subsequent writer in the genre . 
 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 " . 
 
 = = = Influence on Japanese literature = = = 
 
 Du Fu 's poetry has made a profound impact on Japanese literature , especially on the literature from the Muromachi period and on scholars and poets in the Edo period , including Matsuo Bashō , the very greatest of all haiku poets . Even in modern Japanese , the term Saint of Poetry ( 詩聖 , shisei ) is mostly synonymous with Du Fu . 
 Until the 13th century , the Japanese preferred Bai Juyi above all poets and there were few references to Du Fu , although his influence can be seen in some kanshi ( " Chinese poetry made by Japanese poets " ) anthologies such as Bunka Shūreishū in the 9th century . The first notable Japanese appreciator of Du Fu 's poetry was Kokan Shiren ( 1278 – 1346 ) , a Rinzai Zen patriarch and one of the most prominent authors of the literature of the Five Mountains ; he highly praised Du Fu and made a commentary on some poems of Du Fu from the perspective of a Zen priest in Vol . 11 of Saihokushū . His student Chūgan Engetsu composed many kanshi which were clearly stated " influenced by Du Fu " in their prefaces . Chūgan 's student Gidō Shūshin had close connection with the Court and Ashikaga Shogunate and propagated Du Fu 's poetry in the mundane world ; one day Nijō Yoshimoto , the Kampaku regent of the Court and the highest authority of renga poetry , asked Gidō , " Should I learn the poetry of Du Fu and Li Bai ? " Gidō dared to reply , " Yes if you do have enough capability . No if do not . " Since then , there had been many seminars on Du Fu 's poetry both in Zen temples and in the aristocratic society , and as a result his poetry was often cited in Japanese literature in the Muromachi period , e.g. , Taiheiki , a historical epic in the late 14th century , and some noh plays such as Hyakuman , Bashō , and Shunkan . 
 During the Kan 'ei era of the Edo period ( 1624 – 1643 ) , Shào Chuán ( 邵傳 ) of the Ming Dynasty 's Collective Commentary on Du Fu 's Lǜshi ( 杜律集解 , Toritsu Shikkai ) was imported into Japan , and it gained explosive popularity in Confucian scholars and chōnin ( townspeople ) class . The commentary established Du Fu 's fame as the highest of all poets ; for instance , Hayashi Shunsai , a notable Confucian scholar , commented in Vol . 37 of Gahō Bunshū that Zǐměi [ Du Fu ] was the very best poet in history and praised Shào Chuán 's commentary for its simplicity and readability , while he criticized old commentaries during the Yuan Dynasty were too unfathomable . Matsuo Bashō , the greatest haiku poet , was also strongly influenced by Du Fu ; in Oku no Hosomichi , his masterpiece , he cites the first two lines of A Spring View ( 春望 ) before a haiku as its introduction and also many of his other haiku have similar wording and themes . It is said that when he died in Osaka during a long travel , a copy of Du Fu 's poetry was found with him as one of a few precious items which he was able to carry around . 
 
 = = Translation = = 
 
 A variety of styles have been used in efforts to translate Du Fu 's work into English . As Burton Watson remarks in The Selected Poems of Du Fu , " There are many different ways to approach the problems involved in translating Du Fu , which is why we need as many different translations as possible " ( p. xxii ) . The translators have had to contend with bringing out the formal constraints of the original without sounding laboured to a Western ear ( particularly when translating regulated verse , or lǜshi ) , and accommodating the complex 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 . 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 . 
 Other translators have placed much greater weight on trying to convey a sense of the poetic forms used by Du Fu . Vikram Seth in Three Chinese Poets uses English @-@ style rhyme schemes , whereas Keith Holyoak in Facing the Moon approximates the Chinese rhyme scheme ; both use end @-@ stopped lines and preserve some degree of parallelism . In The Selected Poems of Du Fu , Burton 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 . 
 In 2015 , Stephen Owen published translations , with facing Chinese texts , of the complete poetry of Du Fu in six volumes , with extensive scholarly apparatus , which emphasized literalness . 
 
 