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    Selected Poems of Du Fu
    Selected Poems of Du Fu
    Selected Poems of Du Fu
    Ebook195 pages1 hour

    Selected Poems of Du Fu

    By Columbia University Press

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    The great Buddhist priest Kûkai (774-835) is credited with the introduction and establishment of tantric -or esoteric -Buddhism in early ninth-century Japan. In Ryûichi Abé examines this important religious figure -neglected in modern academic literatu

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherColumbia University Press
    Release dateJun 19, 2012
    ISBN9780231502290
    Selected Poems of Du Fu

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      Selected Poems of Du Fu - Columbia University Press

      The selected poems of Du fu

      TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ASIAN CLASSICS

      TRANSLATIONS FROM

      THE ASIAN CLASSICS

      Editorial Board

      Wm. Theodore de Bary, Chair

      Paul Anderer

      Irene Bloom

      Donald Keene

      George A. Saliba

      Haruo Shirane

      David D. W. Wang

      Burton Watson

      The selected

      poems of

      Du fu

      burton watson

      COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK

      COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

      Publishers Since 1893

      New York       Chichester, West Sussex

      cup.columbia.edu

      Copyright © 2002 Columbia University Press

      All rights reserved

      E-ISBN 978-0-231-50229-0

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Du, Fu, 712–770.

      The selected poems of Du Fu / Burton Watson.

      p. cm.—(Translations from the Asian classics)

      Includes bibliographical references.

      ISBN 0–231–12828–2 (alk. paper)—

      ISBN 0–231–12829–0 (pbk. : alk. paper)

      1. Du, Fu, 712–770—Translations into English.

      I. Watson, Burton, 1925– II. Title. III. Series.

      PL2675.A276 2002

      895.1′13—dc21

      2002073778

      A Columbia University Press E-book.

      CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at cup-ebook@columbia.edu.

      contents

      Chronology

      Introduction

      Poems

      Selected Bibliography

      Chronology

      Introduction

      Du Fu, the eliciter of superlatives! The Chinese scholar William Hung, who wrote the definitive book in English on Du Fu’s life and poetry, gave it the unequivocal title Tu Fu: China’s Greatest Poet. Professor Stephen Owen of Harvard, the leading American authority on Chinese poetry of the Tang period, enthusiastically seconds Hung’s estimation of Du Fu. And the American poet and translator Kenneth Rexroth, who rendered some of Du Fu’s poems in English, goes a step further to declare him the greatest non-epic, non-dramatic poet who has survived in any language.¹

      My aim in the present volume is neither to question nor to confirm these judgments, but simply to present a selection of Du Fu’s works in translation, though later in this introduction I would like to examine some of the reasons that could be cited to support these claims to greatness. Some fourteen hundred poems attributed to Du Fu have come down to us, but his fame rests mainly on one hundred or so poems that have been widely admired, commented on, and anthologized over the centuries by the Chinese and other peoples within the Chinese cultural sphere. My own selection of 135 poems includes translations of most of the poems for which he is best remembered along with a few less famous works that I believe deserve notice.

      Du Fu’s poetry was profoundly influenced by the troubled times in which he lived; before considering the poems themselves, it may therefore be helpful to give a brief summary of his life. Little biographical information regarding him has survived, and almost all of what we know of him comes from his own poems and other writings. A chronological outline of his life will be found on pp. vii–viii, but even some of the data listed there is conjectural in nature, as is much of the dating of the poems in my selection.

      Du Fu came from a distinguished family of literati. His most illustrious ancestor was Du Yu (222–284), a literary leader and Confucian scholar who compiled an authoritative commentary on the Zuozhuan, one of the most important historical texts of the Confucian canon. Also of prominence was his paternal grandfather, Du Shenyan (d. 708), an official in the Tang bureaucracy and one of the outstanding poets of his time. Du Fu’s father, Du Xian, also held an official post, though a minor one, and little is known of him. Du Fu’s mother, whose surname was Cui, apparently died shortly after he was born; the younger brothers and sister he mentions in his poetry are almost certainly children by a second wife.

      Du Fu, whose courtesy name was Zimei, was born in 712, one year before Emperor Xuanzong came to the throne. His place of birth is uncertain, but it is usually listed as Gong District in the Luoyang area of Henan. Almost nothing is known of his early years, though being the son of a family that for successive generations had held official posts, he no doubt worked diligently to prepare for the civil service examinations that opened the way to such offices. This involved intensive study and memorization of the classics of Confucianism, the standard histories, and literary works such as the voluminous Wenxuan, or Literary Anthology. He was well versed in Daoist literature as well and, as he himself mentions, at some point studied the doctrines of the Chan, or Zen, school of Buddhism and acquired a considerable knowledge of Buddhist writings.²

      In his poems he refers to two periods of youthful wandering, the first, probably in the years around 731–735, to Jiangsu and the seacoast area of Zhejiang, and the second some years later to the northeast region of Shandong and Hebei. At some point, probably in 735, he went to the capital, Chang’an, to take the examination for jinshi, or Presented Scholar. Much to the bafflement of scholars and admirers of later generations, he failed to make a passing grade.

      During his youthful years in the Luoyang area, when he was already very active as a poet, he became acquainted with a number of well-known literary figures, among them the famous poet Li Bo or Li Bai (701–762), whom he greatly admired. In several poems in my selection, Du Fu recalls their period of friendship and expresses concern over the older poet’s welfare.

      In 746 Du Fu left the Luoyang area and moved to Chang’an, living in a suburb of the city called Duling, where a number of families with the Du surname were located. Apparently he hoped to advance his chances for an official appointment by showing his writings to influential people in the capital and appealing to them for help, a common practice at the time among young men with literary and political ambitions. In a poem presented to one such patron, he describes himself wryly as mornings rapping at some rich fellow’s gate, / evenings trailing in the dust of his fat horses. (See poem 5.)

      The period of Du Fu’s youth, which corresponds to the early years of Emperor Xuanzong’s reign, was one of widespread peace and prosperity, a golden age in the annals of Chinese culture. But by the time he moved to Chang’an, there were clear signs of impending disaster. The Chinese armies

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