Infusing Chinese Studies into the Undergraduate Curriculum:

High Tang Poetry

Kirsten Lodge

Midwestern State University

Du Fu

712-770 CE

High Tang Dynasty, 8th Century

• Golden Age of Chinese Poetry • Poetry becomes part of the civil service

exam, which leads to its flourishing • Most famous poets: Du Fu and Li Bai (Li

Po) • Exchanges of poetry; poetry as a social

activity • Traditional forms + personal

experience/vision • Developing idea of writing for posterity

Du Fu • Not appreciated during his lifetime, but now

considered comparable to Shakespeare in influence

• Known as a Confucian poet, but never passed the civil service exam

• Called a “historian poet” • An Lushan Rebellion, 755-763 • Best works from late period, 760s, written in

isolation • Known for range and technical precision • 2/3 of his poems in lüshi (regulated verse)

Lüshi Rules • 8 lines of 5 or 7 characters, rarely of 6 • Couplets are the basic unit • Each line is end-stopped (no enjambment) • Two basic tone patterns, varied for rhythm

and effect (cf. Western meter and rhythm) • Every even line has the same rhyme • Conventional imagery (cf. landscape painting),

e.g. mountains, water, moon, trees, retreat into nature

• Ideal of embodying the cosmic order in a small work (microcosm, cf. yin and yang)

Lüshi Parallelism (One of Two Basic Types of Development)

First couplet: introduces time, space, and theme (free) Second couplet: elaborates theme (parallel) Third couplet: turns theme in an unexpected direction (parallel) Fourth couplet: resolution or conclusion (free)

Poems

Translated by Stephen Owen

Select Bibliography

ChinaX Part 3: Cosmopolitan Tang: Aristocratic Culture. Week 13: Poetry. EdX. July 2014. Web. 3 Aug 2015. Lavrač, Maya. “Du Fu: Master Stylist of Chinese Poetic Language.” Asian and African Studies XIII, 3 (2009). 1–10. Web. 3 Aug 2015. Murashige, Stanley. “Chinese Art and Aesthetic Practice.” Lecture at the East-West Center, Honolulu. 30 July 2015. Owen, Stephen. The Great Age of Chinese Poetry. The High Tang, 2nd ed. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1981. Print. --. “Poetry in the Chinese Tradition.” Paul S. Ropp, ed. Heritage of China: Contemporary Perspectives on Chinese Civilization. Berkeley and Los Angeles: U of California P, 1990. Google Books. Web. 3 Aug 2015. “Service or Reclusion: Tu Fu’s Confucian Dilemma.” Hermitary: Resources and Reflections on Hermits and Solitude. 2004. Web. 3 Aug 2015.

“Transcript for Week 13.” ChinaX Part 3: Cosmopolitan Tang: Aristocratic Culture. Week 13: Poetry. EdX. July 2014. Web. 3 Aug 2015. https://courses.edx.org/c4x/HarvardX/SW12.3x/asset/Transcript_for_Week_13-Poetry.pdf Zong-qi Cai, ed. How to Read Chinese Poetry: A Guided Anthology. New York: Columbia UP, 2008. Google Books. Web. 2 Aug 2015.