Poetic History Du Fu
1. Important historical events that are often mentioned are reflected in his poems. In the first year of Zhide (756), the Tang army Chen Taoxie was defeated, and then defeated at Qingban. Du Fu wrote "Sorrow for Chen Tao" and "Sorrow for Qingban"; after recovering the two capitals, Du Fu wrote "Three Poems on the Recapture of Beijing" and "Happy News about the Officials and Soldiers" "Twenty Rhymes of Already Approaching the Territory of Thieves"; in the ninth quarter, troops surrounded Yecheng. It seemed that victory was imminent. Du Fu wrote "Washing the Soldiers and Horses", which mentioned that news of victory came one after another, and mentioned that the Uighur troops assisted in the battle and received preferential treatment in Chang'an. The story mentioned the achievements of quelling the rebel generals. "Three Officials" and "Three Farewells" were made when the army was defeated in Yecheng in the ninth quarter and the troops were recruited along the way to supplement the army.
2. Some of Du Fu's poems can also make up for the missing records in history. For example, "Three Quatrains" writes about the killing of the governors in Yuzhou and Kaizhou, which has not been recorded in historical books. From Du's poems, we can see the chaotic situation in Shu after the Anshi Rebellion. "Remembering the Past" describes the prosperity of the Kaiyuan era. His poems provide historical facts, can prove history, and can make up for the shortcomings of history.
3. Du’s poems provide a broader, more specific and more vivid picture of life than events. For example, "Five Hundred Words of Empathy from Beijing to Fengxian County". Although some of his poems do not directly write about current events, but only write about his own emotions, but because he was in the midst of war and was closely related to this disaster, his heart's aspirations and feelings were not separated from the current situation, so he never left the current situation. In his sadness, we can feel some of the psychological state of society at that time. From the perspective of understanding the true face of history, this type of poetry also has historical significance.
Other poets
In addition to Du Fu, there are also poems written by some poets that are also called "history of poetry".
“The use of Yuefu to write about current affairs began with Duke Cao.” In the late Han Dynasty, Cao Cao was good at learning from folk songs and was the first to borrow old Yuefu titles to write about current affairs. For example, "A Walk in the Artemisia" and "A Walk in the Grass" were originally elegy in a mixed style. He changed it to a five-character style, which was used to "sympathize with the chaos in times of hurt" and express the serious disasters brought to the people by the warlords' melee at that time. What is written in "Hao Li Xing" is that "white bones are exposed in the wild, and there are no roosters crowing for thousands of miles. There are hundreds of people who have left one thing, and the thought of it will break people's hearts." It is completely true. People in the Ming Dynasty commented on these poems: "Records from the late Han Dynasty are the history of poetry." (Ming Zhongxing's "Return of Ancient Poems")
Lu You, the great poet of the Song Dynasty, claimed that he had "thousands of poems in sixty years". He has been writing for a long time and has a large number of poems with rich content. The most prominent one is the national contradiction that reflects the main contradiction of the times. The strong patriotism spirit runs through all the poems like a red line. At the same time, the style of Lu's poetry is also close to that of Du Fu, so he has also won the reputation of "the history of poetry" of his generation. Famous articles include "Guan Shan Yue", "Shu Ang", "Shi'er", etc.
Wen Tianxiang in the late Southern Song Dynasty was a famous national hero and an outstanding patriotic poet. His poems later learned from Du Fu, and mostly described the suffering of the nation and his own fighting process, expressing the noble national integrity, such as "Song of Righteousness", "Crossing the Lingding Ocean", "Jinling Station", etc., and have always been known as the "History of Poetry" .
Wang Yuanliang, who lived at the same time as Wen Tianxiang, was originally a court musician. He wrote many documentary poems based on his personal experience. For example, the ten "Drunken Songs" record the surrender of the Southern Song Dynasty to the Yuan army and the situation of the surrender; the ninety-eight "Huzhou Songs" describe in detail his various experiences when he was escorted north to Yanjing with the Sixth Palace of the Southern Song Dynasty. "Yuezhou Song" contains twenty poems, describing the tragic situation of Yuan soldiers going south and ravaging half of the rivers and mountains in the Southern Song Dynasty. At that time, the poet Liu Chenweng called Wang Yuanliang's poems the "poetic history" of the Song Dynasty's death.
Wu Weiye, a famous poet in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, wrote many works about current events during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, embodying the rise and fall of his life, and is also called "the history of poetry". For example, "Yuan Yuan Qu" reflects part of the historical facts of the fall of the Ming Dynasty through the relevant deeds of Chen Yuanyuan. Six poems such as "Travel to Luzhou" are imitated from Du Fu's "Three Officials" and "Three Farewells", which more realistically express the people's suffering.
In the late Qing Dynasty, Huang Zunxian, also known as Gongdu, was the most outstanding poet of the bourgeois reformists. His poems "record many current events" (Chen Yan's "Poetry in the Shiyishi"), reflecting the historical facts of the Sino-French War, the Sino-Japanese War, the Eight-Power Allied Forces entering Beijing, etc., and have a strong spirit of the times. Poems such as "Sad for Pyongyang", "Sorrow for Lushun", "Crying for Weihai", and "Song of General Du Liao" timely and comprehensively reflected the process of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1894, and lashed out the shameful corruption and incompetence of the Qing Dynasty and its defeat without a fight. This act exposed the aggressive face of Japanese imperialism and showed the poet's patriotic passion. Liang Qichao once spoke highly of Huang Zunxian's poems, saying: "The poems of Gongdu are also the history of poetry." ("Poem Talk in the Drinking Ice Room")
"History of Poetry" Volume 15 [Deputy Capital Censor Huang Dengxian Family collection edition] The old edition is titled Ming Gu Zhengyi. Zhengyi, a native of Songjiang. Wanli Zhongguanzhong Shushe was born. Kao Qian Xiyan's "Xi Xia" said: "In the past, I saw Gu's "History of Poetry" carved in the clouds at Taiyuan Zhaitou. I read that it was the name of Zhonghan Zhengyi. I and Mr. Wang looked at each other in amazement. Mr. Wang said: 'This How can Duke Hutou do it? "After I passed by the clouds, I learned that Tang Ruxun Zhongyan, a poet in Huating, wrote this book with blind eyes. Gu got it for thirty gold! How can Tang Sheng's literary integrity be so low-key? The eternal injustice will not be vindicated until someone else comes from another generation, so there should be a final conclusion." According to this, the book was written by Tang Ruxun, and Zhengyi bought his manuscript and had it engraved. However, the book is rhymed with the biographies of the dynasties, and each annotated it for easy memorization. However, it is just like "Mengqiu", which is stolen without knowing where Zhengyi was obtained.