The mainstream view holds that Du Fu's poems are gloomy in style, refined in language, rigorous in meter, skillful in craftsmanship, sincere in feelings, elegant in speech, profound in description, delicate and touching, and vivid in image.
A further study of Du Fu's poems shows that the formation of his poetic style is closely related to his adherence to Confucianism. Du Fu was at the end of his heyday and ambitious when he was young. Later, the Anshi Rebellion broke out and the national movement declined. Coupled with the unsatisfactory official career and the huge gap between ideal and reality, Du Fu's poetic style has changed greatly, approaching realism.
Du Fu's Poetic Expression
In terms of language, Du Fu's poems are generally regarded as "gloomy", with rich changes in language and text structure, and emphasis on wording and sentence making.
The word "depressed" was first seen in the Southern Dynasties, which means "the body is depressed and thoughtful, and the sun and the moon are beautiful". Later, Du Fu wrote the word "depressed and frustrated", which accurately summarized the language of his works. "As for depression and frustration, they are agile at all times, while the people in Yang Xiong and Gomez are ordinary."
The individualization of image selection in Du Fu's poems is the basis of his language. The images that often appear in Du Fu's poems, such as ancient blockhouses, autumn clouds, the whistling of apes, the remnants of torches, steep gorges, the defense of the city, solitary boats, fallen flowers, sunset and other natural landscapes, as well as ordinary people such as weaver girls, old women, old farmers and wives, as well as powerful forces such as officials, generals and villains, all show Du Fu's enthusiasm for "revitalizing the world".
It is these expressions of heavy feelings that make the language of Du Fu's poems tend to be "depressed and frustrated".
The evaluation of Du Fu's later poems in Wu Ling's Poems Around the Stream: "Yang opens and Yin closes" says: "Only the meaning is far-reaching, and the next sentence is unknown". Wu Ling added: "When a mortal writes a poem, he only says one thing in one sentence, but he says two more.
Du Fu's poems can say three, four or five things in one sentence; Ordinary people write poetry, which is far less than dozens of miles in front of them. Du Fu's poems can be said to be hundreds of miles, two armies and States, and the world is wonderful. "