Introduction to Du Fu
Du Fu (AD 712-77), Han nationality, was born in Gongxian County, Henan Province (now Gongyi, Zhengzhou). He was known as Du Gongbu and Du Shi, and he was named Shaoling Yelao. He was a great realistic poet in the Tang Dynasty in China, serving the country and the people, dying young, and a poet. Du Fu's ancestral home was Xiangyang (now Xiangfan City, Hubei Province), his distant ancestor was Du Yu, a famous poet in the Jin Dynasty, and his ancestor was Du Shenyan, a poet in the early Tang Dynasty. Du Fu himself was born in Gongxian County, Henan Province (now Gongyi, Zhengzhou). Du Fu used to be Zuo Shiyi and Yuan Wailang of the Ministry of proofreading, so later generations called him Du Shiyi and Du Gongbu. Du Fu lived in the historical period from prosperity to decline in the Tang Dynasty, and his poems mostly involved social unrest, political darkness and people's sufferings. His poems were known as "the history of poetry". Du Fu was concerned about the country and the people, with noble personality and exquisite poetic skills, and was called "Poet Saint" by the later deities. Du Fu wrote more than 1,4 poems in his life, many of which are famous works that have been passed down through the ages, such as "Three Officials" and "Three Farewells", and Du Gongbu Collection has been handed down from generation to generation. Among them, the "Three Officials" are Shihao Officials, Xin 'an Officials and Tongguan Officials, and the "Three Farewells" are Newly Married, Homeless and Farewell to the Old. Du Fu's poems have a far-reaching influence on later generations.
Du Fu is good at using many systems of classical poetry and creatively developing them. He is the pioneer of the new Yuefu poetry style. His Yuefu poems contributed to the development of the new Yuefu movement in the middle Tang Dynasty. His "May 7th" ancient novel, which is also a history of poetry, begins to narrate and focuses on the whole story, marking the high achievement of Chinese poetry art.. Du Fu also showed remarkable creativity in the Five-Seven Rhythm, and accumulated complete artistic experience in temperament, antithesis, and refining words and sentences, which made this genre reach a fully mature stage.
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Du Fu's Thought
The core of Du Fu's thought is the Confucian thought of benevolent government. He has the grand ambition of "to make the monarch Yao and Shun superior, and then to make the customs pure". He loves life, people and the great rivers and mountains of the motherland. He hated evil, criticized and exposed the corruption of the imperial court and the dark phenomenon in social life. He sympathized with the people and even fantasized that he was willing to make self-sacrifice to save their suffering. Therefore, his poetry creation always runs through the main line of worrying about the country and the people, with the most ordinary people as the protagonist, which shows Du Fu's greatness. His poems are rich in social content, strong times color and distinct political tendency, which truly and profoundly reflect the political current affairs and broad social life picture of a historical era before and after the An Shi Rebellion, so they are called the "history of poetry" of a generation. The style of Du Fu's poems is basically "gloomy and frustrated", and the language and text structure are rich in changes, emphasizing the refinement of words and sentences. At the same time, his poems have many styles, except for the five ancient, seven ancient, five laws and seven laws, and he also wrote a lot of arranged laws. The artistic techniques are also varied, and they are the epitome of the ideological art of Tang poetry. Du Fu also inherited the spirit of Yuefu in Han and Wei Dynasties, and got rid of the shackles of Yuefu's ancient themes, and created many new themes of Yuefu, such as the famous "Three Officials" and "Three Farewells". After his death, he was greatly praised by Fan Huang, Han Yu, Yuan Zhen, Bai Juyi and others. Du Fu's poems have a profound influence on Yuan Bai's literary thought of "New Yuefu Movement" and Li Shangyin's near-body allegorical current affairs poems. However, Du Fu's poems were widely valued after the Song Dynasty. Yu Wang, Wang Anshi, Su Shi, Huang Tingjian, Lu You and others hold Du Fu in high esteem, while Wen Tianxiang takes Du Fu's poems as the spiritual force to stick to national integrity. The influence of Du Fu's poems, from ancient times to the present, has long gone beyond the scope of literature and art.. For details of his life, see Book of the Old Tang Dynasty, Volume 19.
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Three Officials and Three Farewells
"Three Officials" and "Three Farewells" are masterpieces of Du Fu's realistic poems. It truly describes the thoughts, feelings, actions and language of county officials, customs officials, old women, old men, brides, husbands and others in a specific environment, vividly reflects the social reality of that period and the profound disasters and pains of the working people, and shows people scenes of miserable life tragedies. In these descriptions of life sufferings, on the one hand, the poet has deep sympathy for the people who have suffered greatly, and hates the slavery and persecution given to the people by officials; On the other hand, he supported the dynasty's counter-insurgency war and hoped that the people would endure hardships and cooperate with the dynasty to put down the rebellion. This complex and contradictory thought is in line with the poet's ideological outlook of worrying about the country and the people.
Du Fu's thatched cottage by Huanhua River in the western suburbs of Chengdu is the residence of Du Fu after he arrived in Chengdu.
In the fourth year of the Tang Dynasty (769), Du Fu entered Hunan from Hubei, climbed Yueyang Tower, toured Dongting Lake, and went up Xiangjiang River to Leiyang. He died in April of the following year. According to "Biography of Du Fu in the Old Tang Dynasty", Du Fu visited Yue Temple in Leiyang, and was buried in Du Fu's tomb. "When the flood reached its peak, he was not allowed to eat for ten days, and the county magistrate gave him beef and white wine, so he drank too much and died overnight."
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Du Fu's life
Du Fu's experience and poetry creation can be divided into four periods:
First, the period of reading and roaming (before the age of thirty-five)
The so-called "dissolute Qi Zhao, Qiu Ma was quite wild".
Kaiyuan began to roam wuyue in the 19th year (when he was twenty years old), and returned to Luoyang five years later. Roam Qi Zhao again. After meeting Li Bai in Luoyang, they forged a deep friendship, then met Gao Shi, and they traveled with Liang and Song (now Kaifeng and Shangqiu). Later, Li Du went to Jizhou again, met in Donglu after breaking up, and parted again, so there was no chance to meet again.
Second, during the period of being trapped in Chang 'an (35-44 years old)
During this period, Du Fu took the exam in Chang 'an first and came last. Later, he presented gifts to the emperor and presented them to the nobles. He lived a life of "seizing the rich gate in the morning, catching up with the fat horse dust at dusk, smashing cups and cold roasting, and hiding sadness everywhere". Finally, he got a small official who led Cao Youwei to join the army (mainly guarding the weapons of the soldiers and the keys of the treasury). During this period, he wrote poems such as "The Car Shop" and "two for the road", which criticized current politics and satirized powerful people. The book "From Beijing to Fengxian County, Singing 5 Words" is particularly famous, which indicates that his understanding of the political and social reality of the imperial court has reached a new height after ten years of hard life in Chang 'an.
Third, during the period of being trapped as a thief and being an official (45-48 years old)
When the Anshi Rebellion broke out and Tongguan fell, Du Fu settled his family in Zhangzhou and went to Suzong alone, but was captured by Anshi rebels and taken to Chang 'an. Facing the chaotic Chang 'an, he heard the news that the loyalist troops had repeatedly retreated, and wrote poems such as Moonlit Night, Spring Hope, Aijiang Tou and Sad Chen Tao. Later, he absconded to Fengxiang Hangzai, doing the left gleaning. Because of his advice, Shang Shu was demoted to join the army as the prime minister. (Fang Shu was a typical intellectual, but unrealistic. He fought against the rebels and adopted the Spring and Autumn Array, and the result was a big defeat. Du fu began to pick up the remains of Zuo, and he said that Fang was innocent, and he was angry and wanted to find fault. Later, he recorded his experiences in the form of poems, which became his immortal works, namely "Three Officials" and "Three Farewells".
Three officials: Shihao officials, Xin 'an officials and Tongguan officials; "Three Farewells" means "Newly Married Farewell", "Homeless" and "Farewell to the Old".
IV. Wandering in Southwest China (48-58 years old)
With the disastrous defeat of government troops in Xiangzhou and the famine in Guanfu, Du Fu abandoned his government and fled with his family to Chengdu via Qin Zhou and Tonggu, and lived a relatively stable life. When Yanwu entered the DPRK, the warlords in the middle of Shu rebelled, and he drifted to Zizhou and Langzhou. After Yanwu was photographed in Chengdu for our time as a bo, Du Fu voted, and Yanwu died. He drifted again, lived in Kuizhou for two years, then drifted to Hubei and Hunan, and died on the Xiangjiang River. During this period, his works include Water Threshold to Send Heart, Delighting in Rain on a Spring Night, Cottage Broken by Autumn Wind, Sick Orange, Climbing the Building, Shu Xiang, both sides of the yellow river recaptured by the imperial army, Showing Wu Lang Again, Ascending the Mountain, Qiu Xing, Three Jueju and Sui Yan Xing. Among them, the most famous poem in "The Hut is Broken by the Autumn Wind" is: There are thousands of spacious buildings in Ande, and all the poor people in the world are happy.
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Historical biography
Humanistic spirit in Tang poetry
China is a country of poetry, and classical poetry is the essence of traditional culture in China. Among China's classical literature, poetry has the highest achievement and the greatest influence, which best represents the characteristics of our Chinese national literature. China literati attach great importance to "poetry". The ancients said that "a rough coat wraps up his life, and his belly is full of poetry and books", which means that even ordinary people wearing coarse cloth or homespun will look extraordinary because he has read poetry and books. This not only expresses the confidence of China traditional literati in their rich knowledge, but also shows the significance of gorgeous poems to personality cultivation. As we all know, the Tang Dynasty was a fascinating and powerful dynasty, a golden age in the history of China. Tang poetry represents the acme of poetry, which is the most brilliant literary classic in the most glorious historical period. We often say that the active and vigorous life force in Tang poetry comes not only from the weather of the times such as national strength and opening up, but also from enlightened and advanced political culture. The prosperity of Tang poetry has a lot to do with the imperial examinations, the great rise in the status of ancient scholars in China since the Han and Wei Dynasties, and the whole society's respect for poetry, humanity and beauty. This is the symbol of the revival of China culture and the pride of our Chinese nation. We say that Tang poetry also contains the endless humanistic spirit of our nation. Today, I am talking about the humanistic spirit in Tang poetry.
1. Humanistic Spirit If people present here have paid some attention to this topic, they can recall that a very fashionable word called humanistic spirit was being discussed in China academic circles a few years ago, not only in academic circles, but also in our university campus and the literary circles in society. So what is humanity? What is humanistic spirit? After that period of discussion, there is actually no idea. Many people have expressed their views, but not many fruits have been achieved. There are not many really influential philosophical thinking and vivid things. This is a pity for our discussion on humanistic spirit. So what is the humanistic spirit? We say that humanistic spirit is a universal human self-care, which is manifested in the maintenance, pursuit and concern for human dignity, value and destiny, the high value of various spiritual and cultural phenomena left over by human beings, and the affirmation and shaping of an all-round development ideal personality. According to my understanding of this tradition, the so-called humanistic spirit simply emphasizes the problem of how to improve people. The ancients said, "I save myself three times a day, and I am unfaithful for others." Make friends without believing them? Can't you learn it? " Today's people say, "A person's ability is great or small, but as long as he has this spirit, he is a noble person, a pure person, a moral person, a person who has broken away from low tastes and is beneficial to the people." Wait, these are all about how to improve people. This is not just to limit the humanistic spirit to a trend of thought in the so-called Renaissance in the West. It can be said that as long as human beings exist for one day, they will not stop thinking and grasping their own destiny. We know that humanism in history usually traces back to the Renaissance in Europe. However, the Renaissance certainly improved the humanistic spirit, but its humanistic spirit was mainly based on rationality. The promotion of rationality gradually promoted the development of science and made people pay more and more attention to and believe in science, thus forming the so-called scientism. Furthermore, humanities and sociology are required to emulate science and become science. The ultimate result of this is that since modern times, scientism has taken human nature seriously, thinking that people are just the synthesis of DNA, and they can be what they are. Or think that people are just a container of DNA. Don't think that you are great. The fate of personality, the success or failure of life and death have been decided long ago. People's struggle has become futile and their value has become low. It is this scientific arrogance, coupled with the materialized wave of consumerism. Non-economic social factors such as humanities, education, environmental protection and morality are constantly marginalized. In our universities, the humanities, whose core is to impart humanistic spirit, are threatened not only by utilitarianism from bottom to top, but also by specialization from top to bottom, and are constantly marginalized. This shows that in most people's minds, humanistic spirit is a big and insignificant thing.
here, I can make you think about such a problem. From primitive human society to modern times, our natural science can be said to have made great progress, and it is still in rapid development. However, the humanities with humanistic spirit as the core can't be said to have followed the same path of courage. So, for our society, how do we view the humanistic spirit? In the primitive society without the so-called developed material civilization in modern society, according to its certain interpersonal relationship or social system, we say that human life can still be carried out. On the other hand, if the relationship between people agreed by human nature is removed, it can be said that even in today's highly developed natural science, our society will collapse immediately. Therefore, the traditional morality such as benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom and faith advocated in the humanistic spirit has eternal value for social development. Mankind will always have to move forward in the pursuit of tomorrow's development and the search for eternal humanity. For a country, we often say that "we will be beaten if we are backward". We are only beaten if we are backward in science and technology, but what if our culture is backward? What will happen to us? It can be said that whenever a country is strong, it has its inherent cultural traditions at work, which is a deep-seated reason and easy to be ignored, but it is actually the most important, because it can determine the temperament and connotation of a nation. Although the rapid rise of Germany and Japan after World War II has its own foundation and the assistance of the United States, the most important thing is that their national temperament determined by their cultural connotation plays a deep role. China's 5,-year-old traditional culture is its endless life force. However, we say that any good traditional culture needs to be inherited so as not to die out.
Because of this, we should understand that the educational goal of a comprehensive university is not only to develop rationality, but also to cultivate human nature. Its task is to make its graduates become high-quality people and cultivate the personality and intellectual aristocrats needed by our society, that is, the intellectuals and elites often mentioned in our country. In this way, we can't just take the career path as the educational goal, or study for a special utilitarian purpose. For example, liberal arts education advocated by westerners. In the middle of the 19th century, there was a great educator named Newman in Britain. When he became the president of a university, he said: What is a real university education, not a professional education, not a technical education, but a liberal arts education; The ideal of a university is to sublimate the spirit and character of every undergraduate to the height of liberal arts; Such a person comes out first of all, he is mentally healthy. Newman put it this way: universities do not train politicians, writers or engineers. Universities must first train students' souls to be sound, that is, to have a complete personality when they reach the height of liberal arts. For this person, the integrity of such personality means health, a healthy person can do anything, and a person with a sound soul can do everything more easily. And in our ancient China, there has long been a saying that "a gentleman is not a utensil". Confucius said, "A gentleman is not like a utensil, (it has only one purpose). At that time, the vessels were highly specialized. As far as wine utensils are concerned, those who hold wine, those who warm wine, those who drink ice wine and those who drink wine are all different. Confucius believes that a gentleman should not be like a vessel, but has only one use. A gentleman is an ideal personality in Confucius' mind.