Du Fu grew up in a family with a literary tradition of "serving Confucianism and guarding officials". Du Fu's grandfather, Du Fu, was a famous poet in the post-Wu period and a member of the official banquet. His father, Du Xian, served as Sima of Yanzhou and magistrate of Fengtian County. He began to learn poetry at the age of 7, and at the age of 15, poetry attracted the attention of Luoyang celebrities. From the age of 20, his life can be divided into four periods.
The roaming period was from the 19th year of Xuanzong Kaiyuan (73 1) to the 4th year of Tianbao (745). In the twenty-third year of Kaiyuan, he returned to Luoyang to take the Jinshi exam and was not admitted. The following year, he began his second roaming in Qi and Zhao. In his later years, he recalled the scene at that time: "During the Qi and Zhao Dynasties, autumn horses were quite wild." During these two wanderings, he saw the beautiful and majestic mountains and rivers of the motherland, absorbed the cultures of Jiangnan and Shandong, broadened his horizons and enriched his knowledge. In the third year of Tianbao, Li Bai met in Luoyang. They traveled around Qilu, visited Taoism to find friends, talked about poetry and papers, and sometimes talked about current affairs, and formed a profound friendship. The following autumn, Du Fu will go west to Chang 'an, and Li Bai will visit Jiangdong again. They broke up in Yanzhou and never met again. Du Fu wrote many touching poems in memory of Li Bai.
During the Chang 'an period, from the fifth year of Tianbao to the fourteenth year of Tianbao, Du Fu lived in Chang 'an for 10 years, and his life, thoughts and creation all changed greatly. He went to Chang 'an to get an official position and make achievements. In the sixth year of Tianbao, Xuanzong summoned people with literary and artistic skills to Kyoto and chose them. Du Fu took part in the exam, but due to the conspiracy of China's famous secretary Li, no candidate was selected. In the tenth year of Tianbao, Xuanzong held three grand ceremonies to offer sacrifices to Laozi, Imperial Palace and Heaven and Earth. Du Fu wrote three "Gifts", which was appreciated by Xuanzong, and ordered the Prime Minister to examine his writings, ready to go, and no more. He kept writing poems and giving them to powerful people, hoping to get their recommendation, but to no avail. Finally, you got Cao Cao's position and led the government to join the army. This is the last period of Du Fu's stay in Chang 'an, and it is also the eve of An Shi Rebellion.
Xuanzong in his later years completely changed the excellent political style of making great efforts in Kaiyuan period. There was a prime minister who was corrupt and arrogant, but he was militaristic, and he himself enjoyed himself in the palace. The people's cruel exploitation of taxes is becoming more and more serious. Du Fu was "trapped in food and clothing". In order to make a living, he had to go in and out of noble houses as a "guest", accompany them to sing poems and make wine, and get a little financial support. At the same time, he made some friends as poor as himself, and also made extensive contact with the working people. His footprints range from mean streets to noble gardens, from Qujiang, where high-rise buildings and pavilions compete for luxury, to xian yangqiao, where he must go before he starts to recruit people. The failure of official career requirements enabled him to objectively understand the corruption of the ruling class, and personal hunger and cold made him realize the sufferings of the people. These two completely different lives are reflected in Du Fu's poems. Eleven years after Tianbao, he wrote immortal masterpieces such as Garage Shop, Second Road, Before the Fortress and After the Fortress.
The Anshi Rebellion was the turning point of the Tang Dynasty from prosperity to decline, and great social, political and economic changes took place. Politically, the imperial court lost its centralized ruling power at home and could not resist the invasion of barbarians abroad; Economically, due to years of war and natural disasters, the countryside is in depression, and the exploitation of the people by the ruling class has intensified, resulting in a sharp drop in population and a decline in productivity. Du Fu himself has experienced very complicated changes: exile, being trapped in a thief, being left behind by the emperor, exile in China, living on the desolate Luoyang Road, living in Sichuan-there is a great disparity in personnel relations and natural environment. This kind of life experience is much richer and harder than that in Chang 'an period, so there are many kinds of poems, and more than 200 poems have been handed down, most of which are masterpieces of Du Fu's poems.
Wandering in the southwest, from the first year of the reign of Su Zong Shang Yuan (760) to the fifth year of the reign of Da Li (770). 1 1 year, Du Fu spent eight years in Shu and three years in Jingxiang. Du Fu described himself as "wandering in the southwest between heaven and earth" in Kuizhou (Ode to Monuments). In fact, he has lived in Chengdu for five years, and his life is relatively stable. In the spring of the first year at the end of Yuan Dynasty, he built a thatched cottage by the Huanhuaxi River in the west of Chengdu, ending his four-year exile and obtaining a place to live. He left the troubled and sorrowful Central Plains, and his eyes showed a beautiful pastoral scene. Flowers, birds, insects and fish seem to be attentive to him, which makes him temporarily rest from years of hard work and anxiety. He also wrote many poems full of infinite love and natural singing. However, he never forgot the people who left their homes, and sang the famous sentence "There are thousands of spacious houses in peace, and the poor people in the world are happy" in "The Hut is Blown by the Autumn Wind".
During the period of 1 1, Du Fu wrote more than 1000 poems, accounting for more than 73% of all Du Fu's poems, most of which are modern poems-quatrains and metrical poems, as well as long poems.
The most striking feature of Du Fu's poetry creation is the close combination of social reality and individual life, and the perfect unity of ideological content and artistic form. Du Fu's poems profoundly reflect the social panorama of more than 20 years before and after the An Shi Rebellion in Tang Dynasty, vividly record his life journey, and reach the highest artistic achievement of Tang Dynasty's poetry. His poems can make readers "know the person" and "discuss the world" and play the role of "inspiring, observing, grouping and complaining".
Du Fu's poems are called "the history of poetry". However, Du Fu's poetry, as a "history of poetry", is not an objective narrative. They write history in the style of poetry, but deeply reflect the reality and express the author's mood through their unique style. For example, poems such as "Going to Jionji Pagoda with Mr." and "Love the River Head" are short in length, but they also have this feature.
Since the late Tianbao period, Du Fu has created a large number of poems on current affairs.
The theme of war occupies a considerable number in Du Fu's poems. Du Fu held different attitudes towards different types of wars. Oppose the imperial court's belligerence and waste of manpower and material resources, such as Garage Shop, Kuizhou Letter, and Going Down the Hill in the Backyard; It is supportive to quell the rebellion and resist foreign aggression, such as "Watching Western Soldiers Stand by in Guanzhong" and "Watching Soldiers" in the early period of the An Shi Rebellion, and "Chronicle" written when Tubo invaded. What these poems condemn and praise is very clear. There are also some poems about war, both praising and condemning. Two groups of famous poems, before and after the dike, describe the changes of soldiers' mood in the process of joining the army, and actually reflect the poets' different views on the war from different angles.
Du Fu wrote many poems about nature. The purpose of his singing is often to connect himself with current events. There are many comments on the degree of "scene blending" in Du Fu's poems in the past dynasties. Du Fu's poems are not only highly integrated with scenes, but also with feelings, scenes and current events. When writers write scenes and express their feelings, they rarely leave reality, thinking that they are in an era of war, poverty and fatigue. For example, when he was trapped in occupied Chang 'an, he wrote "Spring Watch" and when he entered Shu, he wrote "Jianmenguan", which are the most representative. In his later years, Du Fu made great achievements in this kind of poems, such as The Pavilion of Five Laws, On the River, Jianghan, Climbing the Building, Fermented Bean Curd, Night in the Pavilion, Eight Poems of Autumn Prosperity, etc., which are all famous works with a blend of scenes and current affairs.
In addition, Du Fu also wrote some poems about painting, music, architecture, dance, utensils and agricultural production, which also absorbed the author's feelings and had the flavor of the times, which can be regarded as a colorful cultural history.
Du Fu regards poetry as a lifelong career and thinks that "poetry is my family's business" (Zongwu Holy Day). He began to study poetry at the age of seven and never stopped writing poetry until the eve of his death. From the Anshi Rebellion to his arrival in Chengdu, he wrote the most profound poems in the most difficult years. He was sickly in Kuizhou and wrote the most. He has a rich life experience, full of political enthusiasm for patriotism and love for the people, and has also made great efforts in artistic skills. "Words don't astonish and die endlessly" (Talking about the value of the water on the river like the tide) and "New poems are long and self-singing" (Twelve Poems to relieve boredom) show his serious attitude in creation. Du Fu also commented on poems with poems, and expressed his thoughts of inheriting fine traditions and commenting on poets in ancient and modern times in "Drama is six quatrains" and "Twelve Poems for Relieving boredom" (the fourth to the eighth).
Du Fu greatly expanded the field of poetry in both content and form. Hu Zhenheng of the Ming Dynasty said: "Writing poems about current events began in Du Shaoling." This sentence (Tang Yin returns the money) is not entirely true, because before Du Fu, there were poems describing current events. However, it is rare for Du Fu to go deep into the people, gain insight into the disadvantages of the times, and integrate all major issues with social significance into "amazing" poems. Yang Lun said: "Since the Six Dynasties, the problem rate of Yuefu was mostly imitation and plagiarism, and Chen Xiangyin was the most disgusting." When Zi Mei came out, she felt what she felt at that time. When she arrived in Benjamin, she asked questions at will because of the national disaster and the pain of the people, and she got rid of the old stereotype. (Du Fu's Poems of Jing Quan, Volume 5) Although this is a comment on "Three Officials" and "Three Farewells", it can also summarize most of Du Fu's important poems. It is no exaggeration for Yuan Zhen to write Du Fu's inscription on the tomb of Du Jun, a foreign minister of the Tang Dynasty's inspection and correction department, saying that "there has never been a poet as beautiful as a child".
Du Fu's poems have various forms. Du Fu can master all kinds of forms of poetry best, and can make each form get new development. He is good at recording trekking, social Vientiane, people's life and many dramatic speech actions in five-character ancient poems. His writing style is vivid, which makes people feel that it is not limited to five words, and his tone is natural. The most obvious example is Qiang village, which gave eight guards, three officials, three farewells, was drunk by the mud of abundance, beautiful, strict, clean and so on. He is good at expressing uninhibited or depressed feelings in seven-character ancient poems, and expressing his views on politics and society, such as Drunk Songs for Zheng Guangwen, Washing Horses, Seven Poems of Yuanqu Living in Bronze Drum, Autumn Wind Breaking the Cottage, Sui Yanxing and so on. Du Fu's five-character poems and seven-character poems are very skillful and have achieved great success, accounting for more than half of Du Fu's poems. Five-character poems have been seen in Du Fu's roaming period, and most of the famous seven-character poems came into being after arriving in Chengdu. Du Fu's profound feelings are condensed in the Five Laws and fully developed in the Seven Laws. Five methods, such as longing for spring, Li Bai at the end of the day, traveling after, "Delighting in Rain on a Spring Night", water sill to send the heart, guest night, nine days to board Zizhou City, conscription, night to express one's feelings, Sujiang Biange, climbing Yueyang Tower, and seven methods, such as books and buildings. Du Fu also wrote many five-character poems and several seven-character poems, which greatly developed the lines of poetry. For example, Li's "Autumn Guest Hundred Rhymes" is as long as 1000 words. Except for a few natural stories (such as sending Gong Yan to court in five rows and ten rhymes, sending your Majesty to his post in Ling Zhou Road, and two Qingming poems in seven rows), most of them are piled up with too many allusions, which cover up rich emotions or fill the emptiness of entertainment content. The quatrains in Du Fu's poems were basically written in the last 1 1 year of wandering in the southwest. Due to the great achievements of Du Fu's classical poems and metrical poems, his quatrains are often ignored. However, Du Fu still made a lot of contributions to quatrains, expressing emotion on the spot, reflecting the riots and people's lives in central Sichuan, and absorbing the essence of folk songs.
Generally speaking, Du Fu is always hungry and cold, with the ambition of saving the world, living in poverty but not world-weariness; In terms of poetic art, it combines the great achievements of classical poetry and innovates and develops it, which has a wide influence on later poets.
When Du Fu was alive, his poems were not valued by people at that time. Forty years after their death, they began to be more important than Han Yu, Bai Juyi, Yuan Zhen and others. Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen's new Yuefu movement were obviously influenced by Du Fu's poems in literary thought. The famous satirical articles on current affairs in Li Shangyin's modern poems, both in content and art, have got the essence of Du Fu's poems. The famous poets in Song Dynasty, such as Wang Anshi, Su Shi, Huang Tingjian and Lu You, all praised Du Fu, and their poems inherited Du Fu's tradition from different aspects. At the end of Song Dynasty, Wen Tianxiang, a national hero, was captured by Yuan people and imprisoned in prison. He collected 200 poems from Du Fu's five-character poems and wrote them into Du Fu's Poems? The preface says, "Zi Mei is the first person to speak for anyone who says what I want. "The influence of Du Fu's poems is not only confined to the category of literature and art, but more importantly, the patriotism and love for the people in his poems has been inspiring readers for thousands of years and still has educational significance today.