Little Primer of Du Fu, Poems 1-5

[x_los]

This week we start David Hawkes' Little Primer of Du Fu. I'll replicate the poems themselves here, but this book contains considerable exegesis, so I do advise you to grab this copy.

Because this exegesis is relatively substantial, let's start by reading poems 1 through 5, inclusive. There are 35 poems in the collection, so this should take us about seven weeks (unless we scale either up or down, after speaking about it).

I'm gathering additional research materials, but for this first week I'd like us to concentrate on Hawkes' introduction and the first of these poems. 

Comments

Re: 5. 哀王孫 Āi wáng-sūn

[superborb]

Baike notes:
Baike glosses wangsun (which Hawkes speaks of as if it's the /literal/ emperor's grandson) as just descendants of princes/aristocrats.

In contrast to Hawkes saying that Du Fu must have felt indignation that the nobles were left behind, Baike is also very convinced that Du Fu normally detests the luxurious lifestyle led by nobles (and by extension, the nobles), and the sympathy he feels for the prince here is a human sentiment in contrast to his normal opinions.

Re: 5. 哀王孫 Āi wáng-sūn

[x_los]

I mean Du Fu is VERY involved in aristocratic circles, to feel totally separate from and disdainful of them. I wonder if Du Fu's importance to modern China has necessitated or prompted, over the past decades, a reading of him as less aristo-aligned?

But at the same time, a White Russian reading of Du Fu, which makes him accessible re like Chang Kai-Shek partisans, would be absolutely what we could expect the Anglo-sphere to arrive at.

Re: 5. 哀王孫 Āi wáng-sūn

[douqi]

Du Fu is also the guy who wrote 'wine and meat rot behind vermilion gates; along the road lie the bones of the poor who have frozen to death'. So yeah.

There is also a cultural ideal of being the lone (or one of few) incorruptible officials in among the decadent nobility, which I can't help but feel would have shaped his self-image.