Little Primer of Du Fu, Poems 6-10

[x_los]

This is week 2/7 on 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.

This week we're reading poems 6 through 10, inclusive.

How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context's Chapter 15, "Du Fu: The Poet as Historian", is relevant to Hawkes' focus. (Next week's Additional Readings are more focused on poetics.)

Comments

Re: 10. 贈衛八處士 Zèng Wèi Bā chǔ-shì”

[superborb]

Hawkes reminds me that I must look up if anyone's done that inter-cultural constellation mapping, and if Orion's belt and the big dipper really do remain grouped in most.

Also, I realized that the video player at the top of a lot of these articles is the recitation of the poem?? I wasn't paying attention until I clicked it accidentally...

Baike notes:
"and our shocked cries sear the heart": can interpret as the warm feelings of seeing old friends or the upset at learning about the dead ones.

The chives in the rainy dark is a reference to a Han dynasty story about a person whose friend unexpectedly visited and so he cut some chives in the rain.

Also, Baike claims this is different from most of Du Fu's poetry, and more similar to the simpler Han and Wei poetry. It is apparently common to describe his poetry as 沉郁顿挫, but that is... not very helpful... in figuring out what it means.