Little Primer of Du Fu, Poems 11-15

[x_los]

This is week 3/7 on David Hawkes' Little Primer of Du Fu. I'll replicate the poems themselves here, but as this book contains considerable exegesis I advise you to grab this copy.

 

This week we're reading poems 11 through 15, inclusive.

 

How to Read Chinese Poetry has two chapters on forms Du Fu uses extensively:

 

Ch 8, Recent Style Shi Poetry, Pentasyllabic Regulated Verse (Wuyan Lüshi) 

Ch 9, Recent Style Shi Poetry, Heptasyllabic Regulated Verse (Qiyan Lüshi) 

 

Three other chapters on other verse forms that Du Fu sometimes employs, or which people quoting Du Fu employ, also mention him:

 

Ch 10,  Recent Style Shi Poetry, Quatrains (Jueju): some mention of Du Fu’s “Three Quatrains, No. 3”

Ch 14, Ci Poetry,  Long Song Lyrics on Objects (Yongwu Ci): some mention of Du Fu's “Beautiful Lady” (Jiaren)

Ch 18, A Synthesis:  Rhythm, Syntax, and Vision of Chinese Poetry: some mention of Du Fu’s poem “The Jiang and Han Rivers” 

 

Additional Reading for this Week: Chapter 8

Comments

Re: 11. 月夜憶舍弟 Yuè-yè yì shè-dì

[superborb]

Baike notes:

Glosses that geese were a metaphor for brothers, and so a lone goose indicates the brothers have been scattered.

Du Fu's family residence had been destroyed by the rebellion.

Baike goes with the 759 date