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: 14. 夢李白 Mèng Lǐ Bái (2)

[superborb]

Baike notes:

The floating clouds are glossed as the wanderer floating about -- this is a common metaphor.

Hawkes tone for the last line is a bit more negative than I feel like the original (or the baike vernacular tl) is?

Re: 14. 夢李白 Mèng Lǐ Bái (2)

[x_los]

I feel like Hawkes might actually be pre-conditioned a little in his reading thereof because some quite famous like, Shakespeare treatments of this theme basically work on these lines/say roughly this.