Little Primer of Du Fu, Poems 16-20

[x_los]

 This is week 4/7 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 16 through 20, inclusive.

 

How to Read Chinese Poetry (https://dankodes.dreamwidth.org/1483.html?thread=16843#cmt16843) 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 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 9

Comments

Re: 19. 聞官軍收河南河北 Wén guān-jūn shōu Hé-nán Hé-běi

[x_los]

“Hé-nán, Hé-běi: These do not quite correspond to the ‘Honan’, ‘Hopei” I know why this is happening and I still fuckin hate it.

“Although undeniably a part of the phenomenon, it is considered by Western authors too indecorous to be mentioned in a serious context. Indeed, I know of no English word for it other than ‘snivel’, which is rarely used except as a verb and usually metaphorically. In Chinese no such taboo exists, and it is possible to refer to the ‘jade tì’ of a weeping woman without making her in any way vulgar or ridiculous.” Huuuuh you see this a LOT more in c-fandom porn as well

“the motoring distance from Lyons to Stockholm.” Bitch no one knows how long that is