Little Primer of Du Fu, Poems 31 - 35

[x_los]

This is week 7/7 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 31 through 35, 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: Ch 4 of Chinese Poetry in Translation, “Purpose and Form: On the Translation of Classical Chinese Poetry”

Comments

35. 江南逢李龜年 Jiāng-nán féng Lǐ Guī-nián

[x_los]

江南逢李龜年
Jiāng-nán féng Lǐ Guī-nián

岐 王 宅 裏 尋 常 見
1. Qí-wáng zhái-lǐ xún-cháng jiàn,
崔 九 堂 前 幾 度 聞
2. Cuī Jiǔ táng-qián jǐ-dù wén.
正 是 江 南 好 風 景
3. Zhèng-shì Jiāng-nán hǎo fēng-jǐng,
落 花 時 節 又 逢 君
4. Luò huā shí-jié yòu féng jūn.

Read Aloud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-erKdyU0o7I

On Meeting Li Kuei-nien in the South

I often saw you in Prince Ch’i’s house and heard you a number of times in the hall of Ts’ui Ti. It’s true that the scenery in Chiang-nan is very beautiful. And here, in the season of fallen blossoms, I meet you once again.

Re: 35. 江南逢李龜年 Jiāng-nán féng Lǐ Guī-nián

[x_los]

“It’s true that the scenery in Chiang-nan is very beautiful” what does this bit do?

***
Vocabulary: a really nice idea but imo should also include characters

Re: 35. 江南逢李龜年 Jiāng-nán féng Lǐ Guī-nián

[pengwern]

...It’s good for putting on tourism brochures...(no >u< )
But also more like “Right now it’s really nice in Jiangnan”?

Re: 35. 江南逢李龜年 Jiāng-nán féng Lǐ Guī-nián

[superborb]

Baike suggests the beautiful scenery is in contrast to the decline of the world and the old singer and poet and nostalgia for the past.

This 'vocabulary' without characters is pretty meaningless...