Du Fu Background Info

Du Fu was a highly prominent and celebrated poet of the Tang dynasty in China. He is known by a numerous amount of literary pundits to be one of the best poets during this time. He is acknowledged for his compassion and empathy for human life, and his poetry reflects those sentiments. He was under a great influence of Confucianism as he methodically stood to criticize and ridicule the corrupt government. Du Fu’s early poems greatly celebrated the beauty and allure of the natural world, along with aspects of social life. Du Fu had written a total of 1,400 poems of modifying types and subject material. He had an enlightened friendship with another successful poet, Li Bai.

Du Fu strongly holds a prominent position in Chinese literature, as he was cultivated and highly educated in the eyes of his peers and successors. He mostly wrote about the human sentiment of suffering during the war, and other similar experiences from his life. He always maintained a compressed and heavy language that left an effect on his audience. He methodically mastered the genre of “lushi”, otherwise known as “regulated verse,” and is greatly celebrated in China even today.