Du Fu grew up in a family with a literary tradition of "serving Confucianism and guarding officials", and his grandfather Du Shenyan was a famous poet in the post-Wu period. Father Du Xian, a former Yanzhou Sima, Fengtian county magistrate. He began to learn poetry at the age of 7, and at the age of 15, poetry attracted the attention of Luoyang celebrities. From the age of 2, it can be divided into four periods.
The roaming period was from the 19th year of Xuanzong Kaiyuan (731) to the 4th year of Tianbao (745). Du Fu made two long-term wanderings. The first time was in the south of the Yangtze River. He had been to Jinling, Gusu, crossed Zhejiang, and went boating in Tunxi until the foot of Tianmu Mountain. In the twenty-third year of Kaiyuan, he returned to Luoyang to take the Jinshi exam and was not admitted. The following year, he began his second roaming around Qi and Zhao. In his later years, he recalled the scene at that time: "In Qi and Zhao, Qiu Ma was quite wild." During these two wanderings, he saw the beautiful and majestic mountains and rivers of the motherland, absorbed the cultures of Jiangnan and Shandong, broadened his horizons and enriched his knowledge. In the 29th year of Kaiyuan, he lived under the shouyangshan between Luoyang and Yanshi, and probably married his wife Yang at this time. In the three years of Tianbao, Li Bai met in Luoyang. They toured Qilu, visited Taoism to find friends, talked about poems and papers, and sometimes talked about current events, forming a profound friendship. The following autumn, Du Fu will go west to Chang 'an, and Li Bai is going to revisit Jiangdong. They broke up in Yanzhou and never met again. Du Fu wrote many touching poems to miss Li Bai.
At this time, the Tang Dynasty was still strong, and the granaries were quite substantial. However, Xuanzong began to make great achievements, open up the frontier, and consumed a lot of manpower and material resources, and an unstable crisis was already lurking in the society. Du Fu had a premonition about this, but he didn't face it squarely. He leads a romantic life of climbing mountains, wading in water and singing and hunting. According to his own account, there may be hundreds of poems he wrote during this period, but only two dozen poems have been handed down, mainly five-character poems and five-character ancient poems. Although there are outstanding works like "Looking at Yue", on the whole, they have not surpassed the level of famous poets in Du Shenyan's period.
During the Chang 'an period, from the fifth year of Tianbao to the fourteenth year of Tianbao, Du Fu lived in Chang 'an for 1 years, and his life, thoughts and creation changed greatly. To Chang 'an, the purpose is to seek an official position and make achievements. In the sixth year of Tianbao, those who had a skill in literature and art were selected in Kyoto by Xuanzong, and Du Fu took part in the exam. However, due to the sabotage of Li Linfu, a famous Chinese book, no candidate was selected. In the tenth year of Tianbao, Xuanzong held three grand ceremonies to worship Laozi, the Imperial Temple and heaven and earth. Du Fu wrote three pieces of "Gift Fu", which was appreciated by Xuanzong, and ordered the Prime Minister to test his articles, waiting for distribution, and there was no following. He kept writing poems and giving them to powerful people, hoping to get their recommendation, but all to no avail. Finally, you Wei led the government to join Cao Jun, which was the end of Du Fu's stay in Chang 'an and the eve of An Lushan rebellion.
In his later years, Xuanzong completely changed his excellent political style of making great efforts to govern in Kaiyuan period. One prime minister was corrupt and arrogant, while he was militaristic, and he himself had fun in the palace. The people are being brutally exploited by taxes and levies. Du Fu was "trapped in food and clothing". In order to make a living, he had to go in and out of the aristocratic mansion and act as a "guest", accompanying them in poetry and wine, and getting a little funding. At the same time, he made some friends who were as poor as he was, and also made extensive contact with working people. His footprints have gone from poor alleys to noble gardens, from Qujiang, a city with high buildings and lofty pavilions competing with each other for luxury, to Xianyang Bridge, where people must go before they start recruiting. The failure of official career requirements enabled him to objectively understand the corruption of the ruling class, and his personal hunger and cold made him realize the sufferings of the people. These two completely different lives are reflected in Du Fu's poems. Eleven years after Tianbao, he wrote immortal masterpieces such as The Garage Car Shop, two for the road, Before the Fortress, After the Fortress, and began to add new contents and new expressions to the poems at that time. In the winter of Tianbao's fourteenth year, Du Fu visited his wife who lived in Fengxian, and wrote "From Beijing to Fengxian County, I will recite 5 words", expressing his deep affection of "worrying about Li Yuan in poor years and sighing about the heat in the intestines", summarizing the sharp contradictions in the society with "Zhu Men's wine and meat stink, and the road is frozen to death", and describing the family situation of "getting started with the news □, and the youngest son is hungry and has died". This is his ten years. There are more than 1 poems handed down during this period, most of which are ancient poems with five or seven characters.
left gleaning and exile from Su Zong to Deyuanzai (756) to Ganyuan for two years (759). After An Lushan arose, he marched south and soon captured Luoyang and Chang 'an. Du Fu was in Zhangzhou at this moment. He heard that Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty fled to the west of Shu, and Su Zong acceded to the throne in Lingwu, so he placed his family in Qiang village in the north of the city, and went north alone to Lingwu. Unfortunately, he was intercepted by the rebels and sent to Chang 'an. Du Fu was trapped in a thief for nearly half a year. He watched the solemn capital of put in order as desolate and miserable, and listened to the news that Tang Jun had been wiped out in Chentao and Qingban after two counterattacks. He was filled with grief and indignation and wrote poems such as Sad Chentao, Sad Qingban, Spring Hope and Aijiangtou.
in the second year of zhide (757), in April, du fu risked his life to escape from Chang' an and went to Fengxiang, the temporary residence of Suzong, where he was appointed as the left gleaner. Soon after, because of the rescue of the house, Su Zong was angered and was tried. In August, he returned to □ Zhou to visit his wife, and completed the long poem "Northern Expedition", which is comparable to "From Beijing to Fengxian County for 5 words", depicting the bleak scenery on the journey and the poverty of his family, and expressing his opinions on the current situation.
In September this year, Tang Jun recovered Chang 'an, and Luoyang in October. Su Zong returned to Beijing at the end of October, and Du Fu also returned to Chang 'an at this time, still serving as the left editor. In May of the following year, Du Fu was influenced by the struggle between Su Zong's upstart and Xuanzong's old minister in the imperial court, and was transferred to Huazhou Sigong to join the army. From then on, he bid farewell to Chang 'an.
In the spring of the second year of Ganyuan, Du Fu visited his former residence in Henan. On his way home, he saw with his own eyes the sufferings of the people under the cruel oppression of officials, and wrote six famous poems, namely, Xin An Li, Tong Guan Li, Shi Hao Li, New Wedding, Farewell to the Old and No Home, which were called "Three Officials" and "Three Farewells" for short.
it was early summer when du fu returned to huazhou. At this time, Guan Fu was hungry, Li Fuguo was authoritarian in the imperial court, and the old minister room of Xuanzong was excluded. Du Fu was disappointed with politics, and beginning of autumn resolutely abandoned his official position and went to Qin Zhou in the west. Less than April in Qin Zhou, and went to Tonggu in early winter; Stay in Tonggu for one month, take the difficult Shu Road, and arrive in Chengdu at the end of the year.
The Anshi Rebellion was the turning point of the Tang Dynasty from prosperity to decline, and great social, political and economic changes took place. Politically, the imperial court lost its centralized ruling power at home and could not resist the invasion of the barbarians abroad; Economically, due to years of war and natural disasters, the countryside is in depression, while the exploitation of the people by the ruling class has increased, resulting in a sharp drop in population and a decrease in productivity. Du Fu also personally experienced very complicated changes: exile, being trapped in a thief, being left by the emperor, being exiled to China, living on the desolate Luoyang Road, living in Qin Zhou, and entering Shu-there are great disparities in both personnel relations and natural environment. This kind of life experience is much richer and harder than that in Chang 'an period, so there are many kinds of poems, and more than 2 poems have been handed down, most of which are masterpieces of Du Fu's poems.
The period of wandering in the southwest was from the first year of Shangyuan reign of Su Zong (76) to the fifth year of Dali reign of Dai Zong (77). In 11 years, Du Fu spent 8 years in Shu and 3 years in Jing and Xiang. Du Fu said that he was "drifting in the southwest between heaven and earth" in Kuizhou ("Ode to the Monument"). In fact, he lived in Chengdu for five years, and his life was relatively stable. In the spring of the first year of Shangyuan, he built a thatched cottage by the Huanhua River in the west of Chengdu, ending his four-year exile and getting a place to live. He left the troubled and sorrowful Central Plains, and presented an idyllic beauty in front of him. Flowers, birds, insects and fish seemed to be attentive to him, which made him temporarily rest from years of hard work and worry. He also wrote many poems singing about nature with infinite love. However, he never forgot the people who were exiled and had nowhere to live. In "The Song of Cottage Broken by Autumn Wind", he sang the famous sentence "There are thousands of spacious buildings in Ande, and all the poor people in the world are happy."
At the end of last year, Yanwu came to Chengdu to be Yin and suggestion officer of Chengdu, and gave Du Fu a lot of help. In July (762), the first year of Baoying in Daizong, Yanwu was called into the DPRK. Chengdu Shaoyin and Yushi Xu knew that he had defected in Chengdu, and Du Fu went into exile in Zizhou and Langzhou.
In the spring of Baoying's second year, the Anshi Rebellion, which lasted for seven or eight years, ended. When Du Fu heard the news, he was ecstatic with surprise, thinking that there was hope to return to Luoyang, and he blurted out the seven laws of both sides of the yellow river recaptured by the imperial army, and generate expressed his inner joy. This was the happiest song of Du Fu's life. However, happiness is only a flash in the pan, and the domestic chaos has not been clarified. The Tubo in the West invaded on a large scale and captured Chang 'an in October. Du Fu expressed infinite concern about this: "Is Xijing safe?" No one came. " He wrote many poems and stated his political thoughts.
In the spring of the second year of Guangde (764), Yanwu was appointed as Chengdu Yin and Jiannan, and Du Fu returned to Chengdu in March. Yanwu recommended Du Fu as a foreign minister of our staff and the Ministry of Industry. Du Fu lived in the shogunate of our province for several months. Because he was not used to shogunate life, he repeatedly asked to return to the thatched cottage. Finally, Yanwu granted his request. In April of the first year of Yongtai (765), Yanwu died suddenly, and Du Fu lost his support, so he had to lead his family to leave the thatched cottage in May and take a boat to the east. "Five passengers in Shu County and one year in Zizhou" ("Going to Shu") ended the first half of Du Fu's "wandering southwest".
Du Fu arrived in Yun 'an in September and was unable to move forward due to illness. He didn't move to Kuizhou until his illness eased in the next spring. He has lived in Kuizhou for less than two years, and his creation is very rich, with more than 4 poems, accounting for more than two-seventh of Du Fu's poems. The poems sang about the poor working people in Kuizhou, described the dangerous mountains and rivers here, reflected the turmoil in Sichuan and the yearning for Chang 'an and Luoyang, and the number of nostalgic works increased greatly. However, his health is getting worse and worse, and malaria, lung disease, rheumatism and diabetes are constantly haunting him.
due to the harsh climate in kuizhou and the scarcity of friends, du fu set out for the gorge in the first month of the third year of Dali (768). Arrive in Jiangling in March. I wanted to go north to Luoyang, but I couldn't make it because of the chaos in Henan and the traffic jam. I lived in Jiangling for half a year, moved to public security for several months, and arrived in Yueyang at the end of the year, writing "Sui Yan Xing" which vividly reflected the sufferings of Hunan people.
Four to five years in Dali is the last two years of Du Fu's life. He has no fixed address, and travels between Yueyang, Changsha, Hengzhou and Leiyang, spending most of his time on the boat. He died in a boat on the Xiangjiang River between Changsha and Yueyang in the winter of the fifth year of Dali at the age of 59. Before his death, he wrote a long poem with 36 rhymes, "Sleeping on a Pillow in a Boat in a Storm". There is a sentence in the poem that "the blood of the war is still there, and the voice of the army is still moving to this day", and he still thinks about the disaster of the country. After Du Fu's death, the coffin was buried in Yueyang, and it was 43 years later, that is, in the eighth year of Xian Zongyuan (813), before his grandson Du Siye moved and buried it in shouyangshan, Henan.
During these 11 years, Du Fu wrote more than 1, poems, accounting for more than 73% of all Du Fu's poems. Most of them are modern poems-quatrains, metrical poems and long lines.
The most striking feature of Du Fu's poetry creation is the close combination of social reality and personal life, and the perfect unity of ideological content and artistic form. Du Fu's poems profoundly reflect the social panorama of more than 2 years before and after the An Shi Rebellion in the Tang Dynasty, vividly record the journey he has traveled in his life, and reach the highest achievement of Tang Dynasty poetry in art. His poems can make readers "know the person" and "discuss the world", and play the role of "being able to inspire, watch, group and complain".
Du Fu's poems are called "the history of poetry". However, Du Fu's poems, as a "history of poetry", are not objective narratives. They write history in poetic style, but express the author's mood through a unique style while profoundly reflecting the reality. Pu Qilong, a Qing dynasty man, said, "Poetry of Shaoling is a person's temperament, and the events of the Three Dynasties will be sent to others." ("Reading Du Xin-jie's Poem Catalogue of Shaoling Chronicles") Most of Du Fu's poems involve major issues concerning politics, economy, military affairs and people's life in Xuanzong, Suzong and Daizong Dynasties, but they are permeated with the poet's true feelings everywhere. For example, Du Fu's two masterpieces in his middle age, "From Beijing to Fengxian County, Singing 5 Words" and "Northern Expedition", contain lyricism, narration, discipline, reasoning, observation of nature, exposure of social contradictions, inner conflicts, political ambitions and opinions, personal experiences and family misfortunes, disasters of the country and people and hopes for the future. These two long poems contain so many rich contents, and the author's mood fluctuates and his language gallops, which proves that he is keenly sensitive to various phenomena of nature and society in this unfortunate era. Such a poem is a self-report of the poet's life and heart, and also a portrait of the times and society. The fate of the individual is closely related to the fate of the people of the country, and the two have also reached a high degree of artistic integration. Another example is "Going to the Ci 'en Temple Pagoda with Gentlemen" and "Aijiangtou", which are short in length, but also have this feature.
Since the late Tianbao period, Du Fu has written a large number of current political poems, whether it is to state political views, such as "Washing the Horses" and "Feeling" written in Zizhou; Or expose the dissolute cruelty of the rulers, such as two for the road, one of Two Memories of the Past, and Three Juequatrains written in Yun 'an; Or allegorical satire, such as Phoenix Terrace, Sick Orange, Dead Brown, and Guest from; Or sympathy and care for the poor people, such as "The Hut is Broken by Autumn Wind" and "Wu Lang Again"; It is a combination of personal feelings and facts. There are also many long stories, some of which record the major events of the country in the past ten years, such as "Huai Fu Shu Huai" and "Going to the Present"; Some narrate local chaos, such as Caotang and Entering Hengzhou; Some reminisce about the past, such as "Strong Travel" and "Farewell"; What's more, as Pu Qilong said, "Give the world or the body" ("Reading Du Xin Jie, Reading Du Outline") contains strong lyrical elements.
War themes occupy a considerable number in Du Fu's poems. Du Fu held different attitudes towards different kinds of wars. He was opposed to the imperial court's belligerence and consumption of manpower and material resources, such as "The Garage Shop", "Paying My respects" written in Kuizhou and "Going to the foot of the backyard again"; It is supportive to quell the rebellion and resist foreign aggression, such as Two Poems of Watching Western Soldiers Go to Guanzhong for Standby in the Early Period of An Shi Rebellion, Watching Soldiers, and Year of the Year written during the Tubo invasion. What these poems condemn and praise is very clear. There are also some poems about war, both praising and condemning. The famous two groups of poems, Before the Embankment and After the Embankment, describe the soldiers' mood changes in the process of joining the army, which actually reflect the poets' different views on war from different angles. These two groups of poems praise the heroic scene on the battlefield, how soldiers are good at fighting, brave in sacrifice and win; He also condemned the king's endless frontier exploration and the arrogance and extravagance of the Lord, which made the record lose its positive significance. These two groups of poems summarize the unfortunate fate of countless heroic soldiers through the confession of a soldier. Another example is "three officials" and "three parting", which more specifically express the author's inner conflict. On the road in Luoyang, Du Fu saw violent police officers forcibly enlist young boys and lonely old people. He carried it for these people.