"Du Fu's Biography", written by Zhu Hong and Xu Yuantai, published by Jiangxi Fine Arts Publishing House
The name Du Fu is a household name in China, since Yuan Shu wrote that epitaph for Du Fu more than a thousand years ago, no matter the vicissitudes of the world, generations of Chinese people have started from literacy, and gradually understood and learned Du Fu's poetry in the process of growing up. Du Fu's influence on Chinese literature is very far-reaching, to say that only a few decades after his death, a group of poets began to learn Du Fu's writing style and spiritual attributes, and far away, the Jiangxi poetry school of the Song Dynasty directly called Du Fu his ancestor and the ancestor of the three ancestors. He was highly praised by many great poets and scholars in history. Han Yu's sigh of "Li Du's article is here, and the light is long", Li Shangyin's admiration of "Li Du's management is strategic, and the three talents are all together", and the Ming Dynasty scholar Chen Xianzhang evaluated Du Fu as the saint of poetry for the first time in his essay. Even overseas, Du Fu has a group of loyal fans.
Du Fu Image
The saint of poetry, the history of poetry, Du Fu won all the fame he could win, and became the most noble model of Chinese realist poetry. But Du Fu's past was not as successful as his posthumous name. How many roads does a poet have to go through to become a saint, "Du Fu's Biography" answers. This book takes Du Fu's experience as a clue and tells the story of Du Fu's 58 years of life from a third perspective, showing what kind of person he is and what kind of life he lives under the appearance of his brilliant achievements in poetry. The book is divided into six chapters, starting from Du Fu's talented and high-spirited youth, and ending with his lonely and tearful old age. Combining the great changes in Du Fu's life with his poetry, I hope to vividly and completely display the character and realm of this great poet.
There are four distinctive features of this book:
First, the text is vivid
In terms of writing, this book pays more attention to the vivid image of language. As a popular science book, it is important to be able to keep readers fluent and interested in reading. "Du Fu's Biography" enhances many descriptions of the background and environment at the time of the event, and through concrete expression, readers can feel Du Fu's heroic state of mind when he wrote "Wangyue" and his national feelings when he wrote "Spring Wang". Through the specific description, the sharp contrast between how Du Fu was high-spirited and how he was beaten by reality in his ten years of life in Chang'an and how he was beaten by reality and finally hid his scholarly temperament, let readers feel more strongly that Du Fu completed this transformation, resonate with Du Fu's experience, and have a more sense of substitution in reading.
2. Combination of history and theory
In addition to a vivid and authentic reproduction of Du Fu's life, this book also includes some commentary on historical events and their impact on the present and future generations. Du Fu's poems can generally be divided by the Anshi Rebellion, and before that, Du Fu's poems mainly focused on writing scenes and expressing emotions that he had never encountered. After that, Du Fu began to pay attention to the people who were devastated by the war and the oppression of the government in exile, and completed the transformation of his poetic style and spiritual core in the scenes of broken families and starvation on the roadside. And through the narration of Du Fu's life, readers can also appreciate the legendary history of the Tang Dynasty from prosperity to decline, and understand the political system and social culture of the Tang Dynasty by the way. While recording the journey of this great poet, it also triggers the reader's own thinking, allowing the reader not only to stay on the surface of the text, but to explore the changes in Du Fu's mental journey, so that the reader can further understand and objectively evaluate Du Fu, making Du Fu's image more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
3. Authenticity and credibility
In the process of narration, this book does not tend to over-beautify Du Fu's image, but tries its best to restore the real side of Du Fu. Du Fu took the imperial examination for the first time when he was twenty-four years old, and he naturally tasted defeat because of his high talent. The second time he took the imperial examination was when he was thirty-six years old, that year Li Linfu turned the imperial examination into a farce in order to please the emperor, and Du Fu failed again. Compared with many other poets and scholars who have left a strong mark on the history of literature, Du Fu's results in the imperial examination were undoubtedly failures. Due to the failure in his career, Du Fu also lived a relatively shabby life in Chang'an. During this time, Du Fu picked weeds in the mountains and flattered him at banquets. Later, in the Anshi Rebellion, Du Fu's life became even poorer, it can be said that he was precarious, sleeping in the open air, and even his youngest son was starved to death. It was not until Du Fu came to Chengdu, Sichuan in his later years that he enjoyed a moment of stability.
Du Fu is not a perfect person, he also relied on his father's background when he was a teenager, and he also echoed the dignitaries and nobles in his prime, and in his later years, he could not let his family live a healthy life with sufficient materials. Du Fu's life circumstances are not full of legends or wealth, he is a sage in poetry born from ordinary people, and he is also a history book in sentences that returns to ordinary people. It is precisely because of this that Du Fu's achievements are even more unprecedented.
Fourth, illustrated and illustrated
This book not only has black and white monotonous words, but also many vivid pictures to show the historical events realistically, interspersing the content of Du Fu's related poems and articles through pictures, so that readers can appreciate the whole poem in its entirety, but also experience the unique charm of calligraphy and Chinese painting. The detailed and thorough historical and textual research and the beautiful and delicate display of ancient and modern pictures complement each other, which changes the shortcomings of the obscure and boring books of the biographical genre.
Du Fu has indeed profoundly influenced generations of Chinese, including us. When I read books when I was young, I always felt that his words were too simple, and his methods were too simple and not attractive enough. After growing up, I understood "thinking and aspiring". The so-called text carries the way, and the way it contains should be the way of man. Of course, Du Fu is capable of writing ornate poems, but it is obvious that he has abandoned these rare allusions that can be easily accessed, and casually chanted carved articles, and instead used simple words to faithfully record the people's suffering life, and let that period of history be passed on by word of mouth in an easy-to-understand way. The ancients said that the sage preached, so Du Fu preached the Tao with the poetry of the people, and was recognized by history as a great realist poet.
Finally, I hope that this book can resonate and gain something for readers, and gain the strength to continue to move forward through Du Fu's difficult life and unfailing spirit.