Du Fu

Du Fu
Later portrait of Du Fu with a goatee, a mustache, and black headwear
Posthumous portrait
Native name
杜甫
Born712
Gongyi, Henan, China
Died770 (aged 57–58)
OccupationPoetry, politician
Children
  • Zongwen
  • Zongwu
  • Feng'er
Relatives
Du Fu
Du's name in Chinese characters
Chinese name
Chinese杜甫
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinDù Fǔ
Wade–GilesTu4 Fu3
IPA[tû fù]
Wu
SuzhouneseDôu Fù
Yue: Cantonese
Yale RomanizationDouh Fú
JyutpingDou6 Fu2
IPA[tɔw˨ fu˧˥]
Southern Min
Hokkien POJTō͘ Hú
Tâi-lôTōo Hú
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese/duoX pɨoX/
Courtesy name
Chinese
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinZǐmeǐ
Art name
Chinese
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinShàolíng Yělǎo
Japanese name
Kanji杜甫
Hiraganaとほ
Transcriptions
RomanizationTo Ho

Du Fu (Chinese: ; Wade–Giles: Tu Fu; 712–770) was a Chinese poet and politician during the Tang dynasty. Together with his elder contemporary and friend Li Bai, Du is often considered one of the greatest Chinese poets.[1] His greatest ambition was to serve his country as a successful civil servant, but Du proved unable to make the necessary accommodations. His life, like all of China, was devastated by the An Lushan Rebellion of 755, and his last 15 years were a time of almost constant unrest.

Although initially he was little-known to other writers, his works came to be hugely influential in both Chinese and Japanese literary culture. Of his poetic writing, nearly fifteen hundred poems have been preserved over the ages.[1] He has been called the "Poet-Historian" and the "Poet-Sage" by Chinese critics, while the range of his work has allowed him to be introduced to Western readers as "the Chinese Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Shakespeare, Milton, Burns, Wordsworth, Béranger, Hugo or Baudelaire".[2]

  1. ^ a b Ebrey, 103.
  2. ^ Hung, 1.