Du Fu, a poet of the Tang dynasty also known as Tu Fu. Du Fu is consider to be one of the greatest Chinese poets in Chinese history as “readers of many different periods and types have considered Du Fu to be the greatest poet of the Chinese tradition” (Owen 413). His work is very diverse and “marked by stylistic variations” (Watson 30). Annotations of Du Fu’s poem helps reader understand who Du Fu is, in which most of his poems are autobiographical. Most of Du Fu works traditionally been “read in the context of the stages of his life” (Owen 413). His most remarkable works comes much later in life after he failed the imperial examination for the civil servant and started his exploration of the world. After Du Fu ambitions failed for a government …show more content…
Using imagery and nature, Du Fu poetry reflects his world and imagination of the the hard realities and frequent anxiety; he faces in his everyday life and of social morality. He lived through a tremendous amount of tragic event in his life that he can clearly use his poetry to convey his emotional connection to the readers. Du Fu’s poems consist of his genuine feeling and “presented rich and diverse scenes in a creative manner, conveyed sophisticated mentalities, contained immense artistic appeals and presented strong beauty” (Cheng 2). On the other hand, Du Fu’s poetry is memorable and very touching as it describes insights of his everyday life. Du Fu written in an entire spectrum about himself and his daily existence in which “[he] was the historian of himself, creating in his responses to particular situations a coherent life story” (Owen 413). He had re-created the historical event in his poetic works and invites reader to re-experience history together with …show more content…
He expresses the relationship between images and affection as well as his inner feeling with the environment at the time in his poem. A Song of My cares When Going from the Capital to Feng-Xian,” translated by Stephen Owen. Du Fu shows his emotional tone as he leaves the capital to visit his family. Throughout this poem, he evokes a doomed mood. We can perceive it as Du Fu experience of a mid-life crisis. Du Fu use of word choice conveys his feelings of his displeasure, rejection, and sorrow and reflects his frequent anxiety, and depressing atmosphere. By using natural imagery such as, “all plants were dying, sunken in shadow, a cold sky, and empty space” gives off a sense of loneliness. In addition, Du Fu expresses a point of bitter self-mockery attitude that he is “too large to be useful” (5). Yet, endure hardship to pursuit his goals “when the coffin closes, all will be settled; / yet these goals ever look for fulfillment” (7-8). At the same time, we can feel the grief the poet had toward his failure in the civil service exam. The civil service exam draws the line between a man dream and reality. The imperial exam “could mark a man’s personality for the rest of his life” (Hsieh 3). Conversely, with the shock and disappointment from his fail to pass the civil service exam, Du Fu did not let himself succumbing to failure. Therefore, Du Fu uses his poetic abilities to overcome
Although still adopting a traditional literary form, the poetry writing can be regarded as an example of the heterogeneity and border-crossing of cultural-scape in globalization period. Those poems were produced under the brunt of the international mobility that is propelled by the capitalist globalization, but precisely and paradoxically, in a suspending situation caused by national regulation, a “state of exception” of this mobility. The juxtaposition of the frustration on foreign life and the flare of nationalist emotion (with the rhetoric emulating ancient barbarian-expelling heroes), may imply a paradoxical consequence in globalization: the international mobility undergirding the national awareness instead of undermining it. Following this thread, the publication of this kind of poetry in 1930s, the oblivion of it after war, and the subsequent re-discovery, recognition, and research of it can be all taken as symptomatic traces of the localization, articulation, and transformation of national consciousness (both as “Chinese” and “American”) in the continuous globalization. Needless to say, those poems are deeply flawed in terms of aesthetics due to the rather poor literacy of their authors. It would be invoking to put these poems beside those “high art” works also produced in globalization context, such as the works on the Eiffel Tower and the London fog by Huang Zunxian (黄遵宪), a late Qin intellectual caught in between the East and the West, the
The Death of Woman Wang, by Jonathan Spence is an educational historical novel of northeastern China during the seventeenth century. The author's focus was to enlighten a reader on the Chinese people, culture, and traditions. Spence's use of the provoking stories of the Chinese county T'an-ch'eng, in the province of Shantung, brings the reader directly into the course of Chinese history. The use of the sources available to Spence, such as the Local History of T'an-ch'eng, the scholar-official Huang Liu-hung's handbook and stories of the writer P'u Sung-Ling convey the reader directly into the lives of poor farmers, their workers and wives. The intriguing structure of The Death of Woman Wang consists on observing these people working on the land, their family structure, and their local conflicts.
Searing the mind with stunning images while seducing with radiant prose, this brilliant first novel is a story of damaged lives and the indestructibility of the human spirit. It speaks about loss, about the urgency, pain and ultimate healing power of memory, andabout the redemptive power of love. Its characters come to understand the
Even though Yu Hua, the author of novel To Live, is also the scriptwriter of Zhang Yimou’s film To Live, the philosophies of life in the novel and the film are apparently different. The most impressive part of the novel is the “excavation” of humanity: having experienced the loss of wealth, family and friends, Fugui is still attempting to live in this world. By telling the readers the miserable life of Fugui, the novel actually more wants to show the dark side of Chinese society. However, the film concentrates on elaborating the improvement of the character’s life, by showing the change of time and the optimism of Fugui. Therefore, different motifs and atheistic skills of the novel and film create different perspectives on character’s life philosophy. In this essay, my thread is tri-folded: firstly, I will discuss about the different interpretations about the Taoism concept Wu Wei in both novel and film; secondly, I will focus on the strategies that the novel and the film use to build up the personalities of characters; finally, I will move on how these elements build up the personalities of characters and how they impact on the philosophies of life in both film and novel. Shortly speaking, in the novel, the concept of Taoism supported Fugui to live on when tragedies happened in his life; however, in the film, becoming Fugui’s life philosophy, the concept of Taoism gave him the optimism to comply the changes between different ages.
The story of Fan Jin reveals the difficulty of social mobility. By depicting Fan’s twenty-four-year in taking the basic examination and his personal poverty, the author indicates how hard it can be for a low-level people to achieve his success. Additionally, the description of people around Fan Jin vividly demonstrates the contempt for people who are without power and wealthy and the adulation to people who are with wealth and political rights. Last, but not least, Wu obtains a strong desire to irony the imperial examination system. Therefore, he describes the mental disorder of Fan Jin in order to depict the nature of the examination – to let people have more knowledge or to let people have psychiatry- and the content of exanimation in order to reveal the useless of the personnel selection
Pu Yi, Henry, and Paul Kramer. The Last Manchu: The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi, Last Emperor of China. 4th ed. New York: Skyhorse, 2010. Amazon.com. Amazon.com. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
Feng Meng-long’s story, “Du Tenth Sinks the Jewel Box in Anger,” authentically represents how money is valued between Du Tenth and Li Jia. The classic story brings forth how tradition and family values are upheld in the highest honor. The young master Li Jia, who is the son of a prominent local official, embarks on a journey to the Ming capitol of Nanjing with the intention of taking exams. During his travels he meets the beautiful courtesan named Du Tenth who is bound to her madam in a house of ill fame in what is known as the pleasure district. Li Jia, being an immature and unmotivated by any type of responsibility, finds himself splurging all of his travel funds on pleasures with the beautiful Du Tenth. The couple find themselves to have fallen in love with one other. Du Tenth proves to be a very smart and loyal character. She cleverly devises a plan to escape her bind to her madam and leave to be with her love. When the couple make their departure, they go on their journey to their new life together as husband and wife. Du Tenth continues to prove how smart she is by showing time and time again to Li Jia that she was very prepared for their future. The story tragically ends when the gullible Li Jia is tricked by the manipulating Sun Fu to trade his love, Du Tenth, for a thousand pieces of white silver.
The poems facilitate the investigation of human experience through illustrating life’s transience and the longevity of memory.
The poet writes these poems to express her strong feelings and tells a story of a beautiful garden. She has used many elements in her work to express her emotions and story in a very beautiful and imaginative way. The use of these elements do not bore the reader and emerge them into a story of creation, life and death, rebirth, and the recovering of innocence. These are the reasons why the poem collection is highly successful and why I enjoy reading these poems and highly recommend them to anyone who enjoy reading poems or any sort of
Growing up, he supported his country. After the Cultural Revolution cut his education short, he even went so far as to join the Red Guards. The Red Guards were a group of youths in China who supported the government and used intimidation to scare any who opposed the new communist ideals. During his time in the Red Guards, however, he began to question China and communism as a whole. After deliberating the topic, he left the organization and, as a result, was sent to be a construction worker for ‘re-education’ (“Dao Bei - Biography in Context”). During these lonesome days was where his poetry career
In his poem, “Notes from the City of the Sun”, Bei Dao utilizes obscure imagery consistent with the Misty Poets and veiled political references to illustrate the struggles in Chinese society during the Cultural Revolution. The poem is sectioned into fourteen short stanzas containing imagery that are symbolic of the cultural hegemony in China under the rule of Mao Zedong. Bei Dao, born Zhao Zhen-kai, is an anti-revolutionary poet and one of the founders of a group known as the Misty Poets. The Misty Poets wrote poems that protested the Cultural Revolution led by Mao Zedong. Therefore, a lot of Bei Dao’s poems speak out against the Cultural Revolution and the restrictions that it placed on any form of art. Bei Dao’s poetry is categorized as “misty” because of the ambiguity in its references to Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution. An obscure imagery that occurs twice in “Notes” is the sun imagery. Another imagery that depicts the injustice of the Cultural Revolution is the description of freedom as scraps of paper. In the poem, Bei Dao also equates faith to sheep falling into a ditch; this is a depiction blind faith during the Cultural Revolution. The purpose of this essay is to analyze how Bei Dao’s use of the Misty Poet’s ambiguous imagery and implicit political context in the poem “Notes from the City of the Sun” to illustrate the cultural hegemony in China under Mao.
During the Han dynasty, a particular style of poetry was formed, this was known as the ‘Han Poetry’. The Han poetry (Chinese literature) reflected great cultural achievement, many of these poems have survived until today, thanks to the creation of paper.
Poets were very prevalent in ancient China. Their poems often included vivid imagery of the land, romance, and praising of their leaders (“Chinese Poetry”). One of the most famous poets was Li Bai. Li Bai was also known as Li Po (“Li Bai”). Li Bai is now considered one of the greatest of the ancient Chinese poets, if not the greatest. Beginning at an early age, Li Bai had a deep love for words (“Biography of Li Bai”). When he grew up, he became a “wandering poet” (“Li Bai”). As a wandering poet, he got to meet a lot of people; eventually he became a very influential person in the Tang Dynasty. His influence would continue all the way to modern times. People often wonder what contributes to the influence a poet has on his or her community. For Li Bai, it was his love for travelling, his political positions, and his celebrity status which helped to increase the influence of his poems on everyday life in ancient China.
The slow feeling of the ending life is shown when the poem states, “we paused before…” with other terms like “and immortality” having its own line to emphasize the destination. The writer narrates the cause of death in the six-stanza poem in a journey form that depicts some interesting life experiences that people should have fun of during their lives. It is common that many individuals cannot stop for or wait for death that is if they can “see
The theme of death in the poems “War Photographer”, “Remember”, and “Mother in a Refugee Camp” were all portrayed in different forms to explore death and the suffering it brings. The variations of death in the three poems create a diverse image of death, which some people can relate to through the different situations of loss. “Remember” by Christina Rossetti fashions an image of death because the speaker wanted her husband to remember all the memories they had shared during her life. Rossetti found it necessary to portray death as a spiritual place rather than a physical state of decomposition so that she can finally escape to a place of silence to avoid all the darkness in her life. “War Photographer” by Carol Ann Duffy is about a man who takes photographs of death in vivid, dark and disturbing images of conflict, which Duffy conveys thoroughly throughout the poem to powerfully showcase his grief and disheartening on the situation. “A Mother in a Refugee camp” by Chinua Achebe, displays the struggles of a mother desperately trying to support and save her child while writhing in her caressing arms at death’s doors. These are the poems that represent the theme of death.