A Journey of Transition: The Formation, Deconstruction, and Reshaping of Du Fu’s Image in the Anglophone World

1 The Writing of Du Fu’s Image in Biographies and Studies in the English-Speaking World

Although Du Fu and his poetry have long been canonized in traditional Chinese and East Asian poetics, the rise of Du Fu’s poetry as a broader phenomenon in world literature that transcends micro-regions is a more recent development. This is especially true in the English-speaking world, where Du Fu and his works remain a relatively new and unfamiliar literary domain. Just as many scholars have pointed out, Du Fu started to gain significant attention as an important ancient Chinese poet in the English-speaking world in the early 20th century.^[4] Before that, “translations and introductions of Du Fu were mostly fragmented […] and translators’ understanding of Du Fu’s identity, status, and works was very vague.”^[5] Additionally, these scholars have, to varying degrees, periodized the dissemination of Du Fu in the English-speaking world. While these research findings are indeed insightful, it is essential to note that the study of Du Fu’s image in the English-speaking world did not progress at a constant pace across all periods. There are several key points and figures that warrant closer attention. This section will highlight those key periods and figures across three major historical stages.

1. Formative Years: 1920s to 1970s

The period from the 1920s to the 1970s marks the formation phase of Du Fu’s image in the English-speaking world. During this time, many influential biographies of Du Fu were published, and a substantial number of his poems were translated for the first time.^[6] Unlike the previous century, Du Fu’s image in the English-speaking world during this period gradually became clearer. Not only was his life introduced in detail, but a unified evaluation of Du Fu as “China’s greatest poet” also emerged. It is precisely the collective efforts of these scholars and translators that have enabled Du Fu, as a poet, to truly enter the realm of modern world literature for the first time.

In 1919, British diplomat W. J. B. Fletcher (1879–1933) included forty-five of Du Fu’s poems in his Gems of Chinese Verse, placing Du Fu at the forefront of translated Chinese poets in the English-speaking world for the first time ever. Subsequently, in 1921, American writer Florence Ayscough (1875–1942) and poet Amy Lowell (1874–1925) translated Du Fu’s poems in their anthology Fir-Flower Tablets. With the efforts of Fletcher, Ayscough, and Lowell as the starting point, a few years later, around 1929, a surge in the translation and introduction of Du Fu occurred in the English-speaking world. During this time, not only did Du Fu’s poetry receive broader attention from translators, but there were also attempts to introduce Du Fu himself and even write biographies exclusively about him, aiming to formally present this extraordinary poet to English readers. Representative translations from this period include the 1929 publication The Jade Mountain: A Chinese Anthology, translated by American poet Witter Bynner 陶友白 (1881–1968) and Chinese scholar Jiang Kang-hu江亢虎 (1883–1954), which was based on the Three Hundred Tang Poems and included thirty-six of Du Fu’s poems. Additionally, in 1928 and 1929, American poet and writer Edna Worthley Underwood (1873–1961), along with Chinese translator Chi-Hwang Chu 朱其璜, produced dedicated translations of Du Fu’s poetry collections, The Book of Seven Songs and Tu Fu: Wanderer and Minstrel under Moons of Cathay.

During this period, there was also a climax in formally introducing Du Fu to the English-speaking world. Besides Underwood placing Du Fu within the context of comparative literature and world literature in her translations, Florence Ayscough also published two volumes of biography for Du Fu in 1929 and 1934.^[7] In these biographies, Ayscough not only translated 556 of Du Fu’s poems but also meticulously constructed Du Fu’s life story based on these poems. It is noteworthy that these translations not only influenced later translators but Ayscough’s biographies of Du Fu also became recommended reads for British and American high school students. This marked the formal recognition of Du Fu in the English-speaking world, where he was appreciated and valued as a representative Chinese poet. Moreover, Du Fu’s titles of “Poet Sage” and “Poet Historian” were introduced through these biographical writings to English readers for the first time.

In the period around the 1950s, the second wave of translating Du Fu’s poetry into English occurred. First, in 1947, Robert Payne 白英 (1911–1983) published an important anthology of Chinese poetry in the English-speaking world, The White Pony: An Anthology of Chinese Poetry from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, Newly Translated. This collection included forty of Du Fu’s poems, translated by Bynner and over twenty Chinese collaborators. This was the first time such a large number of Du Fu’s poems appeared in a Chinese poetry anthology in the English-speaking world, tellingly influenced by the earlier wave of “Du Fu Craze.” Five years later, in 1952, historian William Hung 洪業 (1893–1980) published his renowned work Tu Fu: China’s Greatest Poet, which pioneered the biography of Du Fu written by professional scholars in English. Over the following 40 years, this seminal study continued to influence and inspire translators and researchers in the English-speaking world in their efforts to translate and study Du Fu’s poetry.^[8] This book marked the beginning of a scholarly-driven specialization and professionalization of Du Fu studies in the English-speaking world. Complementing this was the work of the famous American poet Kenneth Rexroth 王紅公 (1905–1982), who in 1956 published One Hundred Poems from the Chinese. In this collection, Du Fu’s poems comprised one-third of the selections, with thirty-five poems included. This not only demonstrated Rexroth’s admiration for Du Fu but also show his recognition of Du Fu’s historical significance as a poet, as evidenced by his decision to feature Du Fu’s poems alongside 65 poems from various Song dynasty poets as a distinct section. In his translator’s notes, Rexroth speaks highly of Du Fu’s poetic achievements, stating: “I feel that, above a certain level of attainment, the greatest poetry answers out of hand the problems of critic and the aestheticism. Poetry of Tu Fu’s is the answer to the question, ‘What is the purpose of art?’”^[9]

In the two decades following the publication of Hung’s and Rexroth’s works on Du Fu, numerous translators and scholars continued to introduce Du Fu to English-speaking readers. The 1970s saw another rise in the presentation of Du Fu, again with notable achievements focusing on translating his poetry and writing biography for him. One of the most influential works was A Little Primer of Tu Fu by the British sinologist and translator David Hawkes (1923–2009), published in 1967. Another significant work was Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry, a copious, encyclopedic anthology of Chinese poetry translated into English, co-edited by the Chinese-American scholars Wu-chi Liu and Irving Lo, which included thirty selected Du Fu poems. In his introduction, Hawkes notes that Du Fu is “regarded by many Chinese as their greatest poet.”^[10] He arranged thirty-five of Du Fu’s poems according to the poet’s life stages, using the Three Hundred Tang Poems by Sun Zhu 孫洙 (1711–1778) as the primary source. These poems are among Du Fu’s most celebrated works. The Sunflower Splendor anthology included translations by several young American scholars and translators of the time, featuring thirty titles of Du Fu poems, the highest number for any single poet in the collection. These included well-known pieces such as “Journey North 北征,” “Climbing the Heights登高,” “Recruiting Officer of Shih-hao石壕吏,” and the “Autumn Thoughts秋興.” Although the editors did not provide specific commentary on Du Fu, the selection’s quantity and quality demonstrated a traditional homage to Du Fu and his poetry. Additionally, in 1973, the British diplomat Arthur Cooper published a collection titled Li Po and Tu Fu, which included translations of twenty-six of Du Fu’s poems. Despite being a joint anthology of Li Bai and Du Fu’s works, Cooper’s book featured an extensive eighty-page introduction, discussing Du Fu’s loyalty to the emperor and describing him as “the most humane, approachable, and attractive of great man who had ever lived.”^[11] In the realm of biographical writing, A. R. Davis published Tu Fu in 1971, highlighting Du Fu’s profound influence on subsequent generations. Davis remarked that Du Fu “had greater influence than any other poet on the generations that followed him.”^[12]

1. Period of Deconstruction: 1980s to 1990s

Building on the translations and biographical writings of the previous period, the 1980s saw English-speaking translators and researchers gain new understandings of Du Fu. This phase witnessed two main trends in the portrayal of Du Fu. First, translators began to consciously explore the differences between Chinese and English poetics and the translation issues arising from linguistic structural differences. Second, scholars shifted their focus from biographical research to literary studies. Notably, during this period, while Du Fu’s poetic artistry was highly praised, traditional views of his morality were challenged, leading to a separation of his literary achievements from his personal evaluation, forming a trend of interpreting his works over him as a person. These trends not only signify that the study of Du Fu’s poetry has entered a new stage, but also that the English translations of his works, as literary pieces attracting the attention of English-speaking readers, have officially become a part of world literature beyond East Asia within the mainstream academic discourse in the United States.

As early as 1976, Wai-lim Yip 葉維廉 published Chinese Poetry: Major Modes and Genres through the University of California-Berkeley Press, which included translations of seventeen of Du Fu’s poems. Although Yip’s focus was not specifically on Du Fu, his exploration of the methodology for translating classical Chinese poetry into English set a precedent for later translators to view Du Fu’s poetic artistry through a comparative lens of Chinese and Western poetic forms. In 1992, American scholar David R. McCraw continued this comparative literary approach in his monograph Du Fu’s Laments from the South, specifically discussing the translation issues of Du Fu’s poetry. This conscious exploration by translators of Du Fu’s linguistic characteristics can be traced back to 1968, when Chinese-American scholars Kao Yu-kung 高友工 and Mei Tsu-lin 梅祖麟 co-authored a series of articles from a linguistic perspective on the syntax, imagery, semantics, and allusions in Tang poetry.^[13] In particular, Kao and Mei wrote a pioneering study on the “Autumn Meditation,” using linguistic methods to reveal the inner beauty of Du Fu’s work through sound patterns, ambiguity, and regulated verse structure. As they conclude in their article, “to the central concern of poetry, which is, after all, to make excellent verbal artifacts. In terms of this intrinsic criterion, the criterion of verbal excellency innovated and brought to perfection, Tu Fu is indeed a poet without peer.”^[14] These scholarly contributions by Kao and Mei not only brought about a theoretical shift in translating Du Fu’s poetry but also opened the door to literary studies of Du Fu’s works in the English-speaking world.

It was precisely the attempts by these two scholars to explore the literary qualities of Du Fu’s poetry from within that inspired English-speaking researchers in the 1980s and 1990s. They began discussing and reflecting on traditional Chinese poetics from various aspects of Du Fu’s literary studies, often through a comparative literature lens. These experts, together with translators in the English-speaking world, further elevated Du Fu onto the stage of world literature. With the advent of the 1980s, scholars in the English-speaking world, such as Stephen Owen 宇文所安, Susan Cherniack 車淑珊, and Eva Shan Chou 周姍, began to study the poetic art of Du Fu.^[15] During this period, English-speaking researchers gradually moved away from the traditional Chinese poetic influence and attempted to establish a modern scholarly framework for studying Du Fu, with comparative literature playing an omnipresent role. When situating Du Fu within the broader context of Chinese, Western, and even world literature, many scholars keenly identified and articulated the unique characteristics of the Chinese poetic tradition represented by Du Fu. Whether Owen’s reflections on Du Fu’s “distinctiveness” and “multiplicity” or the explorations of Du Fu’s poetic artistry by Cherniack and Chou, these studies signified that the mainstream literary research model on Du Fu in the English-speaking world had been established.

The literary image of Du Fu was starting to be reconstructed through the separation of “poems” and “person.” As Chou explains in her book, “Neither discussion rejects the traditional image of Tu Fu; instead, in each I attempt to reach an understanding of the poet’s cultural legacy and its formation that will allow us to work with that tradition, rather than merely to follow it.”^[16] This break from tradition was not a simple abandonment of the more than one-thousand-year-old praise of Du Fu’s Confucian morality but a conscious effort to re-examine Du Fu in modern and postmodern contexts.

1. Period of Reshaping: Since the 21st Century

Building upon the diligent efforts and rational reflections of translators and researchers from the previous period, the 21st century has witnessed the emergence of numerous high-quality translations and scholarly works on Du Fu. These contributions have significantly expanded Du Fu’s influence and recognition in the English-speaking world. Arguably, scholars have consciously advanced the research path in constructing Du Fu’s image in particular. Compared with the preceding phase, the translations of Du Fu’s poetry in the 21st century are more comprehensive, with both popular and complete academic translations of Du Fu’s works being published.^[17] In addition, Du Fu’s literary research has attracted the attention of an increasing number of young and middle-aged scholars who have expanded their methodologies and topics, and thus embracing “indeterminacy” more readily. They have explored and extended the construction of Du Fu’s image as an open topic, seeking to “read” a poet who experiences joy, sorrow, and inner conflicts, and an ordinary man who laments the fate of the dynasty amid the tides of his time.

Following Stephen Owen and Eva Shan Chou, the literary study of Du Fu has gradually become a focal point for scholars in the English-speaking world, especially in North America. Many scholars, including Charles Hartman 蔡涵墨 and David L. McMullen 麥大維, have published articles on Du Fu in various journals.^[18] Since 2010, multiple English doctoral dissertations on Du Fu have emerged, with many subsequently being revised and published as monographs. In 2012, David K. Schneider’s dissertation was revised into the book Confucian Prophet: Political Thought in Du Fu’s Poetry, in which Schneider treats Du Fu’s poetry, particularly before and after the An Lushan Rebellion 安史之亂 (618–907), as a source of his political thought and elevates him as both a prophet and a Utopian. Though some of his approaches are problematic, his attempt to introduce analytical concepts to situate Du Fu, not only within the Chinese poetic tradition, but also within wider literary typologies is by and large successful. In 2017, Ji Hao’s dissertation was published as The Reception of Du Fu and His Poetry in Imperial China, which comprehensively explores the reception of Du Fu and his poetry from the Tang to the Qing dynasties. Lucas Rambo Bender 盧本德 revised his dissertation into Du Fu Transforms: Tradition and Ethics amid Societal Collapse, published in 2021, which examines Du Fu’s adaptation of tradition and ethics during times of social turmoil. There are also two yet-to-be-published dissertation projects. Gregory Magai Patterson’s dissertation, “Elegies for Empire: The Poetics of Memory in the Late Work of Du Fu,” focuses on cultural memory in Du Fu’s poetry during his Kuizhou period. Jue Chen’s dissertation, “Making China’s Greatest Poet: The Construction of Du Fu in the Poetic Culture of the Song Dynasty,” explores the reconstruction of Du Fu’s image by Song dynasty poets and critics through Du Fu studies in the Song dynasty.

During this period, a group of scholars centered at Harvard University’s East Asian Languages and Civilizations Department has made outstanding contributions to Du Fu research and translation. In 2016, Stephen Owen published The Poetry of Du Fu. Before him, many translators and scholars attempted to translate Du Fu’s poetry, but few succeeded in translating all of them into English. This work represents the first complete academic translation of Du Fu’s poetry in the English-speaking world. In his introduction, Owen elaborates on Du Fu’s significance as a “poet-historian.” Although Owen’s understanding of “poet-historian” somewhat differs from the traditional Chinese poetic interpretation of Du Fu’s work,^[19] the book nonetheless reflects the translator’s profound knowledge of classical Chinese poetics and his exceptional literary skills. Apart from translations, an international conference on Du Fu was held at Harvard in October 2016, and nine papers from this conference were compiled into the book Reading Du Fu: Nine Views, which draws a close attention to the reshaping of Du Fu’s image.

2 Developments in the Representation of Du Fu in the English-Speaking World

1. From Following Tradition to Breaking Away from Tradition

Over the past century, the representation of Du Fu in the English-speaking world has undergone a significant transition from relying on traditional interpretations to gradually breaking away from them. During the formative period from the 1920s to the 1970s, the role of translators evolved from non-professional translators, poets, and writers to professional scholars. In the early stages, the involvement and efforts of Chinese and Sino-American scholars influenced the understanding of Du Fu’s poetry during this period tremendously. Some translations were predominantly led by American poets, writers, and scholars, while others were primarily or solely undertaken by Sino-American scholars. The former includes collaborations such as the poems from the Tang Dynasty translated by American poet Witter Bynner and Chinese scholar Jiang Kang-hu, and The Book of Seven Songs and Tu Fu: Wanderer and Minstrel under Moons of Cathay translated by American poet and writer Edna Worthley Underwood and Chinese scholar Chi-Hwang Chu. Another notable example is The White Pony, a major anthology of Chinese poetry co-translated by Witter Bynner and over twenty Chinese collaborators. Representative works by Sino-American scholars include the extensive anthology Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry, co-edited by Wu-chi Liu and Irving Lo, Wai-lim Yip’s Chinese Poetry: Major Modes and Genres, and William Hung’s seminal biography Tu Fu: China’s Greatest Poet. However, during the formative period, works independently completed by native English speakers often contained numerous errors. For example, William Hung criticized Ayscough’s biographies of Du Fu for its numerous inaccuracies in annotations, chronology, and translations.^[20] Similarly, A. C. Graham’s 葛瑞漢 (1919–1991) renowned translation erroneously classified Du Fu as a poet of the Late Tang dynasty.^[21] Since the 1980s, translations and scholarly works have increasingly been completed by native English-speaking translators and researchers independently. Notable translators such as Burton Watson (1925–2017) and David Hinton have made significant contributions, with Watson’s The Selected Poems of Du Fu published in 2002 and Hinton’s The Selected Poems of Tu Fu published in 1989. The most comprehensive translation is Stephen Owen’s The Poetry of Du Fu, published in 2016. Research works are also predominantly authored by native English-speaking scholars, even contributions from Chinese-American scholars like Ji Hao and Jue Chen, who received their academic training in North America, exhibit strong influences of modern and postmodern theoretical perspectives.

Another aspect demonstrating a break from tradition is the criteria for poem selection. In the early translations, the choice of Du Fu’s poems was crucial for introducing him to the English-speaking world, and the selection criteria significantly influenced how readers understood Du Fu as a person. During the formative phase, traditional Chinese poetics played an influential role in many translator’s choices of poems. For instance, Bynner’s translation and David Hawkes’s A Little Primer of Tu Fu both used the Three Hundred Tang Poems 唐詩三百首as their base for selecting Du Fu’s poems. The anthology Sunflower Splendor included traditional masterpieces such as “The Northern Expedition,” “The Old Man of Stone Moat Village,” “Autumn Meditations,” “Ascending the Heights,” and “Spring Night Rain.” As later translations emerged, the selection criteria for Du Fu’s poems became more diverse, reflecting the translators’ individual interests. For example, William Hung and translators influenced by him, such as David Hinton, tended to select poems that reflected different periods of Du Fu’s life, adhering to a chronological principle. Other translators, however, broke away from the chronological order and categorized the poems by genre and theme. Wai-lim Yip’s translations, for instance, placed Du Fu’s poems alongside those of other poets under different poetic genres. David R. McCraw specifically selected 115 regulated verses by Du Fu for translation. Stephen Owen’s 1996 anthology, An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911, notably diverged from the chronological arrangement of The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry. Owen categorized 35 of poems by Du Fu into thematic sections such as “Early Du Fu,” “Giving an Account of Oneself,” “The Poetry of the Rebellion,” “Qinzhou and Chengdu,” “On Painting,” and “Kuizhou and Du Fu’s Final Years.”

In the 21st century, more translators incorporated thematic collections of Du Fu’s poetry into their anthologies of Chinese poetry or selections of Du Fu’s works. This thematic approach helps readers better understand various important aspects of Du Fu’s image. By focusing on specific themes, these translations offer a more nuanced view of Du Fu, presenting him not only as a historical figure but also as a poet with a wide range of emotions and experiences, reflecting the complexities of his time and personality. The translations in this category include Sam Hamill’s Crossing the Yellow River: Three Hundred Chinese Poems published by BOA in 2000 and The Poetry of Zen published by Shambhala in 2004, Jonathan Waley’s Spring in the Ruined City: Selected Poems of Du Fu published by Shearsman Books in 2008 and Keith Holyoak’s Facing the Moon: Poems of Li Bai and Du Fu published by Oyster River Press in 2007.

In the field of Du Fu studies, researchers in the English-speaking world are also committed to breaking free from the constraints of traditional Chinese poetics. They approach Du Fu’s poetry with a focus on its literary qualities within a modern context. Based on her doctoral dissertation and a series of articles, Eva Shan Chou published an important monograph on Du Fu in the American academic sphere in 1995, titled Reconsidering Du Fu: Literary Greatness and Cultural Context. Chou’s book continued to approach Du Fu’s poetic achievements from a literary perspective, particularly discussing the social consciousness in Du Fu’s poetry. She moved away from the traditional moralistic evaluation of Du Fu’s “social compassion” and introduced the concept of “topicality” as a literary term to analyze Du Fu’s socially concerned poems. Chou argued that using “topicality” to analyze Du Fu’s literary qualities was more advantageous than “social compassion” because it provided a set of methods to understand Du Fu’s unique contributions to poetry and allowed scholars to address many literary issues rather than merely evaluating Du Fu’s choice and treatment of poetic themes from a moral standpoint.^[22] According to Eva Shan Chou, Du Fu’s greatness was not exceptional during his time, for other poets who wrote fewer poetry on the social matters equally concerned about the fate of the Tang empire and even made more substantial contribution to the society. Du Fu’s uniqueness, in her argument, lies in his ability to transfer his social compassion into verses and compose masterpieces on the topical subjects no matter how trivial they seemed by means of “realism” which creates the effect that a verse has a factual basis or “stylized realism” which draws a large amount of expression from conventions of Chinese lyric poems such as yuefu 樂府. To show Du Fu’s innovation of the subject matter, Chou demonstrates a clutch of verses addressing the poet’s daily life, such as “Getting the Boys to Pick Dark Mushrooms,” “A Gardener Sends a Present of Melon,” “Piping Water,” “On Cutting Trees.” Besides these trivial subject matters, Chou furthers her points by analyzing how Du Fu chose different strategies in ballad composition between conventional expressions and physicality and concreteness in detail-depiction. The endeavor made by Eva Shan Chou, albeit not entirely transcends the tradition of Chinese poetics, does provide insights into reading Du Fu through a literary scope and open a door that theorizes the literary approach for contemporary Du Fu studies.

1. From “Mutual Verification between Poetry and History” to New Historicism

In early biographical writings about Du Fu, authors often derived his life story from his poetry directly. This method was not only employed by Ayscough but also by William Hung and A. R. Davis, who utilized Du Fu’s poems as the primary source for constructing his personal image. Davis explicitly stressed in his preface that although his work was influenced by Hung, the main material for his biography of Du Fu was Du Fu’s poetry.^[23] Hung’s approach epitomized this method, known as the “mutual verification between poetry and history,” a traditional Chinese hermeneutic theory that elucidated the historical background of Du Fu’s poetry and supplemented missing historical information. Hung warned readers that “some of the poems would be meaningless to us without the knowledge of their immediate historical background.”^[24] These biographical writings indeed laid the foundation for Du Fu studies in the English-speaking world. However, this historical approach was later replaced by a postmodern trend of New Historicism in literary studies. Beginning with Eva Shan Chou’s Reconsidering Tu Fu, scholars turned their attention to the historical processes and cultural factors that constructed Du Fu’s image. One of the major contributions of Chou’s scholarly work was her examination of the cultural context that shaped Du Fu’s literary fame. She moved beyond the natural acceptance of Du Fu as a great poet by earlier scholars and sought to objectively assess the historical and cultural factors that established Du Fu’s literary reputation.^[25] Although some of her views may have errors or misinterpretations of Du Fu and his poetry, it is undeniable that Chou’s efforts provided new opportunities for later scholars in the English-speaking world to reconstruct the reception history of Du Fu.

In the new century, more scholars focused on the reception history of Du Fu. Charles Hartman’s pioneering article summarizes the transformation of Du Fu’s image from the Northern Song to the Southern Song, highlighting the corresponding political ecology of the Song Dynasty. He notes that Du Fu’s images evolved from a “social reformer” during the Qingli 慶歷 Reforms to a loyal and patriotic poet during the political strife of the Northern Song, and eventually to a figure of “personal and moral salvation” after the fall of the Northern Song. Each phase emphasized different aspects of Du Fu’s persona, reflecting the main political concerns of the Song Dynasty at the time.^[26]

Building on the research of Chou and Hartman, Ji Hao’s monograph The Reception of Du Fu and His Poetry in Imperial China and Jue Chen’s doctoral dissertation Making China’s Greatest Poet: The Construction of Du Fu in the Poetic Culture of the Song Dynasty reflect a detailed examination on the historical process of constructing Du Fu’s images. Ji Hao’s work outlines the reception history of Du Fu from the Northern Song, Southern Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing periods, and explores the relationship between the modes of reading Du Fu and the cultural, political, and poetic thoughts of each historical period. He points out that each era’s commentators, critics, and readers interpreted Du Fu and his poetry to reflect their own humanistic concerns. Unlike Hartman, who primarily attributes the transformation of Du Fu’s image to political changes, Ji Hao places the Song literati’s interpretation of Du Fu within a broader cultural-historical context, noting that the veneration of Du Fu in the Song Dynasty was influenced by multiple factors, including the rise of print culture and the literati’s desire to express their unique poetic ideas in the face of Tang poetry’s legacy. This approach resonates with Michel Foucault’s concept of the “history of the present”^[27] and responds to the influence of Stephen Greenblatt’s New Historicism in the field of classical Chinese literary studies.

Jue Chen’s work also responds to postmodern theoretical trends in English literary studies. From a New Historicist perspective, she interprets the formation and development of Du Fu’s image in the Song Dynasty. Chen directly cites Greenblatt’s view, considering the Song literati as “active agents” ^[28] in the development of Du Fu studies, emphasizing their active efforts in shaping Du Fu’s image and exploring the underlying social and cultural motivations. In her published paper, Chen examines the variants in Song annotations of Du Fu’s poetry to show that the image of Du Fu as a master of poetic language was, to some extent, a conscious construction by the Song literati, intrigued and motivated by their own pursuit of perfect expressive effects in their creative works.^[29]

1. From a Single Perspective to Multiple Perspectives

The third significant development trend in the English-speaking world’s representation of Du Fu is the shift from a single Confucian perspective to a more diversified and multifaceted approach to reading Du Fu and his poetry. In the formative years, biographies and translations of Du Fu often centered around the Confucian persona attributed to him by traditional Chinese poetics. Early translators and biographers introduced Du Fu with titles such as “Poet Sage” and “Poet Historian,” affirming his status as both a poet and a Confucian moral icon. William Hung’s biography epitomized this approach, stating in the introduction that “Tu Fu the man represents the widest sympathy and the highest ethical principles, while Tu Fu the poet commands the largest variety of artistry and the deepest reality of art.”^[30]

However, subsequent translators and researchers rarely adhered to such Confucian evaluations. For instance, Kenneth Rexroth, an admirer of Du Fu, praises the poet’s artistry in his One Hundred Poems from the Chinese without discussing his social realism. Stephen Owen’s The Great Age of Chinese Poetry lauds Du Fu but describes him in a unique way, detached from traditional Chinese poetic theory and portraying him as “the master stylist of regulated verse, the poet of social protest, the confessional poet, the playful and casual wit, the panegyricist of the imperial order, the poet of everyday life, the poet of the visionary imagination.”^[31] In his comprehensive translation The Poetry of Du Fu, Owen further emphasizes: “He never begins as a moralist; he discovers moral issues in the world he encounters; sometimes the issues he finds are far too grand for the experience, and he laughs at himself. His pervasive irony and humor – in conjunction with his very human crankiness – make him a better model for the ‘Confucian’ than the generations of sanctimonious readers who idolized him.”^[32]

This anti-traditional Confucian tone has, to some extent, dissolved Du Fu’s halo as the “Poet Sage” and the “Poet Historian,” instead examining Du Fu as a poet within the framework of English literary studies. Following Owen, many English-speaking researchers have attempted to deconstruct the Confucian morality traditionally attributed to Du Fu by exploring other aspects of his “greatness.” Notably, the articles in Reading Du Fu: Nine Views reflect this trend. In the introduction, Xiaofei Tian analyzes two extreme representations of Du Fu studies: “[A]t one end, we have a popular imaginary portrait of Du Fu, widely known through its use in Chinese high school textbooks, which shows the poet exactly as how he is perceived to be: looking solemnly, concernedly, into the distance, apparently with the fate of the state and the common folk on his mind; at the other end, the doodling and spoofing versions of this portrait that went viral overnight on the Chinese internet in 2012, which marked the 1,300th anniversary of the poet’s birth. High moral seriousness became the target of mockery, and the act of worship could find balance only in ridicule. Neither, however, does justice to Du Fu the poet. Worse, neither side – the worshippers or the ridiculers – spends time reading Du Fu’s 1,400 poems, closely or widely.”^[33] While Tian’s summary may be somewhat oversimplified, she emphasizes the importance of “reading” Du Fu’s poetry from the perspective of restoring the “real Du Fu.” This reminder, though seemingly returning to the initial approach of Du Fu biographers, differs from the first phase of exploring Du Fu’s image by focusing more on works that are not traditionally considered “famous.” The authors in the collection aim to “read the poems anew by interrogating and cross-examining the poems from different angles and in different contexts.”^[34] This shift reflects a broader, more inclusive approach to Du Fu’s poetry, highlighting lesser-known works and exploring the poet’s multifaceted nature. It signifies a movement towards understanding Du Fu not just as a historical or moral figure but as a complex poet whose work resonates with various aspects of human experience and literary artistry.

In the first section of this thesis collection, “Homeland, Place, and Empire,” researchers try to move away from fixed notions about Du Fu and his works, viewing him as an “ordinary” person and a genuine “poet” enduring the dual hardships of domesticity and nation. They closely read lesser-known poems such as “Spring Returns 春歸,” “Dissipating Depression 解悶,” and “The Garden Official Sends Vegetables 園官送菜,” describing Du Fu’s writings on daily life, his longing for home, and his reflections on the fate of the dynasty. The second section, “Poetry and Buddhism,” continues the effort to detach Du Fu from the conventional image of the Confucian sage. Paul Rouzer and Xiaofei Tian explore the possibility of interpreting some of Du Fu’s works from Buddhist perspectives. Rouzer examines the social context and literary allusions in Du Fu’s poems, suggesting that rather than treating Buddhism as a system of belief influencing the aesthetics of a cultural tradition, or trying to ascertain the extent of the poet’s commitment to the faith, it is more fruitful to think of Buddhism as a form of living practice and regarding Buddhist activities as being part of the educated elite’s daily life.^[35] Tian, on the other hand, analyzes the “Qinzhou—Tonggu Poems 發秦州—同谷七歌,” arguing that when there are clear textual clues, it is plausible to show that Buddhist aesthetics subtly influenced Du Fu’s poetic creation. Although she acknowledges that “religious poetry” is a problematic category, her perspective as a Chinese-American scholar allows her to appreciate the Zen aesthetics in the poetic language, a nuance that non-native Chinese speakers might find challenging to grasp.

3 The Significance of the Representation of Du Fu in the Anglophone World

Despite criticisms of the representation of Du Fu in the English-speaking world, with some scholars arguing that many interpretations “distort” his traditional image as the Poet Sage, it is important to consider the global dissemination of Chinese traditional culture. Although translations and interpretations by English-speaking translators and researchers inevitably contain omissions and misunderstandings, these works have collectively promoted the reading of Du Fu in the English-speaking world. Moreover, they have provided methodological insights, helped integrate Chinese classical literature into the global literary canon, and supplemented domestic Du Fu studies.

1. Methodological Insights

From a methodological perspective, most researchers in the English-speaking world have followed a purely literary academic path, using New Criticism, Deconstructionism, New Historicism, and other modern and postmodern Western theoretical frameworks to interpret Du Fu and his poetry. Their research is characterized by an intensive comparative literature approach, creating a dialogue across spatial and temporal divides between modern English-speaking researchers and traditional Chinese poetics. Their works often combine respect for tradition with modern and postmodern theoretical reflections, adopting an amalgam of two to three theoretical approaches alongside Chinese domestic scholars’ research to offer unique reinterpretations of Du Fu.

Among the most representative studies are those by Kao Yu-kung and Mei Tsu-lin, who examine “Autumn Meditation” from a linguistic perspective. Departing from conventional literary analysis, these scholars delve into the internal workings of language to uncover the charm and greatness of Du Fu’s poetry. They aim to analyze and explain why “Autumn Meditation” is regarded as a paradigmatic and outstanding example of seven-character regulated verse through the lens of linguistic criticism. For example, when discussing the effect of the poetry series, the two scholars used the middle couplets of the fifth, sixth, and seventh poems as illustrations. They argue that “several structural patterns join forces to bind poems 5–7 into a subunit within the cycle, so that over and above the impressions they separately impart, there is also a cumulative effect.”

After examining the middle two couplets, they say, “upon inspection, it will become clear that all twelve lines have the same rhythmic structure”, 4:1:2, and the last three syllables uniformly embody the construction: verb + adjective + noun. Repetition in rhythm and in grammatical construction is hypnotic, and hypnotism is conducive to dreaming. Further, the third couplet of poems 5–7 each contains visual details considerably smaller or more exactly described than what went before: “ ‘pheasant tails’ and ‘dragon scales on the emperor’s robe’ in poem 5, ‘pearl blinds and embellished pillars’ and ‘embroidered cables and ivory masts’ in poem 6, and ‘darnel seeds’ and ‘lotus calyxes’ in poem 7. Thus in each poem as we proceed, our perception of individual objects becomes more vivid.”

After Kao and Mei’s endeavor, post-1980s Du Fu studies in the English-speaking world have witnessed a trend of the questioning of authorial intent, as posited by New Criticism. Stephen Owen, in his Traditional Chinese Poetry and Poetics: Omen of the World, distinguishes between Chinese and Western traditions of reading poetry, suggesting that Chinese traditional poetry serves as immediate reflection of the poet’s real experiences. However, in his subsequent article “The Self’s Perfect Mirror: Poetry as Autobiography,” he revised his stance under the influence of the New Criticism concept of “intentional fallacy,”^[36] suggesting that behind the expression in Chinese traditional poetry lies a more authentic “poet,” and the meaning in the poetry is merely a “role” the poet plays to present a certain self to the reader. Du Fu’s greatness, according to Owen, lies in his ability to convey this complex, authentic self.^[37]

Following Owen, most Du Fu researchers have further established the importance of the reader in determining a poem’s meaning, viewing interpretation as a conscious act by the reader within their social and cultural context, thereby granting ultimate interpretative authority to the reader. This deconstructionist approach has led Du Fu scholars to expand their research beyond the text itself to various aspects of Du Fu’s reception history. This includes Ji Hao’s historical research, Jue Chen’s exploration of textual variants in Du Fu’s poetry, and articles in Reading Du Fu: Nine Views, such as Ronald Egan’s study of Ming-Qing painters’ interpretations of Du Fu’s poetic imagery and David Der-wei Wang’s research on modern Chinese poets’ re-creations of Du Fu’s poetry.^[38] Egan examines how Ming and Qing literati painters creatively transformed Du Fu’s poetry, comparing the works of 17th-century painters Wang Shimin 王時敏 (1592–1680) and Shi Tao 石濤 (1642–1707). He argues that Shi Tao derived greater joy from imbuing Du Fu’s poems with new artistic interpretations than Wang Shimin. This study is enlightening for its exploration of the relationship between visual and literary arts and the subjectivity of literati painters as re-creators. David Der-wei Wang analyzes six 20th-century poets’ creative engagement with Du Fu’s poetry, noting how these poets either celebrated Du Fu’s spiritual core, borrowed his imagery, or creatively mimicked his historical experiences. As Wang states, “Du Fu, the ‘author’ of ‘poetry as history,’ is never missing on the platform of Chinese modernism. He remains for the poets an indispensable interlocutor, a kindred spirit.”^[39] By drawing comparisons with postmodern Western theories of “authorship,” Wang explores the continuity and development of Chinese modern poetry in relation to tradition. Du Fu’s subjectivity as a great author remains intact in Chinese modern poetry, as modern poets reinterpret Du Fu to express themselves in new historical contexts, transforming him into a “present Du Fu.” Thus, in their works, they pay homage to Du Fu, acknowledging him as China’s greatest poet.

1. Introducing Du Fu to World Literature

Over the past century, translation of Du Fu’s works into English has played a crucial role in introducing him to English readers, while literary research has integrated him into the global literary canon through comparative methods that transcend traditional Chinese reading habits. Together, these efforts have shaped a unique representation of Du Fu that connects but yet also distinguishes between the English-speaking world and traditional Chinese Du Fu studies.

From the early 20th century to the present, translators in the English-speaking world have introduced Du Fu’s poetry through various forms. Many translators were themselves influential poets, translators, and scholars in the English-speaking world. For example, Amy Lowell, one of the translators in Fir-Flower Tablets, Kenneth Rexroth, the translator of One Hundred Poems from the Chinese, and Sam Hamill, the translator of Facing the Snow: Visions of Tu Fu, were all renowned American poets. David Hawkes, the translator of A Little Primer of Tu Fu, David Hinton, the translator of the 1989 The Selected Poems of Tu Fu, and Burton Watson, the translator of the 2002 The Selected Poems of Du Fu, were prominent translators. Additionally, William Hung, Wu-chi Liu, Irving Lo, Wai-lim Yip, and Stephen Owen were distinguished scholars in American Sinological circle. Their esteemed reputations in the English-speaking world promoted Du Fu significantly.

Despite differences in poem selection criteria and translation strategies among translators,^[40] all were dedicated to translating the most artistically compelling poems of Du Fu into readable modern English. David Hinton, in the preface to his book, explicitly stated, “My primary concern in these translations has been to recreate Du Fu as an arresting voice in English poetry.”^[41] This sentiment represents a common pursuit among English-speaking translators of Du Fu’s works. Moreover, many anthologies of Du Fu’s poems include biographical introductions. Edna Worthley Underwood’s 1929 Tu Fu: Wanderer and Minstrel under Moons of Cathay contains a detailed 30-page introduction discussing Du Fu’s life and critical studies from the Song, Yuan, and Qing dynasties. Kenneth Rexroth’s One Hundred Poems from the Chinese features an article introducing Du Fu, his life, and his works. British diplomat Arthur Cooper’s Li Po and Tu Fu includes an extensive 80-page introduction to both poets and the context of Tang poetry. David Hinton’s and Burton Watson’s translations of Du Fu’s poems also provide introductions to Du Fu’s life and poetic artistry.

In addition to translators, Du Fu scholars have also been instrumental in promoting Du Fu’s poetry, though some of their views and conclusions differ from traditional and contemporary Chinese Du Fu studies. Just as Xiaofei Tian notes in the preface to Reading Du Fu: Nine Views, “though written in (Tang) Chinese, Du Fu’s poetry belongs not only to the Chinese but also to the world.”^[42] These scholars’ diverse and post-traditional interpretations of Du Fu are rooted in modern and postmodern Western theoretical trends. In a positive light, such “local” interpretations enable readers living in Western modern civilization to resonate with Du Fu, a poet from ancient China who wrote in classical Chinese. This approach, undoubtedly, fosters understanding and appreciation of Du Fu’s greatness.

1. Beneficial to Domestic Du Fu Studies

Since the new century, Du Fu research in the English-speaking world has entered a new stage. Scholars have gradually moved away from traditional clichés and have begun examining the construction of Du Fu’s image through deconstructionist and New Historicist lenses. They have posed thought-provoking questions and reconstructed Du Fu’s image within the framework of Western cultural perspectives. These efforts resonate with recent domestic studies of Du Fu’s image.

This process has not been entirely linear, and there have been disagreements among researchers in the English-speaking world regarding Du Fu’s image. Chinese-American scholars like William Hung tended to affirm Du Fu’s moral values, offering high praise for his poetic artistry, influence, and personal charisma. In contrast, native English-speaking translators and scholars, while highly appreciating Du Fu’s poetic art—such as Kenneth Rexroth’s declaration of Du Fu as “the greatest non-epic, non-dramatic poet in the world”—often expressed varying degrees of skepticism and challenge towards his moral persona as the “Poet Sage,” representative figures including A. R. Davis, Eva Shan Chou, Stephen Owen. Overall, this divergence is largely chronological. As translators and researchers have continually adjusted their approaches to writing about Du Fu, the research trajectory has evolved from basic knowledge dissemination in the early stages to academic reflection in the 1980s and theoretical construction in the new century. This trajectory reflects a gradual decline in dependence on tradition, with renowned works and emergent new perspectives, especially in recent years.

English-speaking scholars either have explored Du Fu’s image and thought formation through textual and historical factors from a deconstructionist perspective, or have delved into the literary value of Du Fu’s poetic art from a literary criticism standpoint, reflecting a distinctly modern academic style. Admittedly, discussions of specific Du Fu works can sometimes evince tendencies of over-interpretation and misreading due to temporal and linguistic gaps inherent in cross-cultural studies. Indeed, domestic researchers are entitled to view these perspectives and methods critically, but an academic prism reveals that these endeavors to endow Du Fu with new significance in a modern context offer a beneficial supplement to domestic Du Fu studies, which often accentuate “determinacy” and employ more “historicist” methodologies.

On the front of literary studies, research on Du Fu’s poetry in the English-speaking world is equally enlightening. Owen’s renowned work The Great Age of Chinese Poetry places Du Fu’s achievements within the broader historical context of the development of Tang poetry, highlighting the differences and connections between Du Fu and his contemporaries. As he notes, “[…] Tu Fu possessed a protean talent and personality in an age when poets had just developed the unified and unitary poetic personality against the powerful centrifugal influences of subgeneric traditions.”^[43] In his detailed examination of Du Fu’s “distinctiveness,” Owen points out Du Fu’s transcendence of poetic traditions and conventions, praising him as a poet who liberated himself from conventions and “truly ‘used’ the past.”^[44] These compliments of Du Fu as “China’s greatest poet” were based on meticulous literary analysis. For instance, Owen’s analysis of the poem “Gazing on the Great Peak 望嶽” demonstrates that Du Fu’s arrangement of poetic structure and choice of theme were distinct from traditional “mountain climbing” poems, thus achieving a feat that neither submits to nor avoids the poetic tradition, but rather puts it to his service.^[45] In his assessment, Owen states: “One function of literary history is to account for a poet’s identity; Tu Fu’s poetry defies such reduction: the only aspect that can be emphasized without distorting his work as a whole is the very fact of its multiplicity.”^[46] In addition, Owen’s literary crown for Du Fu extends beyond the evaluation of a national literary figure, elevating Du Fu to the ranks of world literary masters. He remarks that “[Tu Fu’s] greatness rests on the consensus of more than a millennium of readers and on the rare coincidence of Chinese and Western literary values. Within the Chinese poetic tradition Tu Fu is almost beyond judgment, because, like Shakespeare in our own tradition, his literary accomplishment has itself become a major component in the historical formation of literary values. The peculiar nature of Tu Fu’s greatness lies beyond the limited scope of literary history.”^[47]

The innovative questions and interdisciplinary, diverse critical perspectives proposed in English-speaking Du Fu studies have broadened the horizons and theoretical foundations of local Du Fu research and classical literary studies. Essentially, Du Fu studies in the English-speaking world constitute comparative literary criticism that spans ancient and modern histories, Eastern and Western cultures, and Chinese and English languages. The methodological exploration exhibits interdisciplinary diversity, emphasizing subjective and historical literary theories. This contrasts with the more objective and determinacy-oriented interpretations constructed in China’s domestic Du Fu studies, forming two competitive yet complementary academic directions. As a corollary, we have a reason to anticipate that the construction of Du Fu studies will continue to evolve with the ongoing development of Chinese and Western literary concepts, fostering new interpretative trends. It is also hoped that the two poetic directions will integrate and develop through dialogue, enriching the study of Du Fu and classical Chinese literature.