The Reception of Du Fu (712-770) and His Poetry in Imperial China

For centuries, Chinese critics have acclaimed Du Fu (712–770) as “China’s greatest poet.” He has exerted tremendous influence both as a model poet and as a cultural icon. In The Reception of Du Fu (712-770) and His Poetry in Imperial China, Ji Hao provides modern readers with a general picture of the reception of Du Fu and his work from the Song to the Qing. He also explores major shifts in interpretive approaches to Du Fu’s poetry and their poetic and cultural implications.
Through the case of reading Du Fu, the book also offers an in-depth examination of subtleties of the mode of life reading and the concept of transparency. This exploration seeks to provide a new orientation to the significance of the overarching principles of reading poetry in traditional China.

Ji Hao, PhD (2012), University of Minnesota (Twin Cities), is Assistant Professor of Chinese at the College of the Holy Cross. He has published several articles on Du Fu and on the sixteenth-century Chinese novel Xiyou ji.

"The Reception of Du Fu is a very informative and thought-provoking study. It gives us detailed and lively information about different kinds of reception, not only of Du Fu, but also about traditional Chinese modes of interpretation, which last till our times." - Monika Motsch, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, in: Monumenta Serica, 66:1 (2018)