The first time i encountered this poem in any sort of detail was at pekin university during the cultural revolution, when we had some lessons iner chinese poetics from a very sweet teacher. Out of the 500 lines of dufu's poems we were allowed to study precisely two. We were given two lines which are very portant, which go, tuman joro cho luo dung sgu. This is behind tem inside the vermilion gates, wine and meat are left to rot. On the road are the bones of those who have frozen to death. And this s that dufo, at one moment in his life, was conscious of the horrible difference between
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss two of China’s greatest poets, Li Bai and Du Fu, who wrote in the 8th century in the Tang Era. Li Bai (701-762AD) is known for personal poems, many of them about drinking wine, and for finding the enjoyment in life. Du Fu (712-770AD), a few years younger, is more of an everyman, writing in the upheaval of the An Lushan Rebellion (755-763AD). Together they have been a central part of Chinese culture for over a millennium, reflecting the balance between the individual and the public life, and one sign of their enduring appeal is that there is rarely agreement on which of them is the greater.
The image above is intended to depict Du Fu.
With
Tim Barrett
Professor Emeritus of East Asian History at SOAS, University of London
Tian Yuan Tan
Shaw Professor of Chinese at the University of Oxford and Professorial Fellow at University College
And
Frances Wood
Former Curator of the Chinese Collections at the British Library
Producer: Simon Tillotson