Background of Du Fu's "Ascending the Heights

I. Background of Composition

This poem was written in the fall of the second year of Dali (767) of the Tang Dynasty, when Du Fu was in Kui Zhou. It was written by the fifty-six-year-old poet in a situation of extreme distress. At that time, the An Shi Rebellion had already ended four years ago, but the local warlords had risen again and were competing with each other for territory. Dufu had joined Yan Wu's court and relied on him.

Shortly after Yan Wu's death, Du Fu lost his support and had to leave the Chengdu Cao Tang (成都草堂), where he had operated for five or six years, and bought a boat to the south. He wanted to go straight to Kui Men, but because of his illness, he stayed in Yun'an for a few months before arriving in Kui Zhou. Had it not been for the care of the local governor, he would not have been able to stay here for three years.

And it was during these three years that his life remained difficult and his health very poor. One day he climbed alone to a high platform outside the city of Baidi in Kui Zhou, and looked out from the heights with mixed feelings. What he saw in the view aroused his feelings; the desolate scenery of the Autumn River triggered his feelings of being a drifter, and penetrated his sadness of being old, sick and lonely. Thus, there is this song is known as the "crown of the seven rhymes" of the "Ascension".

The original text

Denggao Tang Du Fu

The wind and the sky are high and the apes are wailing, and the islet is clear and the sand is white and the birds are flying back.

The fallen trees are falling under the Xiao Xiao, and the Yangtze River is rolling by.

This is the first time I've ever been to a place where I've been a guest, and I've been on the stage alone for a hundred years.

Three translations

The sound of apes in the high winds is mournful and sad, and gulls play in the clear water. The endless leaves fall one after another, and the Yangtze River rolls and rushes on. Sorrowful to the autumn color lament drifting outside, twilight sickly I climbed the high platform alone. I'm sorry that my hair is getting gray, and I'm sorry that I stopped drinking after I got sick.

Works Appreciation

The first half of the poem is about scenery, and the second half is about emotion, each of which has its own intricacies in the writing style. The first line focuses on portraying the specific scenery in front of the eyes, just like a painter's brushwork, with shape, sound, color, and attitude, all of which are expressed. The second couplet focuses on rendering the whole autumn atmosphere, as if the painter's writing, it is only appropriate to transmit the spirit of the idea, so that the reader to supplement with imagination.

The third couplet expresses the feelings from the vertical (time), horizontal (space) two aspects of the pen, from the foreign land wandering to the sick and disabled life. In the fourth line, from the gray hair more and more days, nursing the sick and breaking the drink, attributed to the difficult times and the world is the root of the scribbling and unbearable. In this way, Du Fu's sentiment of worrying about the country and hurting the times will jump to the top.

This poem has all eight lines. At a cursory glance, the first and last lines seem to be "unattempted", and the chest and abdomen seem to be "unintentionally right". But if you look at it carefully, you'll find that "every sentence in a poem is a law, and every word in a sentence is a law". Not only "the whole piece can be law", but also "the use of sentences and words", "all ancient and modern people must not dare to say, can never say". It is only natural that it has gained the reputation of being "a work of the past" (see Hu Yinglin's "Poetry Serval").