論杜甫夔州詩

Abstract

The opinions of Sung scholars regarding the poetry of Tu Fu fall into two proups. One is that represented by Huang T'ing-chien 黃庭堅 (1045-1105), who singled out the late works of Tu Fu, written after his stay in K'uei-chou, for particular praise. The other is that represented by Chu Hsi 朱熹 (1130-1200), who considered Tu Fu's early works to be his finest. Chu Hsi favored poems with an air of tranquility, and he considered that Tu Fu's late works were lacking in delicacy and subtlety, and characterized them as coarse and clumsy. Another reason why Chu Hsi frowned on the late works of Tu Fu was that he believed a poet should confine himself to a single style of composition (this was the advice he gave to his own students), and believed that Tu Fu was mistaken in departing from his earlier style. Huang T'ing-chien, on the other hand, believed that it was the duty of the poet, once he had reached maturity, to keep on exploring new areas of expression, breaking away from the style which he had already mastered, freeing himself from rules and restrictions, and moving beyond technical skill to the effortlessness that represents the highest skill. Tu Fu reached K'uei-chou in his fifty-fifth year. By this time he had already come to the conviction that, although the world he knew might be destroyed, poetry would remain eternally, and that all things in the universe were the proper themes of poetry. From this time on, therefore, he began to write poetry on every conceivable theme, infusing every subject, even the most commonplace event of daily life, with his philosophy of life. The form of his poetry likewise underwent a subtle change, which he himself describes in his remarks on poetic technique in the poem "Kung-sun Ta-niang wu chien ko" 公孫大娘舞劍歌 and its preface. The writer agrees with the Ch'ing critic Fang Tung-shu 方東樹 (1772-1851) that Tu Fu's real greatness lies in the depth which he achieved in these poems of his late years, and that it was Huang T'ing-chien who, above all others, best appreciated this depth.