Du Fu And Qin Culture,

Since the middle and late 1980s,academic field has made attempts to carry out the researches into the humanism, cultural mentalities of Du Fu and his significant role in Chinese cultural history from the perspectives of cultural civilization and history. However, until now there hasn't been a systematic work either putting inside the researches of Du Fu and Chinese traditional culture, or Du Fu and the culture of Pre-Qin Dynasty. The culture of Pre-Qin Dynasty, as the root of Chinese traditional culture, has deeply influenced Du Fu, and Du Fu accepted the culture selectively. The research into Du Fu and Pre-Qin Dynasty is the premise and important topic of the study of Du Fu and Chinese traditional culture.Based on the above target, I chose Du Fu and the Culture of Pre-Qin Dynasty as my research topic. This paper firstly summarizes the existed research results systematically. Then it incorporates into the Pre-Qin Culture and Chinese traditional culture to make some systematic, rich preparations, meanwhile to blaze a new trail and illustrate personal ideas. Based on the consensus agreement reached by scholars ancient and present centuries ago, centering around Confucian thought, The Book of Odes and The Poet Prose of Chu as two subjects, this paper concurrently discusses the impact of the exponents of different schools of thought and historical characters in the Pre-Qin Dynasty, myths and legends, allegory and allusion from classical works. The whole paper includes four chapters.Chapter one, Follow in the steps of Confucius and Mencius, in which the reasons why Du Fu believed in Confucius are discussed. He not only inherited it, but also put it in into practice earnestly and enriched it well. The poems of Du Fu are honored History Poem. The viewpoints of the Confucian school towards history especially the ideas in the book named The Spring and Autumn Annals have deep influence on Du Fu. The reasons why Du Fu believed in Confucian thought can be summarized into three factors: the then era, family background and personal characteristics. The existed research probably neglected his personal characteristics. This paper insisted that personality in some degree determines one's fate. The characteristics of kindness and perseverance have similarities with Confucius and Mencius. In particular, we take the issue "Gan Ye" as an example, analyzed the characteristics of Du Fu, onlywith this, Du devoted his whole life to the Confucian Thought while the nurtunty of the Confucian Thought enforced his intrinsic personality.Two points must be emphasized as far as the benevolence and universal love thought of Confucius and Mencius are concerned. First, different from Mencius Universal Love Thought, Confucius believes that people's love to others should be unequal and different, and be offered step by step according to consanguinity, law and religions from far to the nearside, from the close to the distant. This benevolence is natural, pure and sensible. And it accords with a man's nature and it's feasible in reality. Second, Confucian holds that this benevolence comes from the people's natural characteristics, not compressed from the outside. Du Fu's thought is closely interrelated to the benevolence of Confucius, he put it into his practice completely as well what he has done during his whole life if all for benevolence. He was upright, had taken an oath, not to change his mind, eager to learn endlessly. And his logic starting point of benevolence is from his love for his family members, then extended to be deeply in love with friends, the folks worried about the country, loyal to the emperor, and kind to everything, which are all heart felt, and by no means hypocritical and boastful. So it is the revolution of his true feelings and moving deeply. This paper finds that Du Fu has a strong complex of Letters Feeling, since he often talked that relatives and friends should keep correspondence to each other. It is clear that he was eager to send massages, exchange feelings and support each other, which is inseparated from his benevolence. Du had offered this to all life. Put down his psychology and kindness with beautiful words, which have been the chanted words permanently so that Confucian Thought was enriched and replenished.Du Fu set a good example in practicing benevolence personally in the sense of morality, ethics and high accomplishment. However, the benevolence pursued by Confucians needs to be practiced by people in power. Actually Du Fu had not been in position all his life. Even he was in office, had a low and short post. But either he was in office or off office, he had held up to Confucian thought and values consistently and rushed it about tirelessly. The benevolent approach to politics that Du Fu had pursued could be summarized into the following aspects briefly: a wise emperor, an honest official, loyal people, caring for soldiers, emphasis on farmers.The Summer and Autumn Annals is both classics and family book to Du Fu, whose forefather, Du Yu, was the expert of Zuo Legend- The Summer and Autumn Annals. Since Du Fu had been influnced by The Explanatory to The Summer and Autumn Annals by Du Yu, he had the tendency of sticking to the existed rules in the current political issues sometimes. The most typical example is his political viewpoint towards maintaining social order after An Shi Rebellion. He insisted that the policy of granting titles to the nobles and prince should be implemented. But generally speaking, what The Summer and Autumn Annals influenced on Du is positive. First, he took the responsibility as Confucius did to make the record of current affairs with poems and honored Poem History. Second, he actively responded to " Respect Emperor and Fight against Invaders", the great truth in The Summer and Autumn Annals, called for maintaining the domestic social order and fighting against the outsiders to maintain the stability and unity of the country. Third, he learned the writing style of The Summer and Autumn Annals, mentally suppressed the bad and commended the good, concerned about his country yard people, and pursue the creativity in arts.Du Fu hasn't been someone in the ancient history of ideology and Confucian. Though he was not a scholar, in line with his practice and development of Confucian and Mencian thought, we should reconsider his status and significance in the ideological history and Chinese traditional culture.Chapter two, consider various schools of thought in light of actual conditions. In this part the relation between Du Fu and exponents in Pre-Qin Dynasty especially the relation with Taoism is discussed in details. As for Du Fu, besides Confucian School, Taoism School was what he was also interested in and discussed most. His discussion can be generally divided into three aspects: First, in order to meet the needs of political affairs, Du Fu took Taoist School thought as the popular political slogan or political terms to catch the attention of the governors and end the state of inertia in his political career. Second, according to the trend of that time, he had frequent contact with poets, Taoist persists and excessively advocated naturalness, easiness and the image of famous scholars. Third, to seek a balanced mood according to Taoist School's optimism, inaction, and seclusion when in the time oftrouble, resentment and helplessness. Therefore, Taoist school was random idea and hadn't moved upward to the surface of belief and thought like Confucian. This paper still agree on the traditional view that Du Fu had been in the field of Confucian in his whole life, or taking Confucian thought as basic theory, Taoism as guidance.Chapter three, inherited from Folk Songs of states, The Book of Songs. The essence and impact of The Book of Odes and The Poet Prose of Chu on Du Fu are discussed in this part. The Book of Odes has duo-impacts on Du Fu. First, as literature works, it has impact on his arts. Second, it has instilled literal and art thought of Confucian poem principal with the representative of The Prelude to the Collection of Mao's Poems. The poem principles has tremendous influence on Du Fu, He regarded the poetry as the tool of affecting politics in real earnest and his poems for offering advice to the sovereign in an euphemistic way and indirect language, comes from the observation of Confucius regulations, strives for the fulfillment of this goal tactfully and goes after the realm of being gentle and honest. It's obvious that Du Fu imitates poetry principles every movement. The poetry principles have undergone thousands of years from Pre-Qin dynasty to Tang Dynasty and eventually Du yielded incomparable rich fruits. And he had become a seemingly perfect model and had been in the governing position in the ancient Confucian culture. It's natural that he would trigger strong resonance and be considered as Poetry Sage.Du Fu renovated Qu Yuan and honored Song Yu, what The Poet Prose of Chu affects Du Fu most is deep hardship awareness. Apart from the thought of being loyal to emperor and country, being concerned about people, this paper pays much attention to the following points: the depression caused by the elapse of the time, the transition of hard human life in The Poet Prose of Chu pound frequently at Du's sensitive heart.The Lament is the masterpiece of Qu Yuan, with regards to the similarity with it, Du's representing work is Thoughts in Five Hundred Words on the way to Feng Xian county from the Capital, the framework of these two poems are quite similar. The art effect of The Poet Prose of Chu lies mainly in the queer image and con text, which brings about a unique and specific effectiveness.In the cultural setup of Du Fu's poem, if we say Confucius Thought, The Book ofOdes and The Poet Prose of Chu are as sturdy and straight as trees, then various figures in the Pre-Qin Dynasty, brilliant myths and legendaries, rich and colorful proverb and quotations from classical works are dotted in the lambs and leaves like fine flowers which reveals the scenery that a tree comes out of various flowers. Chapter four, quoted and proved fully. The paper cites and textual researches into the historical status in the Pre-Qin Dynasty, myths and parables in the work of Du Fu. As for the historical characters in Pre-Qin Dynasty involved in Du Fu's poetry, we could see clearly that the thought of appreciably ancient times, following the steps of ancestors, the attitudes of applying the ancient experiences in the current affairs, and the writing style of drawing lessons from history are confirmed fatherly. Among the myths and legends, the influences of two folktales systems including Kun Lun and Peng Lai on Du Fu. It could be seen clearly the thought of Taoist School and the lifestyles of Wu Chu and Ba Shu region are involved as well. Du Fu was much familiar with parables and quotations from classical works in Pre-Qin Dynasty, especially the application of Chuang Tsu, which he had been in the realm of handling a clearer with skill, and doing with facility.Conclusion: In the macro view, Du Fu's inheritance from the Pre-Qin culture can be defined as "Monism with multiperspectives. Monism means that Du Fu appreciated Confucian solely;Multiperspective means that Du Fu learned widely and applied tactfully. Monism is principal, while multiperspective is feasible, they influence each other, and are a dialectical unity. Du Fu preferred Pre-Qin culture in the mode of Monism with multiperspective, and incorporated it into the reality to compose the extensive and profound poems creatively, which nourish the hearts of people generation after generation.