Ao Wang (Wesleyan University)

The great Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu has been a perennial poetic model in Chinese culture for more than a millennium. To this day, he remains the most highly acclaimed, most extensively studied, and most widely quoted poet in China. Yet his relationship with modern Chinese poetry became strained in the 20th century. Modern Chinese poetry as a genre was largely established as a vernacular free verse, and this radically deviates from the classical poetic forms for which Du Fu’s writing embodies the highest perfection of craftsmanship. Despite the fact that many modern Chinese poets of the 20th century were well-versed in his work, his impact on modern poetry has not received the attention it deserves, and modern poets’ tributes to him have been exceptions rather than a common practice...(read more on event page)