Dufu

Dufu (712--770) was a great realistic poet of Tang Dynasty (618--907) when about 50,000 pieces of poems were prevailed and left. Many distinctive poets appeared in such a brilliant period including Dufu who was regarded as "the saga of Chinese poets" and was enlisted as "The Celebrity of World Culture".

Dufu began to learn how to compose poems when he was 7 years old by the influence of his grandfather who was a famous poet in that period. And his poems aroused great interest in the poem circle when he was only 15 years old. With an overwhelming ambition and enthusiasm, he had traveled through Chinese territory many times in his young age by himself. As he was not qualified for the official exam, he had to search for a job with his friend's help. Later, a rebellion war stopped his quiet life and forced him to escape for survival. A lot of his famous works were created in this crucial period of his life.

His profound thoughts, clear political attitude and vivid lives of that epoch are well exemplified in these works. The spirit of his poem is "the benevolence of Confucianism", that is the care for the poor, for turbulent nation and for compassionate times. Later, he died of disease on the road of his escape. The rest of his life was miserable and sorrowful, but he had given a large contribution of 1,400 poems to Chinese Literature