Du Fu (712-777) has been called China's greatest poet, and some call him
the greatest nonepic, nondramatic poet whose writings survive in any
language. Du Fu excelled in a great variety of poetic forms, showing a
richness of language ranging from elegant to colloquial, from allusive
to direct. His impressive breadth of subject matter includes intimate
personal detail as well as a great deal of historical information--which
earned him the epithet "poet-historian." Some 1,400 of Du Fu's poems
survive today, his fame resting on about one hundred that have been
widely admired over the centuries. Preeminent translator Burton Watson
has selected 127 poems, including those for which Du Fu is best
remembered and lesser-known works.