Records of Fengtu, Cultural Memory, and Ideal Expectation: A New Study on Du Fu’s Poems on Fengtu in Kuizhou

Abstract

During his two-year-and-three-month stay in Kuizhou from his arrival at Yun’an in the ninth lunar month of the first year of the Yongtai Era to his departure from Kuizhou in the first lunar month of the third year of the Dali era, Du Fu 杜甫 composed a wide array of poems describing Kuizhou’s fengtu 风土 (natural features and social customs), famous sites, and landscape. This type of poetry stands out as particularly remarkable among the subjects Du Fu explored throughout his life, representing a significant shift in his later works. These poems not only hold historical value in documenting local geography but also carry profound cultural significance. The values embodied in these poems relate both to the cultural memory shaped by Confucian concepts of social governance, which aim to transform social customs and instruct and rectify mores by promoting sagely values through education, and to Du Fu’s early political ideal that “Elevate the sovereign to the level of Yao and Shun; / Restore social mores to purity and simplicity.”

Keywords

Du Fu / Kuizhou / fengtu / social customs / cultural memory

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Higher Education Press