Du Fu

Du Fu was born in 712 during the Tang dynasty, his greatest ambition to serve as a successful civil servant - a dream he never realized, unable to make the necessary accommodations. He and his elder contemporary Li Bai are often considered the greatest Chinese poets of their time, though Du Fu remained little-known to other writers during his life. The An Lushan rebellion of 755 devastated both him and all of China, and his last fifteen years unfolded in almost constant unrest. Nearly fifteen hundred of his poems were preserved over the centuries, and his work grew hugely influential in Chinese and Japanese literary culture. Chinese critics later named him the "Poet-Historian" and "Poet-Sage," while the range of his writing has invited comparisons to everyone from Horace and Milton to Wordsworth and Baudelaire.