Du Fu gazes lecherously

And bends genres, and redefines masculine poetry

A Moonlit Night
Du Fu

Tonight the moon in Fuzhou
she will be watching it alone
The children will not know
far-off Chang’an
where I long for them
The moon will make a halo
in the sweet mist
of her damp hair
And coldly glow
on the jade of her arms
When will we sit
by that window
Watching the trails of our tears
slowly
fade?

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The Fuzhou in this poem is not the modern city of Fuzhou, but a county in Shaanxi, about 200km north of Chang’an.

This poem is transgressive in lots of ways that don’t even register for the modern reader. First, it contains no elevated elements at all – no references to mythology or history or wisdom. This was what Du Fu’s generation did: took a genre of writing that was supposed to be grand and made it about the personal and the everyday. To the readers of his day, it would have been as jarring as punk’s rejection of musical technique. Second, it replaces that elevated content with the least manly of topics: domestic life, children and wife. Third, and most controversially, it applies a sexualising male gaze to a respectable woman. It’s Du Fu gazing at his own wife, but in the context of the time, that was almost scandalous.

To us, today, these daring innovations are historical irrelevances. It is simply a love poem.

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杜甫  月夜

今夜鄜州月，闺中只独看。

遥怜小儿女，未解忆长安。

香雾云鬟湿，清辉玉臂寒。

何时倚虚幌，双照泪痕干。

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