Reading Du Fu between texts: The intertextuality of Du Fu criticism in Ming anthologies

Literature review: Defining conceptual and operational definition of TEB The process of canonization of Du Fu starts from the Song Dynasty and concretizes in the modern histories of Chinese literature. Nonetheless, the reception of Du Fu’s poetry in the course of time is not simply reinforcements of previous critical judgments. In the Ming Period, we can observe the various questions raised and arguments proposed by critics to challenge or testify Du Fu’s status as one of the most prominent Tang poets. A notable and yet rarely discussed phenomenon in Ming is a pastiche kind of anthologies which reveals amply the diversity of critical opinions in a sophistical way. In these pastiche anthologies, writings of different schools are often incorporated in the very same collection. A variety of heterophonies thus are voiced out on the same writing space, complicating and elaborating one another’s poetic visions. This paper investigates two anthologies of this pastiche kind, i.e., Shen Zilai’s Tangshi sanji hebian [沈子來《唐詩三集合編》] and Tang Yuxun’s Huibian Tangshi shiji [唐汝詢《彙編唐詩十集》], with special reference to the multifarious Du Fu criticism. It demonstrates how Du Fu’s poems were read between texts, and concludes that the conglomeration of the diverse critical opinions leads not to the diminution but substantiation of Du Fu’s canonicity.