2025 Theses Doctoral

Writing Home and Empire from the Margins: Longing and Belonging in Du Fu’s (712-770) Poetry

Gong, Guoying

This dissertation explores the active, constructive role of poetry in times of crisis, focusing on Du Fu’s 杜甫 (712-770) works composed during his prolonged exile following the An Lushan Rebellion (755–763), a crucial turning point in Chinese history. I argue that Du Fu’s literary experimentation—both reflective of and instrumental in shaping broader cultural transformations—was driven by his negotiation of evolving concepts of home and reimagined visions of the empire from the margins. By examining poetry’s intersections with other spheres of material and social life—such as geography, transportation, and the circulation of information—I demonstrate how Du Fu’s fragmented, contingent experience on the empire’s peripheries, shaped by unfamiliar landscapes, compromised infrastructure, and disrupted communication, became a resource for generating new forms of anchoring. This process, I argue, ultimately contributed to reshaping the poetic medium itself.

While the issue of empire has long stood at the center of Du Fu’s critical reception—often portraying him as a public-minded poet with unwavering commitment to the state—recent scholarship has sought to complicate this image by highlighting his interest in private life. This dissertation aims to contribute to this ongoing conversation by rethinking Du Fu’s engagement with the empire—not as an abstract concept, but as something concretely embedded in material, cultural, and infrastructural formations. It also foregrounds belonging and the layered notion of home as critical lenses through which to examine Du Fu’s negotiation of the relationships between self, family, and state, as well as various forms of spatial affiliation amid societal collapse.

At the same time, this dissertation seeks to highlight the coexistence of diverse assumptions and ideals that inform literary practice. In the case of Du Fu, his post-rebellion poetry reveals both a receptivity to being shaped by a shifting world and a deep investment in the constructive and performative power of poetry—a vision of the art as a means of imposing order that transcends lived reality. Ultimately, this study invites broader reflection on how literary and cultural transformations often unfold through the convergence of divergent—and at times competing—forces, rather than through a linear or unified progression.