“Shanglin fu” (Fu on the Imperial Park) is an example of the most important poetic
form of the Han dynasty (206 b.C.e.–220 C.e.), the fu. The fu has no exact counter-
part in Western literature. The term has been variously translated as “rhapsody,”
“rhyme-prose,” “exposition,” and “poetic description.” One of the important for-
mative influences on the Han fu is the literary tradition of Chu, especially the
poems attributed to Qu Yuan, which in Han times were actually classified as fu.
The Han fu inherited from the Chu poems the sao-style prosody (chap. 2), ornate
diction, and the themes of the imaginary journey as an escape from the troubles
of the world and the complaint of the scholar-official who feels unappreciated by
his contemporaries.
Although the fu has its origins in pre-Han literature, the mature form of the
fu did not emerge until the Former Han dynasty (206 b.C.e.–8 C.e.), when poets,
especially at the Han imperial court, began to compose long, difficult poems that
became the standard against which most fu ultimately are measured. This type
of fu, which later anthologists classified as the gufu (ancient-style fu), has the fol-
lowing features: an ornate style, lines of unequal length, a mixture of rhymed
and unrhymed passages, parallelism and antithesis, elaborate description, hyper-
bole, repetition of synonyms, extensive cataloging, difficult language, a tendency
toward a complete portrayal of a subject, and often a moral conclusion.
Other types of fu developed during the Han. For example, some writers began
to use the fu as a means of personal expression. This type of fu, in which the poet
vents his anger against a “hostile” ruler and court, is called the frustration fu. One
common theme is the topos of time’s fate, in which the poet complains that he has
been born in the wrong time for the acceptance of his ideas. Another type of fu
that became increasingly common by the Later Han period (25–220) is the yongwu
(poem on things). Yongwu poems are relatively short compositions on birds, other
animals, plants, stones, household articles, buildings, musical instruments—even
insects.
By the end of the Later Han, writers began to write shorter, more “lyrical” pieces,
many of which are nearly indistinguishable from lyric shi compositions. A good ex-
ample is “Deng lou fu” (Fu on Climbing the Tower), by Wang Can (177–217). Wang
Can wrote this poem after climbing a wall tower at the southeastern corner of the
city of Maicheng, which was located at the confluence of the Zhang and Ju rivers,
about thirty miles northwest of modern Jiangling. He begins the fu by describing
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Fu Poetry
An Ancient-Style Rhapsody (Gufu)