Collected Poems
If Li Bai is the romantic, Du Fu is the conscience. The poet of war, displacement, and social responsibility, his poems of the An Lushan Rebellion document historical catastrophe with an intimacy that hasn't been equaled. The Chinese call him "the poet-sage." His technical mastery of regulated verse is extraordinary; his humanity is even more so.
The whole reading decision comes down to translator combat. Hinton's version draws the sharpest pushback: readers call his place-name choices “unnecessarily and purposely exoticising to the point of obscuring meaning,” and one guesses the result runs “80% him and 20% the original.” Another reader puts it more plainly: “the broken syntax is certainly not there for faithfulness.” Even admirers of Du Fu report friction with this particular translator, one writing “Love Du Fu but didn't fully get on with Hinton's translations.” Owen's complete scholarly edition swaps that vividness for philological accuracy, which some find flattens the experience even as it satisfies research needs, and Watson's plain clarity draws its own quiet complaint that English can't help but strip out the compression of the Chinese original.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
