The Fortunes of the fu during Empress Wu’s Reign

Abstract From the twenty years of Empress Wu’s de facto or de jure reign (684–705) there are fewer than twenty extant fu poems, an amount fewer than from the immediately preceding or succeeding generations. The main reason for this is the attention of the court, and later literary history, on the composition of shi poems, especially the newly prominent recent-style verse ( jinti shi ), at court and sometimes in group gatherings. However, the fu that have come down to us include some of high skill and interest. Here these works are surveyed and placed in their historical settings, whether written at and for the court or in individual and personal circumstances. Translations of numerous extracts of the poems are included.