Du Fu, one of the two most celebrated poets of the Tang, was very much a product of his era in the way that he found a usable past in Han-dynasty verse, episodes, and people. From 750 on, his writings were replete with allusions to the Han, some subtle and others more forthright. Taken together, these allusions suggest his firm beliefs in the course of history determined by human moral agency, in morality as “a man's own charge”; also in the role of fate determining the succession of dynasties, even as he deplored the workings of capricious fate on individual lives. Such beliefs are unremarkable in content, being much closer to conventional Tang concepts of the individual than most commentaries on Du Fu allow.
