Abstract:
The Song Dynasty marked a peak of development of Du fu’s poetry studies, and the “Baos’ notes” to Du fu’s poems was one of the leading works of the kind. A census of varieties of “Baos’ notes” in existing annotations and notes to Du fu’s poetry by deleting the repeated items finds 128 notes, a really enormous number. “Baos’ notes” were contributed respectively by Bao Shenyou in the late North Song Dynasty and Bao Biao in the early South Song Dynasty. Now it is hard to distinguish the actual authorship of each note. However, by investigating the lifetime writings of two writers, we suppose there should be some differences showing the different times the two Baos contributed their notes. The “Baos’ notes” concerned a wide range of areas, including proofreading different dictions, explaining names and things, exploring the origins of allusions, and interpreting current affairs, historical events, historical characters and artistic craftsmanship. Most of their precise and appropriate interpretations were acceptable to generations of note writers, whose academic contributions are worth serious attention.
