Anthologies and canon formation in China and the West

Abstract

Anthologies and anthologizers have long played a major role in the establishment of literary canons. In the Chinese tradition, the anthology has an especially long and influential history, through such works as the Chu ci (Songs of Chu), containing poems from (perhaps) the fourth century BC through the first two centuries AD, and including later anthologizing acts such as the Wen xuan, (Selections of Refined Poetry), assembled by Xiao Tong c.530 AD, and the Yutai xinyong (New Songs from a Jade Terrace), assembled at nearly the same time. European traditions placed less emphasis on the anthology. Still, from the Hellenistic creation of a lyric canon of nine poets, through the Imperial and Late Antique anthologies of epigrams in Greek, the anthology has a significant place in our understanding of Greek literature. This paper will undertake a comparative exploration of these early processes of anthologization in both China and Europe, and will assess whether or not that comparative study reveals common patterns in anthology‐making. Do anthologies have similar causes, and consequences, in both China and Europe? And can the patterns by which anthologies are constructed yield any clues as to the works that were excluded, and why?

The Anthology in Digital Culture

“…The anthological form, as a way to archive records into a "repository," an "artifact of the past," or a "canonical curriculum," suggests that, with their inner property of cataloging documents from various sources, anthologies have the potential to turn short stories into foundational texts. While conducting a comparative study of Asian and European traditions, Beecroft (2018) pointed out that "anthologies and anthologizers have long played a major role in the establishment of literary canons" (Ibid., 341).…”

Canon Studies in China: Traditions, Modernization, and Revisions in the Global Context

“…An important difference between canon formation in China and the West, pointed out by Alexander Beecroft, is that the anthology format has an especially long and influential history, whereas European traditions placed less emphasis on the anthology. Please see Beecroft 2018. I would like to add that the Chinese canon has been from its beginning the guiding text on many levels of the Chinese society in a continuous way, which is different from the much more complicated situation in the Western canon, which, if traced back to ancient Greece, involves different cultures and countries that cannot be taken as unitary and chronically long-lasting as China.…”