By nonchalantly calling the poet Huang Tingjian (1045–1105) an “innovator” (p. 39) and reminding us that many critics likewise considered him innovative until recent decades when the issue of “original” versus “derivative” came to define much of the discussion about Huang and “Jiangxi” poetry, Yugen Wang recasts the old question of how to approach Huang's rich textual borrowing. The problem seems to be whether Huang used allusion in a fundamentally new way or merely used it more than normal. Beneath that debate lurks the notion that he either represented a decline from a more meaningful poetry of the past, or else (as some contend, and Yugen Wang agrees) became a new peak—a transformational voice who “significantly shifted the theoretical basis of poetic composition” (p. 7). Ten Thousand Scrolls looks to explain that shift by analyzing Huang's own criticism and contemporary literary culture. Anyone interested in how Tang, Song, and later...

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