Tradition and Individuality in Wang Anshi's Tang bai jia shixuan

Xiaoshan Yang examines the controversy concerning why Wang Anshi (1021-1086) should have omitted many canonical poets, such as Li Bai, Du Fu, and Han Yu, when compiling his anthology, Tang bai jia shixuan-the largest anthology of Tang poetry up to its time. Yang argues that Wang's anthology is not as idiosyncratic as many commentators contended but is instead derivative of a tradition that started in the Tang itself and would endure throughout the Yuan period. In this tradition, major Tang poets were routinely underrepresented or even excluded. Noting the discordance between anthology compilation and canon formation, Yang cautions us against assuming that anthologies played a crucial role in shaping Tang poetic canons as we know them today, especially when we are dealing with the tradition prior to the Ming period.