| Abstract |
The practice of selecting classical texts for inclusion in anthologies began to emerge in the Song dynasty and flourished in the Ming dynasty. In the Ming dynasty, the motivations for including classics were twofold. First, this stemmed from the implementation of the idea of anchoring the text in the classics, which treated the Six Classics as the foundation of all writing, thereby affirming their role as the origin of literary forms. Second, it reflected the prevailing trend of literary restoration, in which the Six Classics were upheld as paradigms of ancient prose, serving practical purposes for literary study. These two motivations led to selecting classical texts for inclusion in anthologies, giving rise to a dual meaning of classics within collections. The popularity of prose anthologies gradually grew under the influence of the emperors Hongzhi and Wanli, who promoted Guwen Zhenbao; additionally, the exemplary role of Wenzhang Zhengzong in selecting texts from Zuozhuan encouraged the inclusion of other classical texts into anthologies. Ming scholars treated these classics as models of supreme writing, abridging and annotating them, and applying literary critique methods to interpret them. This transformed sacred classics into literary texts, and their literarization subsequently gave rise to their textbook-ization. After the Wanli reign, a boom in ancient prose collections resulted from the proliferation of anthologies and commercial competition among booksellers; ancient prose anthologies thus gained popularity amid the trend of literary revival, driven by the civil service examinations, and the selected classical texts were widely circulated along with them. In brief, selecting classical texts for inclusion in anthologies represents a cross-domain transformation, where changes in the medium of sacred scriptures resulted in a transformation in their nature, i.e., from sacred to literary, and eventually to popularized texts, as their popularity grew. This phenomenon was shaped by academic trends, governmental endorsement, and popular demand, as detailed in this paper.
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