| This dissertation examines the textual forgeries of Feng Fang (1493--1566?) against the background of the intellectual and cultural history of the Ming period in China. The forgeries were variant versions of several canonical texts, most of the Five Classics and one of the Four Books (collectively, the so-called "Confucian Classics"). The forgeries were part of a complex engagement by Ming scholars with a long legacy of scholarship, especially with the Song dynasty Dao Learning enshrined as state orthodoxy.; Chapter One examines practices of collection, authentication and publication, the context of the creation of the forgeries. It describes Ming debates about the proper purposes and methods of collection, especially of books, and about whether collections were rightfully individual or family property.; Chapters Two and Three study the growing importance of archaic scripts and paleography in the sixteenth century. It shows that the scripts Feng Fang invented for his forgeries, based partly on reliable sources and partly on speculation, matched readers' expectations of ancient writing.; Chapter Four examines the most successful of the forgeries, the Stone Classics Great Learning (Shijing daxue), arguing that the forgery reflects longstanding concerns and debates about the Great Learning. The forgery further destabilized an already shaky text. The chapter shows that the Stone Classics Great Learning was variously interpreted by different readers, notably its first publisher, Wang Wenlu (1503--1586), who was complicit in the deception.; Chapter Five deals with the forgeries connected to the Poetry Classic (Shijing), tracing their position in the development of studies of this work and the trend towards more literary readings of it in the late Ming. It also demonstrates the role of publishers in promoting the forgery.; The Conclusion examines the reception of Feng Fang in the centuries after his death, tracing his decline from reputable scholar to laughingstock. While Feng's forgeries came under attack in the late Ming and early Qing, those who debunked them shared or absorbed many of his assumptions; both acceptance and rejection of the forgeries could destabilize the canon. |
