Faking China’s Past: Ming Anthologies and the Problem of Contaminated Datasets

Abstract

<p>There are numerous fakes and forgeries in the Chinese literary canon—mistaken attributions, innocent errors, rewritings, updating an old manuscript and so on, mixed in with forgeries deliberately produced to advance an agenda or earn more money for the author than he would receive in his own persona. Some of these have been identified, but many more await discovery, and even the most egregious fakes and forgeries can nevertheless sometimes have staunch defenders. As is well known, there was a spike in the production of forged texts in the late Ming, many of which are still accepted unquestioningly today thanks to their position in important anthologies, from which they have become incorporated into major databases and digital archives, contaminating the data and distorting understandings of the history of Chinese literature.<br></p>