Beyond Authenticity: Genre, Rhetoric, and the Iterability of Shangshu Speeches

Abstract In the Chinese tradition, the interrelationship between philology and literature is at its most contentious when it comes to the issue of authenticity. It was not until the Qing (1644–1912) that the case of the Shangshu 尚書 finally reached a resolution—so goes the conventional account regarding the parts of the compilation now labelled “inauthentic” ( wei 偽). This paper invites us to rethink this philological question as a literary one. It shows how a set of genre and narrative strategies gives rise to a range of different but compatible textualizations that do not lend themselves to the distinction between the “authentic” and the “inauthentic.” Instead, the Shangshu illustrates a literary history where writing appropriates, lays claim to, and derives discursive authority from the oral form, reflecting a much broader literary culture.