Having achieved his youthful ambition to become court poet, Yang Xiong spent his thirties and forties producing the occasional fu (rhapsodic poems) the throne required. Sometime around his fiftieth year, perhaps in reaction to the factionalized politics at the capital, Yang came to disparage his own poetic genius, equating the verbal pyrotechnics with childish games injurious to the moral process. In consequence, Yang turned to composing and then defending three works, the Taixuan jing (Canon of Supreme Mystery; c. 4 CE), the Fayan (Model Sayings; c. 12 CE), and the Fangyan (Dialect Words; unfinished?). Creating these new "classics" (jing) required greater ingenuity on Yang's part than writing fu, for Yang sought to capture both the inner message and the outer form of the canonical works: The Mystery was patterned after the Yijing (Classic of Changes); the Model Sayings, after the Lunyu (Analects...