Both are based on my Ph.D. dissertation. My dissertation studies the Northern Song poet Huang Tingjian (1045–1105) and the group of writers closely associated with him, the Jiangxi School of Poetry, especially their sustained attention to "methods" of composition. I argued in the dissertation that Huang Tingjian and the Jiangxi School's interest in methods of reading and writing was not only part of a larger search for methods and guiding principles in the overall intellectual culture of the late eleventh century, but also a response, however tentative and intuitive, to the dramatically changing material conditions of textual production brought about by printing. Readers of this period faced an unprecedented abundance of texts, relatively easily available, in complete collections. This greatly sharpened their sense of urgency in finding a more effective way to deal with these texts. Special attention was and will continue to be paid to the inner workings of the dynamic between the development of a critical theory and the material conditions of textual production at the time.