"Agnew observes that the development of a mercantile economy in England introduced an anxiety regarding counterfeiting and inauthenticity in social relations. In late-imperial China, social occasions demanded the composition of poetry, and literary renown was one of the primary means of social advancement. Reading Agnew helped me to see that in the Chinese case, anxieties about counterfeit in social relations were couched in terms of concerns about the commodification of literary learning."