The nineteenth century witnessed the peak, certainly in quantity and arguably in quality, of kanshi or Sinitic poetry and kanbun or Sinitic prose production in Japan. While these two terms, along with the collective kanshibun, it is worth bearing in mind a slight distinction between Anglophone and Japanese usage. A cognizance of the change is evident in the recollections of the scholar Hirose Tanso, whose Kangien academy in Kyushu trained thousands of disciples. The xingling theory's emphasis on individualistic expression that its exponents often turned their attention to their own everyday experiences rather than trying to project themselves into the poetic realms of their High Tang predecessors. Highly developed commercial publishing and the rise of kanshibun literacy had dramatically enlarged the audience for poetic anthology texts. In addition to the orthodox modes of kanshi and kanbun composition that flourished in late Edo, the era also saw the emergence of humorous genres that amused by willfully deviating from convention.

Sinitic genres flourished in the Meiji period with unprecedented splendor, giving kanshibun a ubiquity it had never had before. A tremendous expansion of kanshi or Sinitic poetry composition had taken place in late Edo which facilitated the acquisition of literacy and compositional proficiency in Literary Sinitic. Narushima Ryuhoku embarked upon a career as a journalist after losing his post in the Restoration. He had served the previous regime as shogunal tutor and compiler of historical chronicles while also making a name for himself as a poet and chronicler of urban culture. The figure who was central to the best stage of Meiji kanshi, Mori Kainan, reflected this increased level of interaction with Qing poets. While Qing dynasty poems had received some attention from earlier Japanese figures, both Kainan and his father Shunto produced anthologies that made Qing poems more familiar and accessible. In the aftermath of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5, kanshi became a less feature of the literary scene.