An anthology is a human-made curated collection of pre-existing literary, artistic, or musical works assembled under a unifying theme, period, or editorial vision. Its parameters are: (1) the works collected must be authored separately from the anthology itself, (2) the curatorial selection and ordering is the constructive act that creates the anthology's identity, and (3) the anthology persists through publication and reproduction as a discrete compilation artifact that shapes how a tradition is encountered by later readers. The persistence mechanism is editorial compilation and physical/digital distribution. [formal: anthologia | substrate: behavior | horizon: generations | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]
Accepted ontology entry
anthology
An anthology is a human-made curated collection of pre-existing literary, artistic, or musical works assembled under a unifying theme, period, or editorial vision. Its parameters are: (1) the works collected must be authored separately fro…
Definition
Why it is in scope
A human-made curated collection of literary or artistic works assembled under a unifying theme or editor. Built to persist as a selection artifact that shapes how later readers encounter a tradition.
Names and aliases
- anthologyen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cmrnz439103jyd1nlcromqfzcINSTANCE_OF →
An anthology is a specific kind of compilation — a curated collection of creative works gathered from various sources. The direction anthology→compilation maps specific to general: anthology IS a type of compilation, distinguished by curatorial intent and publication as a unified volume.
- cmro2qwxf03s5d1nlft8n2s6oDEPENDS_ON →
An anthology is a curated collection of works — its identity as an anthology requires selection, arrangement, and editorial framing by a curator. Remove curation and what remains is a random accumulation, not an anthology. The removal test passes: anthology needs curation operating now.
- cmrscyl3g00r8ollhjddgx8o9SERVES →
An anthology is a collection of literary works compiled for the sake of literature — its designed purpose is to present, preserve, and showcase literary works in collected form. SERVES direction: the collection (servant) points at the domain it serves (literature).
Relations to this entry
No accepted relations in this direction.
Record identity
- Created
- Jul 16, 2026, 9:49 PM UTC
- Content hash
- 023218a738efbef211742e78c0f287b7e005568f99dfe7f3927e18175e5a21a1