Wang's academic career was severely hindered during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). He was publicly humiliated and was sentenced to hard labour from 1966 to 1971, experiencing enormous devastation and depression. Wang had earlier made an agreement with Commercial Press to write a dictionary of ancient Chinese. He began to work on it, but after completing fifty-odd pages, the manuscript was confiscated and destroyed when Red Guards raided his home. He only restarted the work when the Zhonghua Publishing House invited him to compile a dictionary in the early 1980s ("see below"). While he was under suppression and imprisonment, he continued his study. During daytime at labour, he reflected and expanded on the texts and materials he memorized and wrote down his thoughts at night. When the Cultural Revolution ended, Wang Li had finished writing two books on classical Chinese poetry, the "Classic of Poetry" and "Chu Ci".