Books by Steven Shankman

The cultures of ancient China and ancient Greece have exerted immeasurable influence on later civilizations. The texts and cultural values of classical China spread throughout East Asia and became the foundation of learning in Korea, Japan and Vietnam. Greek learning and culture receive credit for many of the intellectual paradigms of the West. Probably the one which is most distinctly Western is the tradition of logical proof and the related assumption that, as Aristotle put it in 'Metaphysics' 980, 'we all desire to know.' In contrast, the Chinese tradition, as exemplified by Laozi's 'Dao de jing,' cautions that through our desire to know we may forfeit wisdom, thus engendering a split between knowledge and wisdom. 'The Siren and the Sage' is a comparative study of what some of the most influential writers of ancient China and ancient Greece thought it meant to know and whether they distinguished knowledge from wisdom. It surveys selected works of poetry, history and philosophy from roughly the eighth through the second centuries BCE, focusing on the 'Odyssey,' the ancient Chinese 'Classic of Poetry,' Thucydides' 'History of the Peloponnesian War,' Sima Qian's 'Records of the Historian,' Plato's 'Symposium,' Laozi's 'Dao de jing' and the writings of Zhuangzi. The intention, through such juxtaposition, is to introduce foundational texts of each tradition, texts which continue to influence most of the world's peoples. It is intriguing to ask what awareness, if any, these distinctive cultures had of each other. A considerable body of scholarship comparing ancient Greece and ancient China now exists. Scholars are presenting evidence that the two cultures may actually have been aware of each other's presence, even though that awareness was presumably indirect, perhaps mediated by the nomadic peoples of Central Asia. While not directly contributing evidence, the authors argue that comparing the cultures of Greece and China will continue to be an irresistible and important scholarly debate. The book offers a provocative study which is accessible to students and general readers and at the same time contributes to the debate.

Explaining why the English Augustan Age could more accurately be called the Age of Passion than the Age of Reason, this book recovers the interpretive and stylistic aims of Pope and his contemporaries and addresses objections that have lost Pope's Iliad the audience it deserves. Controversial even before the appearance of the first of its six volumes in 1715, the work remains so today, little read in spite of Samuel Johnson's declaration that it is the noblest version [translation] of poetry the world has ever seen. Steven Shankman shows that Pope's translation embodies a much finer understanding of the sense and spirit of the original than has been generally recognized. Examining relevant documents in the history of literary theory and literary style from antiquity through the eighteenth century, Professor Shankman offers a fresh and full interpretation of Pope's achievement. He also redeems some of Pope's shrewdest observations on key difficulties in the interpretation of Homer. The English Augustan poets could proudly say that, although many of their works were matched or surpassed by ancient Greece and Rome or by more contemporary Italy and France, they alone raised poetic translation to the status of great art. This book illuminates their accomplishment, and it has important implications for problems of literary translation that we face today.

A comparative study of what the most influential writers of Ancient Greece and China thought it meant to have knowledge and whether they distinguished knowledge from other forms of wisdom. It surveys poetry, history and philosophy from roughly the eighth to the second century BCE.