In Search of the Classic by Steven Shankman

In Search of the Classic by Steven Shankman

This is a stimulating book that should provoke rethinking many common assumptions about literary history. It offers both a coherent theoretical framework and many fresh insights into particular works.-Comparative Literature The classical, Steven Shankman argues, should be not confused with a particular historical period of Western antiquity, although it may owe its original articulation to the literary and philosophical explorations of ancient Greek authors. Shankman's book searches for and attempts to formulate the shape of the continuing presence-as embodied in particular literary works mainly from Western antiquity and the neoclassical and modern periods-of what the author calls a classical understanding of literature. For Shankman, literature, defined from a classical perspective, is a coherent, compelling, and rationally defensible representation that resists being reduced either to the mere recording of material reality or to the bare exemplification of an abstract philosophical precept. He derives his definition largely from his reading of Greek literature from Homer through Plato, from the history of literary criticism, and from the Greco-Roman tradition in English, American, and French literature. Shankman reveals unsuspected yet convincing connections among authors of such widely disparate times and places. His idea of the classic that authorizes these connections is presented as normative, thus making possible the evaluation of literary works and, in turn, forthright discussion of what constitutes the literary as distinct from other kinds of discourse. Shankman's study runs counter to a strong tendency of contemporary criticism that argues precisely against any distinct category of the literary. He offers a series of interpretations that cumulatively advance theoretical discussion by challenging scholars to rethink the critical paradigms of postmodernism. At the center of the book is a discussion of the quintessentiall

“This is a stimulating book that should provoke rethinking many common assumptions about literary historyIt offers both a coherent theoretical framework and many fresh insights into particular works.”

—Comparative Literature

Steven Shankman is Professor of English and Classics at the University of Oregon and author of Pope's "Iliad": Homer in the Age of Passion (1983).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780271025728
ISBN 10	0271025727
Title	In Search of the Classic
Author	Steven Shankman
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Pennsylvania State University Press
Year published	1994-09-15
Number of pages	352
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.