Authorship and Cultural Identity in Early Greece and China - Patterns of Literary Circulation (Hardcover)

In this book, Alexander Beecroft explores how the earliest poetry in Greece (Homeric epic and lyric) and China (the Canon of Songs) evolved from being local, oral, and anonymous to being textualised, interpreted, and circulated over increasingly wider areas. Beecroft re-examines representations of authorship as found in poetic biographies such as Lives of Homer and the Zuozhuan, and in the works of other philosophical and historical authors like Plato, Aristotle, Herodotus, Confucius, and Sima Qian. Many of these anecdotes and narratives have long been rejected as spurious or motivated by naive biographical criticism. Beecroft argues that these texts effectively negotiated the tensions between local and pan-cultural audiences. The figure of the author thus served as a catalyst to a sense of shared cultural identity in both the Greek and Chinese worlds. It also facilitated the emergence of both cultures as the bases for cosmopolitan world orders.

General

Imprint:	Cambridge UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	2010
First published:	2010
Authors:	Alexander Beecroft
Dimensions:	229 x 152 x 21mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	340
ISBN-13:	978-0-521-19431-0
Categories:	Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > Classical, early & medieval Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Poetry & poets > General Books > Humanities > History > World history > BCE to 500 CE Books > History > World history > BCE to 500 CE Promotions
LSN:	0-521-19431-8
Barcode:	9780521194310

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