Classical, Modern, and Humane: Essays in Chinese Literature

by David Hawkes, John Minford (Editor), Siu-Kit Wong (Editor)

English, Chinese

327 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

David Hawkes is a Professor of English Literature at Arizona State University and a distinguished scholar in literary criticism, economic thought, and early modern literature. He is the author of several influential books and has edited critical editions of classic literary works.
Hawkes studied at Oxford University, earning a B.A. in 1986, before continuing his postgraduate education at Columbia University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1992. At Oxford, he was a student of the literary critic Terry Eagleton and engaged in socialist-feminist scholarship with Oxford English Limited. At Columbia, he worked under Edward Said and contributed to alternative and underground journals in New York’s Lower East Side.
His academic career began at Lehigh University, where he taught from 1991 to 2007 before joining Arizona State University as a full professor. He has also held visiting positions at institutions in India, Turkey, and China. Hawkes has received prestigious fellowships, including a year-long National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship at the Folger Shakespeare Library and the William Ringler Fellowship at the Huntington Library.
A prolific writer, Hawkes' works explore themes of economic criticism, ideology, and the intersections of literature, magic, and finance in early modern thought. His books include Idols of the Marketplace (2001), The Culture of Usury in Renaissance England (2010), and Shakespeare and Economic Criticism (2015). He has also edited editions of Paradise Lost and The Pilgrim’s Progress. His recent works, The Reign of Anti-logos (2020) and Money and Magic in Early Modern Drama (2022), continue his exploration of the relationship between literature, philosophy, and economics.
Hawkes' scholarship is widely recognized for its critical engagement with ideology and material culture, offering fresh perspectives on the intersections of literature, politics, and economic systems.

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Outstanding collection of essays from one of the greatest Western Sinologists of the past century. Of particular interest are his essays regarding the novel "Dream of the Red Chamber" ("Story of the Stone") which provide fascinating and important context and analysis to accompany his excellent English translation. He is one of the very few Western Sinologists who has engaged in anything close to textual criticism/analysis when it comes to the novel, with most relegating themselves to purely literary criticism that often lacks a textual foundation. David Hawkes will always be one of my favorites and these essays are all worth a read.