Stephen Owen
Author · 8 books
Stephen Owen is a sinologist specializing in premodern literature, lyric poetry, and comparative poetics. Much of his work has focused on the middle period of Chinese literature (200-1200), however, he has also written on literature of the early period and the Qing. Owen has written or edited dozens of books, articles, and anthologies in the field of Chinese literature, especially Chinese poetry, including An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911 (Norton, 1996); The Making of Early Chinese Classical Poetry (Harvard Asia Center, 2006); and The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (827-860) (Harvard Asia Center, 2006). Owen has completed the translation of the complete poetry of Du Fu, which was published as the inaugural volumes of the Library of Chinese Humanities series, featuring Chinese literature in translation. Owen earned a B.A. (1968) and a Ph.D. (1972) in Chinese Language from Yale University. He taught there from 1972 to 1982, before coming to Harvard. In acknowledgment of his groundbreaking work that crosses the boundaries of multiple disciplines, Owen was awarded the James Bryant Conant University Professorship in 1997. He has been a Fulbright Scholar, held a Guggenheim Fellowship, and received a Mellon Foundation Distinguished Achievement Award (2006) among many other awards and honors.
Series
Books

Remembrances
The Experience of Past in Classical Chinese Literature
1986

The Great Age of Chinese Poetry
The High Tang
1981

The Making of Early Chinese Classical Poetry
2006

The Book of Songs
600

The Late Tang
Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (827-860)
2007

Readings in Chinese Literary Thought
1992

The Poetry of the Early T'Ang
1977

The End of the Chinese 'Middle Ages'
Essays in Mid-Tang Literary Culture
1996