Wiebke Denecke is Associate Professor of Chinese, Japanese, and Comparative Literature at Boston University.

"This groundbreaking work tackles the core of our engagement in cross-cultural and literary studies: comparisons. The book is one of a kind and could only have been written by a scholar such as Wiebke Denecke, whose wide-ranging academic competence has allowed her to cover a spectrum of topics - as indicated by the book's title - that would usually involve several experts. For the general reader her work gives intriguing insights into unfamiliar texts and literary cultures and opens up new perspectives on familiar works and genres, not least because she treats the whole spectrum of Japanese literary history, including vernacular and Sino-Japanese texts." --Gunilla Lindberg-Wada, Monumenta Nipponica

"With its numerous original Greek, Latin, Chinese and Japanese quotes, translated into English, with its vast bibliography, its most useful index, this volume is a paragon of learning and a masterpiece of transcultural literary history." --Literary Research

"This is an extraordinary book. Undoubtedly the first of its kind, it opens up a new field of research and it does so in a way that allows both the enormous difficulties and the possible rewards of the endeavour to come to the fore. ... Denecke's work shows that even if, at this stage, final overarching conclusions are not yet possible, a comparison of Japanese and Roman literary culture opens new perspectives on each and allows new insights into the general principles of intellectual history. For this the reader will be as grateful as for Denecke's stimulating theoretical reflections on intercultural comparison." --Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"Deeply learned and intellectually adventurous, Classical World Literatures sets a new standard for comparative study in a global perspective. In her fourfold account of Japanese and Roman relations to the older 'reference cultures' of China and Greece, Wiebke Denecke develops a series of fascinating, revealing comparisons and offers as well a probing essay in method, raising fundamental questions concerning the challenges and opportunities involved in the study of incommensurable cultures. East Asianists, Classicists, and comparatists of many varieties will see their field differently after reading this strikingly original book." --David Damrosch, Harvard University

"This is a truly pathbreaking book. Denecke's perception of a deep similarity between the literary cultures of ancient Rome and early Japan is as convincing as it is unprecedented. Remarkable both for the range of its erudition and for its nimble negotiation of local particularities, this is an exemplary work, and one that I hope will be a provocation to further exploration of an unexpectedly rich field for comparative study." --Joseph Farrell, University of Pennsylvania

"Classical World Literatures is a groundbreaking and innovative work with important implications for the study of East Asia, the Classical world, and comparative literature. The result is a truly distinctive work that casts fresh light on the development of literary traditions and is certain to stimulate further comparative work and similarly ambitious projects in the future." --Peter Kornicki, University of Cambridge

"A literary and historical tour-de-force. Denecke draws brilliant comparisons across two major literary spheres---Greco-Roman and Sino-Japanese--showing the different ways in which a younger, later civilization (Roman and Japanese) utilize, cope with, and parody an older, prior civilization (Greek and Chinese). Denecke compares these two sibling rivalries to each other on both a micro and macro scale to create new perspectives and readings that will startle both the specialist and the comparativist." --Haruo Shirane, Columbia University