Roger Shattuck  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Revision as of 22:59, 12 May 2010

Related e

Wikipedia Wiktionary Shop Featured: Rhombicuboctahedron by Leonardo da Vinci

Roger Shattuck (1923-2005) was an American writer best known for his books on French literature, art, and music of the twentieth century. Born in New York to parents Howard Francis Shattuck, a physician, and Elizabeth (Colt) Shattuck, he attended Yale after graduating from St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, before serving as a pilot in the Pacific theater during the Second World War. After the war, he lived in Paris where he worked for UNESCO's film service. In this capacity he came into contact with luminaries of European culture such as Jean Cocteau, Alice B. Toklas and Georges Braque, and met his future wife Nora White, a dancer with the Ballets Russes.

When he returned to New York, Shattuck worked in publishing, and later taught at Harvard University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Virginia, and Boston University, despite his lack of a graduate degree.

Shattuck was among the founding members of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics.

In addition to a long list of distinguished translations from the French, Shattuck's works include:

• The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France, 1885 to World War I (1958)
• Proust's Binoculars (1963)
• Half Tame (1964)
• The Forbidden Experiment: The Story of the Wild Boy of Aveyron (1980)
• Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography (1994)
• Proust's Way: A Field Guide to 'In Search of Lost Time (2000)

Shattuck's essays frequently appeared in The New York Review of Books and other publications.