Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western LiteratureFrom the Back Cover: One of the most significant works of literary criticism of this century, Erich Auerbach's MIMESIS undertakes a new and profound approach to major moments in Western literature. More than a work of literary criticism, this study is filled with insights into the Western imagination and Western culture itself, in its repeated attempts to master and control reality and experience. Auerbach's studies range from the beginnings of Western literary consciousness to the present. The significant moments of art and awareness he studies are in themselves keys to the meaning of Homer, Petronius, Gregory of Tours, The song of Roland, Chretien de Troyes, Dante, Boccaccio, Rabelais, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Cevantes, Moliere, Racine, the Abbe Prevost, Schiller, Stendhal, Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, Zola, Virginia Woolf, and others. Comprehensive as his survey is in scope, the studies themselves are closely focused, penetrating, and minute, and serve to show how the strategies of language and rhetoric are the ultimate ways in which the various images are distinguishable from each other in their grasp and representation of reality. The major revolutios in the sense and portrayal of reality are seen to reverberate deeply with significances relevant to transformations in our culture. |
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Page 268
... homme ; et leur guide , qu'ils advouent en gen- eral estre Nature . Another similarly significant passage occurs at ... homme de conduire l'homme selon sa condition ; elle est expresse , naifve et trèsprincipale , et nous l'a le Createur ...
... homme ; et leur guide , qu'ils advouent en gen- eral estre Nature . Another similarly significant passage occurs at ... homme de conduire l'homme selon sa condition ; elle est expresse , naifve et trèsprincipale , et nous l'a le Createur ...
Page 271
... homme would certainly have considered unseemly . Or we might say : he specialized in his own self , in his random personal existence as a whole . Thus his homme suffisant is after all not as yet the honnête homme ; he is " a whole man ...
... homme would certainly have considered unseemly . Or we might say : he specialized in his own self , in his random personal existence as a whole . Thus his homme suffisant is after all not as yet the honnête homme ; he is " a whole man ...
Page 323
... homme né Chrétien et François ) no basic awareness of the limits of this manner of writing but only a discreet criticism of his friend and patron Boileau , an interpretation which deserves attention and is not difficult to defend , but ...
... homme né Chrétien et François ) no basic awareness of the limits of this manner of writing but only a discreet criticism of his friend and patron Boileau , an interpretation which deserves attention and is not difficult to defend , but ...
Contents
Odysseus Scar | 1 |
Fortunata | 20 |
The Arrest of Peter Valvomeres | 43 |
Copyright | |
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Adam adventure aesthetic Ammianus antique appears attitude Balzac beginning Bérénice bien Boccaccio bourgeois c'est Calogrenant century Chanson chanson de geste Chanson de Roland character Christian classical classical antiquity comedy comic conception concrete connection consciousness contemporary courtly courtly romance culture Dante Dante's Don Quijote dramatic duc d'Orléans earlier earthly elevated style entirely ethical Euryclea everyday everything example expression fait figure Goethe grotesque historical Homeric homme human impression individual inner interpretation level of style literary literature living Madame matter medieval ment Molière Montaigne moral motifs nature never novel occur Odysseus paratactic parataxis passage passions Petronius play political present Prince qu'il Quijote's Rabelais reader realism reality realm rhetorical Roland Roman Saint-Simon Sancho scene sense sensory sentence Sicharius situation social speak Stendhal story stylistic sublime Tacitus theme things tion tout tragedy tragic whole words writers