#ERICH AUERBACH MIMESIS HOW TO#

touching upon every major literary figure in western culture on the way.' - Publishers Weekly The author, beginning with Homer and the Bible, traces the imitation of life in literature through the ages. 'One of the most important and readable books in literary criticism of the past 15 years. It is his combination of scholarly erudition and critical astuteness which is most remarkable.' -Terry Eagleton, London Review of Books is to fasten with fastidious sensitivity on some stray phrase or passage in order to unpack from it a wealth of historical insight. 'One of the great works of literary scholarship. Auerbach's critical method which is at once encyclopedic and microscopic, combining the disciplines of philology, literary criticism, and history.' - New York Times This is true too of the originality of Mr. 'The compass and the richness of the book can hardly be exaggerated. This Princeton Classics edition includes a substantial introduction by Edward Said as well as an essay in which Auerbach responds to hisВ critics. Ranging over works in Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and English, Auerbach used his remarkable skills in philology and comparative literature to refute any narrow form of nationalism or chauvinism, in his own day and ours.ДЇor many readers, both inside and outside the academy, Mimesis is among the finest works of literary criticism ever written. This essentially optimistic view of European history now appears as a defensiveвЂ‰-вЂ‰and impassionedвЂ‰-вЂ‰response to the inhumanity he saw in the Third Reich. His aim was to show how from antiquity to the twentieth century literature progressed toward ever more naturalistic and democratic forms of representation. Displaced as he was, Auerbach produced a work of great erudition that contains no footnotes, basing his arguments instead on searching, illuminating readings of key passages from his primary texts. There he wrote Mimesis, publishing it in German after the end of the war. He left for Turkey, where he taught at the state university in Istanbul. This new expanded edition includes a substantial essay in introduction by Edward Said as well as an essay, never before translated into English, in which Auerbach responds to his critics.ДЄ German Jew, Auerbach was forced out of his professorship at the University of Marburg in 1935.

#ERICH AUERBACH MIMESIS HOW TO#

A brilliant display of erudition, wit, and wisdom, his exploration of how great European writers from Homer to Virginia Woolf depicted reality has taught generations how to read Western literature. This Princeton Classics edition includes a substantial introduction by Edward Said as well as an essay in which Auerbach responds to his critics.More than half a century after its translation into English, Erich AuerbachвЂ™s Mimesis remains a masterpiece of literary criticism. This essentially optimistic view of European history now appears as a defensive-and impassioned-response to the inhumanity he saw in the Third Reich. More than half a century after its translation into English, Erich Auerbach's Mimesis remains a masterpiece of literary criticism.

Erich auerbach mimesis