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Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature
 
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Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature [SPECIAL EDITION] (Paperback)

by Erich Auerbach (Author), Willard R. Trask (Translator)
4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Review
" it offers not just an eminent reading of the Western canon, but a mighty lesson in how to write." -- Jim Lewis, Slate

"One of the great works of literary scholarship. . . . [Auerbach's] combination of scholarly erudition and critical astuteness . . . is most remarkable." -- Terry Eagleton, London Review of Books

"One of the most important and readable books in literary criticism of the past 15 years." -- Publishers Weekly

It is [Auerbach's] combination of scholarly erudition and critical astuteness which is most remarkable. -- Terry Eagleton, London Review of Books

[Mimesis] offers not just an eminent reading of the Western canon, but a mighty lesson on how to write. . . . I don't think a more significant or useful book of criticism has been written in the half-century since Mimesis was published. What's more, I can't imagine that anything like it will ever be written again. . . . [In] producing such a rich, strong book on how to read, Auerbach composed a virtual manual on how to write, one I've referred back to again and again since the day, almost two decades ago, when I first happened upon it. -- Review

Review
The compass and the richness of the book can hardly be exaggerated. This is true too of the originality of Mr. Auerbach's critical method which is at once encyclopedic and microscopic, combining the disciplines of philology, literary criticism, and history.
(The New York Times )

One of the most important and readable books in literary criticism of the past 15 years . . . The author, beginning with Homer and the Bible, traces the imitation of life in literature through the ages . . .touching upon every major literary figure in western culture on the way.
(Publishers Weekly )

One of the great works of literary scholarship. . . . Auerbach's method . . . is to fasten with fastidious sensitivity on some stray phrase or passage in order to unpack from it a wealth of historical insight. It is his combination of scholarly erudition and critical astuteness which is most remarkable.
(Terry Eagleton London Review of Books )

Written with the authority that comes from deep learning and full of information worth knowing. Princeton's 50th anniversary edition of Mimesis has an introduction by the late literary and cultural critic Edward Said that by itself is worth the price of the book. It's the only preface I know of that I wish were longer, serving as both an analysis of Auerbach and a ramework placing him in his scholarly and historical context. . . . Princeton's reissue of Mimesis is both timely and symbolic.
(Guy Davenport Los Angeles Times Book Review )

[Mimesis] offers not just an eminent reading of the Western canon, but a mighty lesson on how to write. . . . I don't think a more significant or useful book of criticism has been written in the half-century since Mimesis was published. What's more, I can't imagine that anything like it will ever be written again. . . . [In] producing such a rich, strong book on how to read, Auerbach composed a virtual manual on how to write, one I've referred back to again and again since the day, almost two decades ago, when I first happened upon it.
(Jim Lewis Slate Magazine )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

  • Paperback: 616 pages
  • Publisher: Princeton University Press; 50 Anv edition (April 7, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 069111336X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0691113364
  • Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #22,950 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (15 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
105 of 109 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An Indelible Interpretation of How People See Their World, June 14, 2000
By Polonius (Flushing, NY United States) - See all my reviews
In the 30 odd years since I read this book it has never been far from my thoughts. It has changed my understanding of how people think and how they look at their world. I cannot do true justice its impact.

We are apt to think that people are the same wherever and whenever they lived. This is probably a legacy of our democratic, universalistic heritage. It is also what gets us in trouble when we get involved abroad in changing other nations and their societies. Auerbach shows us that humankind is not and has not been alike in its thoughts, aspirations and character but has distinctly changed and varied over time and place.

By closely reading, analyzing and comparing texts of different periods through time, the author demonstrates how the structure of language interacts with the structure of thought, how the way one writes delimits ones vision. This is a more radical thought than its converse that the way we think affects how we write. To Auerbach, an early medieval religious writer, because of the way that Late Latin worked, could not think the way a classical author could. This seems intuitively wrong to a person who has knowledge of one language, but if you have ever tried to translate anything beyond the simplest sentence, you can appreciate what Auerbach means. This is one of those books that stay with you for a lifetime.

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38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Representing Reality, December 26, 2001
By Bill Engel "37215" (Nashville, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Beginning with episodes in Homer and the Bible, this amazing study concludes by analyzing passages in Woolf and Proust. To echo Rene Wellek's assessment: it is a book of such scope and depth....it combines so many methods so skillfully, it raises so many questions of theory, history and criticism, it displays so much erudition, insight and wisdom.... I returned to this book after being out of graduate school for twenty years (where it was already out of fashion in most English departments but read with care by all students of Comparative literature), and it is so much better this time around. The essay on Fortuna continues to resonate with timely warnings, and what I once admired about "Odysseus' Scar" is even more luminous after my recent rereading of the book.
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48 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars You simply cannot be a literary critic without reading this, September 3, 2003
To paraphrase JOhn Lennon: evereybody's talking about Marxism and Modernism, Structuralism and sociologism, this-ism and that-ism; all I am saying, is give the narrative a chance. That is really what this greatest critic of all time - a man who is to literary criticism what Beethoven is to music, or Tocqueville to history, or Shakespeare to English poetry - ever did. Only he armed himselv with such a broad and wide-ranging array of different interpretative approaches, that he was always able to extract more, and more diverse, meanings, from any significant passage; and that not by illegitimately stretching the content to cover areas the writer had never conceived of, but simply by bringing out what already was there. His account of a passage in Ammianus Marcellinus, for instance, ought to be read by every historian of the late Roman Empire to understand what really was happening to that ancient civilization in the fourth century; as should his reading of a short story by Boccaccio (together, I would say, with Chesterton's magnificent essay on Chaucer) to understand the spirit that was awakening at the height of the Middle Ages. And this book is just as broad as it is sharp; just as it manages to pierce to the very heart of a single well-chosen subject, so too it covers the most extraordinary range of subjects, from the beginning of our culture (Homer and the book of Genesis) to high modernity (Proust), from the obscure (a stunning review of a bloody sixth-century anecdote by Gregory bishop of Tours) to the famous (Shakespeare). It is the finest book of literary criticism and history ever written, not only on account of its keen penetration and insight, but also of its enormous and wide-ranging learning, that allows the reader access to almost every century and every area of our Western heritage.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature
Although Auerbach wrote Mimesis 50 years ago, and a great deal of research has been produced since then, his book is still a masterwork, and provides many valuable insights for a... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Robert G. Hein

5.0 out of 5 stars the two streams of narrative . . .
Do you read to be entertained or enlightened? While most of us would answer "both", we each exhibit a preference. Read more
Published 10 months ago by cvairag

4.0 out of 5 stars Productive Time Spent While in Exile
History often proves that good can come out of bad situations. The apostle Paul's imprisonment forcefully slowed him down and gave mankind priceless letters. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Joe Rae

4.0 out of 5 stars Truth *is* in the Whole
Written in non-self-imposed exile in Istanbul, *Mimesis* is not only a fantastically influential piece of literary scholarship, but also an interesting response to the political... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Jeffrey Rubard

5.0 out of 5 stars defining work of western literary criticism
this book is excellent and one of its kind, erich auerbach commanded a veritably deep understanding of philology and languages which he used to cunning effect in analysing various... Read more
Published on January 9, 2007 by Bing Lu

5.0 out of 5 stars Starting point
When one starts to study western literature, and puts all of his effort to an neverending task of unravelling mysteries of European literature, one has sooner or later stumble... Read more
Published on November 19, 2006 by M. Vladanoviæ

5.0 out of 5 stars Not for the timid
This is easily the most challenging work on comparative literature - or
literary criticism - I have ever encountered. Read more
Published on November 9, 2006 by Charles J. Wrobel

5.0 out of 5 stars The history of how Reality is presented in Western Literature
'Mimesis' is arguably the most important piece of Literary Criticism written in the twentieth century. Read more
Published on June 18, 2006 by Shalom Freedman

4.0 out of 5 stars an elegant classic
The first essay in Mimesis, 'Odyessus' Scar' is a brilliant, clear statment about the origins of what we define as Western civilization. Read more
Published on October 21, 2005 by Rose L. Levinson

5.0 out of 5 stars Mimesis as form
Others reviewd this legendary book already. But I have a point to tell: Mimesis not as content but as form. Read more
Published on January 2, 2002 by Suckwoo Lee

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