Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

Erich Auerbach's Mimesis still stands as a monumental achievement in literary criticism. 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."There is no other work in contemporary literary criticism known to me that is comparable in scope, in analytical and historical richness; it is actually a history of European literature from the Odyssey to Ulysses and shows a quiet mastery of all the literatures of the West. I can never pick up this book without learning from it and without marveling at the penetration with which Auerbach's handling of his subject—the different forms by which the great European writers have shaped their ideas of reality—lead him to a new understanding of all postclassical literature." -- Alfred Kazin, American Scholar