Time, history, and literature: selected essays of Erich Auerbach

Erich Auerbach (1892-1957), best known for his classic literary study Mimesis, is celebrated today as a founder of comparative literature, a forerunner of secular criticism, and a prophet of global literary studies. This book presents a selection of Auerbach's essays, many of which are little known outside the German-speaking world.

pt. I History and the Philosophy of History: Vico, Herder, and Hegel --
1. Vico's Contribution to Literary Criticism (1958) --
2. Vico and Herder (1932) --
3. Giambattista Vico and the Idea of Philology (1936) --
4. Vico and Aesthetic Historism (1948) --
5. Vico and the National Spirit (1955) --
6. Idea of the National Spirit as the Source of the Modern Humanities (ca. 1955) --
pt. II Time and Temporality in Literature --
7. Figura (1938) --
8. Typological Symbolism in Medieval Literature (1952) --
9. On the Anniversary Celebration of Dante (1921) --
10. Dante and Vergil (1931) --
11. Discovery of Dante by Romanticism (1929) --
12. Romanticism and Realism (1933) --
13. Marcel Proust and the Novel of Lost Time (1927) --
pt. III Passionate Subjects, from the Bible to Secular Modernity --
14. Passio as Passion (1941) --
15. Three Traits of Dante's Poetry (1948) --
16. Montaigne the Writer (1932) --
17. On Pascal's Political Theory (1941) --
18. Racine and the Passions (1927) --
19. On Rousseau's Place in History (1932) --
20. Philology of World Literature (1952).