Important essays from one of the giants of literary criticism, including a dozen published here in English for the first time 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. Yet the true depth of Auerbach's thinking and writing remains unplumbed. Time, History, and Literature presents a wide selection of Auerbach's essays, many of which are little known outside the German-speaking world. Of the twenty essays culled for this volume from the full length of his career, twelve have never appeared in English before, and one is being published for the first time. Foregrounded in this major new collection are Auerbach's complex relationship to the Judaeo-Christian tradition, his philosophy of time and history, and his theory of human ethics and responsible action. Auerbach effectively charts out the difficult discovery, in the wake of Christianity, of the sensuous, the earthly, and the human and social worlds. A number of the essays reflect Auerbach's responses to an increasingly hostile National Socialist environment. These writings offer a challenging model of intellectual engagement, one that remains as compelling today as it was in Auerbach's own time.

This volume, growing out of the celebrated turn toward history in literary criticism, showcases some of the best new historical work being done today in textual theory, literary history, and cultural criticism. The collection brings together for the first time key representativesfrom various schools of historicist scholarship, including leading critics whose work has helped define new historicism. The essays illuminate literary periods ranging from Anglo-Saxon to postmodern, a variety of literary texts that includes The Siege of Thebes, Macbeth, The Jazz Singer, and The Chosen Place, the Timeless People, and central issues that have marked new historicism: power, ideology, textuality, othering, marginality, exile, and liberation. The contributors are Janet Aikins, Lawrence Buell, Ralph Cohen, Margaret Ezell, Stephen Greenblatt, Terence Hoagwood, Jerome McGann, Robert Newman, Katherine O'Keeffe, Lee Patterson, Michael Rogin, Edward Said, and Hortense Spillers. The editors' introduction situates the various essays within contemporary criticism and explores the multiple, contestatory issues at stake within the historicist enterprise.

Historical Essays provides an authoritative critical, annotated edition of Carlyle's essays on history and historical subjects.

This book of original essays explores three important areas in comparative literature and history and in cultural studies: the boundaries between history and fiction;women as writers and subjects; and the connection between the early modern, modern and postmodern. New history and new literary studies look at innovative ways to see past cultures in a new light. Traditional methods are used to new ends and writers who are familiar within their cultures are translated to other cultures. This study promotes an expanded understanding of our cultural artifacts in a rapidly changing present. It discusses English-speaking culture in the early modern period in the context of other European cultures and relates Europe to other parts of the world, most notably America. After grounding the discussion of culture in history, identity, dialogue as a genre that crosses the boundaries between philosophy and fiction, the rhetoric of prefaces to historical collections, cosmographies and histories that share something with the techniques of literary and forensic rhetoric, the book proceeds to discuss two central issues in cultural studies today: gender and postmodernity. The final section of the book provides a general assessment through early modern texts of modernity and postmodernity.

The Essential Guide to Writing History Essays is a step-by-step guide to the typical assignments of any undergraduate or master's-level history program in North America. Effective writing is a process of discovery, achieved through the continual act of making choices--what to include or exclude, how to order elements, and which style to choose--each according to the author's goals and the intended audience. The book integrates reading and specialized vocabulary with writing and revision and addresses the evolving nature of digital media while teaching the terms and logic of traditional sources and the reasons for citation as well as the styles. This approach to writing not only helps students produce an effective final product and build from writing simple, short essays to completing a full research thesis, it also teaches students why and how an essay is effective, empowering them to approach new writing challenges with the freedom to find their own voice.