Stanford University Press Mimesis and Theory: Essays on Literature and Criticism, 1953-2005 (Cultural Memory in the Present)

Product Description Mimesis and Theory brings together twenty previously uncollected essays on literature and literary theory by one of the most important thinkers of the past thirty years. Review [T]his collection spans the course of Girard's career and provides a concise way to gain some perspective on his legacy . . . One the whole, this volume confirms Girard's reputation as a first-rate literary critic, devoted to the close study of literary texts but avoiding the pitfalls of l'art pour l'art formalism by asking extra-literary, essentially anthropological, questions of them, and emphasizing the insights and lessons that literature has to offer us in those matters that are of greatest import to us.--Eric Prieto " SubStance" About the Author René Girard is the Andrew B. Hammond Professor Emeritus of French Civilization at Stanford University and a member of the Académie française. Robert Doran is James P. Wilmot Assistant Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Rochester.