Psychic Mimesis From Bible and Homer to Now

How did we develop our sense of inner life? This book follows Auerbach’s Mimesis, journeying over two millennia through Western literature from Bible and Homer to the present to answer this question. We discover discrete and different trends, yet also three overarching, cross-cultural, and cross-temporal themes that endure through time.

Nathan Moses Szajnberg is former Freud professor at the Hebrew University and currently a training analyst at Israel Psychoanalytic Society.

Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Mimesis: Representation of Inner Reality in Western Mind(s) Chapter 1. Father-Son Reunions: Interpersonal and Inner Lives of Two Ancient Cultures, and Universal Emotions Chapter 2. The Son of God: Figura, or Betzelem Adonai, in the Shadow of God Chapter 3. Ovid's Incarnations: Instability and Its Passionate Inner Causes Chapter 4. Maimonides (12th Century): Concealed and Revealed Life Chapter 5. Dante and Virgil: Rising from Despair (1265-1321) Chapter 6: Shakespeare: The Leap from Lear to Prospero; from Tragic to Wise; from Despair to Integrity (and Self-Reflection) Chapter 7. Rousseau's Confessions and the Birth of Autobiography as a Genre (and Its Twin--Inner Development) (1700s) Chapter 8. Enchanting Tales, Enchanted Children: The Timelessness of Fairy Tales (Ancient Egypt to the Present) Chapter 9. Flaubert: Testing the Tensile Strength Between Style and Character (1800s) Chapter 10. From the "I" to the "We": Saul Bellow's Lifetime Evolution Chapte