Literature and the Image of Man

This volume's predominant theme is bourgeois mentality and its historical development. The works of Lope de Vega, Calderon, Cervantes, and Shakespeare, among others, are analysed within the historical framework of the decline of feudalism and the rise of the absolute regimes. Those of Moliere and Goethe are set against the background of an evolving and consolidating bourgeois society in Western Europe.