The Gates of Horn

The author explores this tradition in depth and defines it with a breadth of vision a dynamic vigor and freedom rarely paralleled today....His method flexible generous humane in the best sense of the word eschews pedantry dogma useless theorizing and scholastic argumentation.--The New York Times Book Review. I wish to make it clear that The Gates of Horn represents an outstanding critical accomplishment.--Saturday Review. In the Odyssey Homer describes two gates of the imagination: one of ivory through which fictitious dreams pass and the other of horn through which nothing but the truth may pass. Realism is the type of literature that passes through the horn and in this significant study of the genre Levin examines a major form of Realism--the French novel--and focuses on five of its masters--Stendahl Balzac Flaubert Zola And Proust. Now available in paperback Levin''s study is a veritable reconstruction of the artistic and intellectual life of a nation.