In pursuit of a powerful, common-sense argument about realism, renowned scholar A. D. Nuttall discusses English eighteenth-century and French neo-classical conceptions of realism, and considers
Julius Caesar
,
Coriolanus
The Merchant of Venice
Othello
, and both parts of
King Henry IV
as a prolonged feat of mimesis, with particular emphasis on Shakespeare’s perception of society and culture as subject to historical change. Shakespeare is chosen as the great example of realism because he addresses not only the stable characteristics but also the flux of things, and he is thus seen as a perceiver of that flux and not a mere specimen. An acknowledged classic of literary studies,
A New Mimesis
is reissued here with a new preface by the author.