influences from the Bible and courtly love (see chapters 9 and 15 on Boccaccio and Molière). This development of an intermediate and then ultimately another "mixed style" (Shakespeare, Hugo) leads to what Auerbach calls the "modern realism" of the nineteenth-century (see Chapter 18 on Flaubert). Auerbach champions writers like Gregory of Tours and St. Francis of Assisi, whose Latin was poor and whose rhetorical education was minimal, but who were still able to convey vivid expression and feeling. He also champions the diarist Saint-Simon who wrote about the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century French court. Completely free of the absolute constraints of style found in Racine or the superficial use of reality found in Prévost or Voltaire, Saint-Simon's portraits of court life are considered by Auerbach, somewhat surprisingly, to be the precursor of Proust (an admirer of Saint-Simon) and Zola. Critical reception Mimesis is a sprawling, wide-ranging work. It has been praised for its insights on the particular works it addresses, and for the way the author revels in the complexities of each work and epoch without resorting to reductive generalities. At the same time, it has been criticized for its lack of a single overarching theme or claim. For this reason, individual chapters of the book are often read independently. By far the most frequently reprinted chapter is Chapter 1, "Odysseus' Scar," in which Auerbach compares the scene in book 19 of Homer’s Odyssey, when Odysseus finally returns home from his two decades of warring and journeying, to Genesis 22, the story of The Binding of Isaac. Highlighting the rhetorically determined simplicity of characters in the Odyssey (what he calls the "external") against what he regards as the psychological depth of the figures in the Old Testament, Auerbach suggests that the Old Testament gives a more powerful and historical impression than the Odyssey, which he classifies as closer to "legend" in which all details are fleshed out in a leisurely manner and all actions occur in a simple present – indeed even flashbacks are narrated in the present tense. Auerbach summarizes his comparison of the texts as follows: The two styles, in their opposition, represent basic types: on the one hand [The Odyssey'''s] fully externalized description, uniform illustration, uninterrupted connection, free expression, all events in the foreground, displaying unmistakable meanings, few elements of historical development and of psychological perspective; on the other hand [in the Old Testament], certain