Table of Contents

Introduction; Part I. Three Renaissance Myths: 1. From George Faust to Faustbuch; 2. The tragicall history of the life and death of Doctor Faustus; 3. Don Quixote of La Mancha; 4. El burlador and Don Juan; 5. Renaissance individualism and the Counter-Reformation; Part II. From Puritan Ethic To Romantic Apotheosis: 6. Robinson Crusoe; 7. Crusoe, ideology, and theory; 8. Romantic apotheosis of Renaissance myths; 9. Myth and individualism; Part III. Coda: Thoughts On The Twentieth Century: I. Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus; II. Michel Tournier's Friday; III. Some notes on the present; Appendix.

Promotional Information

Individualism as explored in four modern novels: Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan, and Robinson Crusoe.

About the Author

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Reviews

'In its way this is as original a work as Watt's famous first book, The Rise of the Novel. It is a work of great maturity, testimony to the intelligence and civility of its author.' Frank Kermode 'Ian Watt's magisterial Myths of Modern Individualism is a critical account - historical, cultural, moral and aesthetic - of how four great Western myths have insinuated themselves into the actualities of modern culture. Like all of Watt's work this is a remarkable work of the historical imagination, sympathetic without being fussy, erudite but always deft, analytic but very warm and witty. This is a book everyone should read.' Edward Said 'Watt has dug deep and come up with indispensable revelations about where we come from and where we are now as we 'individuals' grapple with our inescapable complaints about, yet need for, 'society'.' The Boston Book Review