Download or read book Literature and the Image of Man written by Leo Lowenthal and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 2011-12-31 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume’s predominant theme is bourgeois mentality and its historical development. The works of Lope de Vega, Calderón, Cervantes, and Shakespeare, among others, are analyzed within the historical framework of the decline of feudalism and the rise of the absolute regimes. Those of Moliére and Goethe are set against the background of an evolving and consolidating bourgeois society in Western Europe.