Again the topic of images and the role of the author, here as the agent of fate: his task is to bring forth that essential (and otherwise ineffable) quality of a person which fate willed to express with this and no other individuality. EJ tries to explain here why the images of certain literary characters have gained a life of their own and have become part of our collective imagination. Contrary to much of established literary criticism EJ does not ascribe the vivid plausibility of characters like Iago or Don Quijote solely to the genius of Shakespeare or Cervantes. Neither does he explain it by the assumption that by being archetypes they touch the collective unconscious, as C.G. Jung tried. Rather he puts forward the concept of the "genius of the world", at this point without any further explanation. Shakespeare and Cervantes discovered this genius, many others missed it and their literary figures remained between the pages of their books. Günter Rebing
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