The court and the castle : some treatments of a recurrent theme

Rebecca West, a lively, most perceptive, and intelligent observer, here examines a line of major writers - Shakespeare, the chief authors of the flourishing period of the English novel, and Proust and Kafka - to pursue and clarify the enigmatic, recurring theme of the nature of man and his universe, with which in one fashion or another they have all become involved. This is a disturbing and brilliant book, searching out the moral dilemma of Western man and illuminating the process in which the artist fulfills his mysterious mission, sometimes by accepting the society of his time, sometimes by rejecting it.