On Textual Understand and Other Essays

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986. FIrst Paperback Edition. Octavo in green wraps; 224 pp; 24 cm Near Fine(+); small wrinkle to back wrap; pages crisp and bright; binding tight. Paperback. ISBN: 9780816612895

Szondi (1929–1971) was a Hungarian-born literary theorist who redefined postwar comparative literature by uniting philological precision with philosophical depth, drawing especially on Adorno and Benjamin, and insisting on historically grounded close reading of modern drama and lyric. In 1965 he founded the Institute for General and Comparative Literature at the Free University of Berlin, which rapidly became a leading European center for literary theory by rejecting broad, encyclopedic comparatism in favor of rigorous textual analysis shaped by critical theory and historical consciousness.