I had read a lot of praise about Mimesis and damn, does it deserve it! From the first chapter, it grabbed my mind and forced it to think through paths I had never gone through before. It's the kind of book that needs to be re-read through life, several times. The prose is beautiful, and the content is both surprising and familiar. One usually associates literary criticism books with stuffy, impregnable sentences that lull you to sleep faster than a lullaby. Instead, this is the kind of book that makes fireworks explode in your head. It opens doors into rooms you had never explored before, in literature you are very familiar with. It makes you wonder how you had never noticed it before. It's like passing by the same ordinary object daily and one day shocking yourself when you notice its intricate design for the first time. In a stupor, you ask yourself how you could have been so oblivious.
I picked it up because it has a chapter on Chrétien de Troyes' Ivain and I'm currently interested in learning as much as I can on Arthurian legend. A lot of the classics discussed here I haven't read yet, but it's not really necessary to have read them to appreciate the author's genius.