Abstract: QIAN Zhong-shu's Notes on Literature and Arts(Tanyilu),Erich Auerbach's Mimesis:The Representation of Reality in Western Literature and M.Bakhtin's Rebelais and His World were created in the time of national crisis,so that they can be comparatively read as literary events in the world. These three books are very different as far as their genres,styles,methodologies and world views are concerned. However,since they were all completed at the wartime,the authors had similar uncontrollable reflection on the decline of civilization and the distress of individual life. Moreover,their grand view of history,broad academic knowledge and deep insight into literary criticism has brought modern significance to "writing in sufferings". Although these three scholars and their works can be interpreted from various perspectives,the overriding concern is not a detailed analysis of some of their works but why and how QIAN,Auerbach and Bakhtin found solutions in literature,which emotions they have put into literary criticism and which images they have relied on to develop their doctrines. Besides their historical backgrounds,we can also examine how these three masterpieces will bring us inspirations in terms of methodology and their political and cultural correlations.

Key words: time of crisis, writing in sufferings, analogy, metaphor, heteroglossia, “contemporaries as different generations, coexisting while diverging”