Erich Auerbach (November 9, 1892 in Berlin - October 13, 1957 in Wallingford, Connecticut) was a German philologist and comparative scholar and critic of literature. His best-known work is Mimesis, a history of representation in Western literature from ancient to modern times. November 9 is the 313th day of the year (314th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 52 days remaining. ... 1892 (MDCCCXCII) was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Berlin is the capital city and one of the sixteen states of the Federal Republic of Germany. ... October 13 is the 286th day of the year (287th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Wallingford is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. ... Philology is the study of ancient texts and languages. ... Comparative literature, colloquially abbreviated comp. ... Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. ... Old book bindings at the Merton College library. ... Mimesis (μίμησις from μιμεîσθαι) in its simplest context means imitation or representation in Greek. ...

Auerbach, who was Jewish, was trained in the German philological tradition and would eventually become, along with Leo Spitzer, one of its best-known scholars. After participating as combatant in World War I, he earned a doctorate in 1921 and in 1929 became a member of the philology faculty at the University of Marburg, publishing a well-received study entitled Dante: Poet of the Secular World. With the rise of National Socialism, however, Auerbach, was forced to vacate his position in 1935. Exiled from Germany, he took up residence in Istanbul, Turkey, where he wrote Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, generally considered his masterwork. Philology is the study of ancient texts and languages. ... Leo Spitzer (Vienna 7 February 1887 - Forte de Marmi 16 September 1960) was an Austrian Romanist and Hispanist, and an influential and prolific literary critic. ... Combatants Allied Powers: Russian Empire France British Empire Italy United States Central Powers: Austria-Hungary German Empire Ottoman Empire Bulgaria Commanders Nicholas II Aleksei Brusilov Georges Clemenceau Joseph Joffre Ferdinand Foch Herbert Henry Asquith Douglas Haig John Jellicoe Victor Emmanuel III Luigi Cadorna Armando Diaz Woodrow Wilson John Pershing Franz... Year 1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for full calendar). ... 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... A faculty is a division within a university. ... Marburg is a city in Hesse, Germany, on the Lahn river. ... National Socialism redirects here. ... 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Istanbul (Turkish: Ä°stanbul, Greek: , historically known in English as Constantinople; see other names) is Turkeys most populous city, and its cultural and financial center. ...

He moved to the United States in 1947, teaching at Pennsylvania State University and then working at the Institute for Advanced Study. He was made a Professor of Romance philology at Yale University in 1950, a position he held until his death in 1957. While at Yale he supervised Fredric Jameson's doctoral work. Year 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1947 calendar). ... The Pennsylvania State University (commonly known as Penn State) is a state-related, land-grant university. ... Fuld Hall The Institute for Advanced Study is a private institution in Princeton Township, New Jersey, U.S.A. (although it is not part of Princeton University), designed to foster pure cutting-edge research by scientists in a variety of fields without the complications of teaching or funding, or the... A professor giving a lecture The meaning of the word professor (Latin: one who claims publicly to be an expert) varies. ... Yale redirects here. ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Fredric Jameson (b. ...

Works

• Dante: Poet of the Secular World. ISBN 0-226-03205-1.
• Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. ISBN 0-691-11336-X.
• Literary Language and Its Public (German edition 1958)

Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature is unquestionably the work for which Erich Auerbach is most famous. Written while Auerbach was teaching in Istanbul, Turkey, where he fled after being ousted from his professorship in Romance Philology at the University of Marburg by the Nazis in 1935, Mimesis famously opens with a comparison between the way the world is represented in Homer’s Odyssey and the way it appears in the Bible. From these two seminal Western texts, Auerbach builds the foundation for a unified theory of representation that spans the entire history of Western literature, including even the Modernist novelists writing at the time Auerbach began his study. Istanbul (Turkish: Ä°stanbul, Greek: , historically known in English as Constantinople; see other names) is Turkeys most populous city, and its cultural and financial center. ... Philology is the study of ancient texts and languages. ... University of Marburg - Department of Social Sciences and University library The old university The University of Marburg, officially Philipps-Universität Marburg, was founded in 1527 by Landgrave Philipp I of Hesse (usually called the Magnanimous) as the worlds first and oldest Protestant university. ... The Nazi party used a right-facing swastika as their symbol and the red and black colors were said to represent Blut und Boden (blood and soil). ... 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Homer (Greek: , HómÄ“ros) was a legendary early Greek poet and aoidos (singer) traditionally credited with the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey. ... Odysseus and Nausicaä - by Charles Gleyre The Odyssey (Greek: , Odusseia) is one of the two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to the poet Homer. ... This Gutenberg Bible is displayed by the United States Library of Congress. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Western World. ... The Elections and Parties Series Democracy Liberal democracy History of democracy Representative democracy Representation Voting Voting systems Elections Elections by country Elections by calender Electoral systems Politics Politics by country Political campaigns Political science Political philosophy Related topics Political parties Parties by country Parties by name Parties by ideology Representative... This article focuses on the cultural movement labeled modernism or the modern movement. See also: Modernism (Roman Catholicism) or Modernist Christianity; Modernismo for specific art movement(s) in Spain and Catalonia. ...

Mimesis gives an account of the way in which everyday life in its seriousness has been represented by many Western writers, from ancient Greek and Roman writers Petronius, early Christian writers such as Augustine, Renaissance writers Boccaccio, Montaigne, and Rabelais, Shakespeare and Cervantes, Enlightenment writers such as Voltaire, eighteenth and nineteenth-century writers Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert, and Zola, all the way up to nineteenth and twentieth-century writers Proust, and Woolf. Despite his treatment of the many major works, Auerbach apparently did not think he was comprehensive enough, and apologized in the original publication in 1946 explaining that he had access only to the 'insufficient' resources available in the library at Istanbul University where he worked. Many scholars consider this relegation to primary texts a happy accident of history, since in their view one of the great strengths of Auerbach’s book is its focus on fine-grained close reading of the original texts rather than an evaluation of critical works. Area under Roman control  Roman Republic  Roman Empire  Western Empire  Eastern Empire Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew from a city-state founded on the Italian Peninsula circa the 9th century BC to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea. ... Petronius (c. ... Christians believe that Jesus is the mediator of the New Covenant (see Hebrews 8:6). ... Augustinus redirects here. ... Raphael was famous for depicting illustrious figures of the Classical past with the features of his Renaissance contemporaries. ... Giovanni Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio (June 16, 1313 – December 21, 1375) was an Italian author and poet, a friend and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist in his own right and author of a number of notable works including On Famous Women, the Decameron and his poetry in the vernacular. ... Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (February 28, 1533 - September 13, 1592) was an influential French Renaissance writer, generally considered to be the inventor of the personal essay. ... François Rabelais (ca. ... Shakespeare redirects here. ... Cervantes can refer to: Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, 16th-century man of letters Cervantes, Ilocos Sur, a municipality in the Philippines Cervantes, a town in Western Australia Cervantes de Leon, a character in the Soul Calibur series of fighting games This is a... The Age of Enlightenment (from the German word Aufklärung, meaning Enlightenment) refers to eighteenth century in European and American philosophy, or the longer period including the seventeenth century and the Age of Reason. ... François-Marie Arouet (21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778), better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, essayist, deist and philosopher known for his wit, philosophical writings, and defense of civil liberties, including freedom of religion and the right to a fair trial. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) The 19th century lasted from 1801 to 1900 in the Gregorian calendar (using the Common Era system of year numbering). ... Stendhal. ... Honoré de Balzac Honoré de Balzac (May 20, 1799 - August 18, 1850), was a French novelist. ... Gustave Flaubert Gustave Flaubert (December 12, 1821 – Croisset, May 8, 1880) is counted among the greatest Western novelists. ... Zola can refer to several things: Émile Zola, the French novelist of the literary school of naturalism Zola Budd. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s The 20th century lasted from 1901 to 2000 in the Gregorian calendar (often from (1900 to 1999 in common usage). ... The name Proust can refer to: Antonin Proust (1832-1905), French journalist and politician Joseph Proust (1754-1826), French chemist Marcel Proust (1871-1922), French author This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Virginia Woolf Virginia Woolf (January 25, 1882 – March 28, 1941) was a British author and feminist. ... Year 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... Istanbul University (Turkish Ä°stanbul Ãœniversitesi ) was founded as an institution of higher education named Darülfünun in 1863. ...

The mode of literary criticism in which Mimesis operates is often referred to among contemporary critics as historicism, since Auerbach largely regarded the way reality is represented in the literature of various periods to be intimately bound up with social and intellectual conventions of the time in which they were written. Auerbach considered himself a historical perspectivist in the German tradition (he mentioned Hegel in this respect) extrapolating from specific features of style, grammar, syntax, and diction claims about much broader cultural and historical questions. He is in the same German tradition of philology as Ernst Robert Curtius, Leo Spitzer, and Karl Vossler, having a mastery of many languages and epochs and all-inclusive in its approach, incorporating just about any intellectual endeavor into the discipline of literary criticism. Of Mimesis, Auerbach wrote that his "purpose is always to write history." Auerbach was a Romance language specialist, which explains his admitted bias towards treating texts from French compared to other languages. Chaucer and Wordsworth are not mentioned even in passing. Historicism is a term which applies to a number of theories of culture or historical development which place the greatest weight on two factors: that there is an organic succession of developments, that local conditions and peculiarities influence the results in a decisive way It can be contrasted with reductionist... A literary genre is one of the divisions of literature into genres according to particular criteria such as literary technique, tone, or subject matter (content). ... Grammar is the study of rules governing the use of language. ... For other uses, see Syntax (disambiguation). ... Diction is the art of enunciating with clarity, of speaking in such a way that each word is clearly heard. ... Philology is the study of ancient texts and languages. ... Ernst Robert Curtius (April 14, 1886 – April 19, 1950) was an Alsatian philologist and Romance language literary critic. ... Leo Spitzer (Vienna 7 February 1887 - Forte de Marmi 16 September 1960) was an Austrian Romanist and Hispanist, and an influential and prolific literary critic. ... Karl Vossler (1872-1949) was a German linguist and scholar, and a leading Romanist. ... Chaucer: Illustration from Cassells History of England, circa 1902 Chanticleer the rooster from an outdoor production of Chanticleer and the Fox at Ashby_de_la_Zouch castle Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. ... Wordsworth, an underground hip hop MC from Brooklyn. ...

Not known for its organization, Mimesis is almost universally respected for its penetrating insights on the particular works it addresses but is frequently criticized for what is sometimes regarded as its lack of a single overarching claim. For this reason, individual chapters of the book are often read independently. Most critics, however, find it hard to fault Auerbach for this and instead praise his sprawling approach for its reveling in the complexities of each work and epoch without resorting to generalities and reductionism. Look up epoch in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Descartes held that non-human animals could be reductively explained as automata — De homines 1622. ...

By far the most frequently reprinted chapter is chapter one, Odysseus’ Scar, in which Auerbach compares the scene in book 19 of Homer’s Odyssey, when Odysseus finally returns home from his two decades of warring and journeying, to Genesis 22:1, the story of The Binding of Isaac. Highlighting the psychological transparency and consistency of the characters in the Odyssey as against what he regards as the psychological depth of the figures in the Old Testament, Auerbach suggests that the Old Testament gives a more historical impression than the Odyssey, which he classifies as closer to legend in which all details are leisurely fleshed out and all actions occur in a simple present – indeed even flashbacks are narrated in the present tense. It is in the context of this comparison that Auerbach draws his famous conclusion that the Bible’s claim to truth is "tyrannical," since its many omissions establish the insistence that "it is the only real world." Homer (Greek: , HómÄ“ros) was a legendary early Greek poet and aoidos (singer) traditionally credited with the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey. ... Odysseus and Nausicaä - by Charles Gleyre The Odyssey (Greek: , Odusseia) is one of the two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to the poet Homer. ... Head of Odysseus from a Greek 2nd century BC marble group representing Odysseus blinding Polyphemus, found at the villa of Tiberius at Sperlonga Odysseus (Greek Odusseus), pronounced /oʊˈdɪs. ... Genesis (Hebrew: ‎, Greek: Γένεσις, having the meanings of birth, creation, cause, beginning, source and origin) is the first book of the Torah, the first book of the Tanakh and also the first book of the Christian Old Testament. ... Sacrifice by Robert Sherman (1983). ... Note: Judaism commonly uses the term Tanakh. ...

Bibliography

Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Fiftieth Anniversary Ed. Trans. Willard Trask. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.

Bakker, Egbert. “Mimesis as Performance: Rereading Auerbach’s First Chapter.” Poetics Today. Vol 20. Issue 1. Tel Aviv: Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, 1999. 11-26.

Baldick, Chris. “Realism.” Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. 184.

Bremmer, Jan. “Erich Auerbach and His Mimesis.” Poetics Today. Vol 20. Issue 1. Tel Aviv: Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, 1999. 3-10.

Calin, William. Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis – ’Tis Fifty Years Since: A Reassessment.” Style. Vol. 33. No. 3. Fayetteville: Style, 1999. 463-474.

Green, Geoffrey. “Erich Auerbach.” Literary Criticism & the Structures of History: Erich Auerbach & Leo Spitzer. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1982.

Holmes, Jonathan, and Streete, Adrian, Eds. Refiguring Mimesis: Representation in Early Modern Literature. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2005.

Holquist, Michael. “Erich Auerbach and the Fate of Philology Today.” Poetics Today. Vol 20. Issue 1. Tel Aviv: Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, 1999. 77-91.

Landauer, Carl. “Mimesis and Erich Auerbach’s Self-Mythologizing.” German Studies Review, Vol. 11. No. 1. Tempe: German Studies Association, 1988. 83-96.

Lerer, Seth, Ed. Literary History and the Challenge of Philology: The Legacy of Erich Auerbach. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996.

Nuttall, A. D. “New Impressions V: Auerbach’s Mimesis.” Essays in Criticism. Vol. 5. No. 1. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Said, Edward. “Erich Auerbach, Critic of the Earthly World.” Boundary 2. Summer 2004. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004.

External links

• Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory entry--requires subscription.
• Erich Auerbach capsule biography

For an extensive discussion of Erich Auerbach's sojourn in Turkey see A. Reisman TURKEY'S MODERNIZATION: Refugees from Nazism and Atatürk’s Vision. [1]