Erich Auerbach (November 9, 1892 – October 13, 1957) was a
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...
and
comparative scholar and
critic of literature. His best-known work is ''
Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature'', a history of representation in Western literature from ancient to modern times and frequently cited as a classic in the study of realism in literature.
Along with
Leo Spitzer, Auerbach is widely recognized as one of the foundational figures of
comparative literature
Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...
.
Biography
Auerbach, who was
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
ish and born in Berlin, was trained in the German
philological tradition and would eventually become, along with
Leo Spitzer, one of its best-known scholars. After participating as a combatant in
World War I, he earned a
doctorate in 1921 at
University of Greifswald, served as librarian at the
Prussian State Library for some years, 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
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Naz ...
Auerbach was
forced to vacate his position in 1935. Exiled from
Nazi Germany, he took up residence in Istanbul, Turkey, where he wrote ''Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature'' (1946), generally considered his masterwork. He was chair of the faculty for Western languages and literatures at
Istanbul University
, image = Istanbul_University_logo.svg
, image_size = 200px
, latin_name = Universitas Istanbulensis
, motto = tr, Tarihten Geleceğe Bilim Köprüsü
, mottoeng = Science Bridge from Past to the Future
, established = 1453 1846 1933
...
from 1936 to 1947.
Auerbach's life and work in Turkey is detailed and placed in historical and sociological context by Kader Konuk, ''East West Mimesis: Auerbach in Turkey'' (2010).
He moved to the United States in 1947, teaching at
Pennsylvania State University and then working at the
Institute for Advanced Study. He was appointed
professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...
of
Romance
Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to:
Common meanings
* Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings
* Romance languages, ...
philology at
Yale University in 1950, a position he held until his death in 1957 in
Wallingford, Connecticut.
While at Yale, Auerbach supervised
Fredric Jameson's doctoral work.
Reception
In the fifty year commemoration reprinting of Auerbach's ''Mimesis'',
Edward Said of Columbia University included an extended introduction to Auerbach and mentioned the book's debt to
Giambattista Vico stating: "As one can immediately judge by its subtitle, Auerbach's book is by far the largest in scope and ambition out of all the other important critical works of the past half century. Its range covers literary masterpieces from Homer and the Old Testament right through to Virginia Woolf and Marcel Proust, although as Auerbach says apologetically at the end of the book, for reasons of space he had to leave out a great deal of medieval literature as well as some crucial modern writers like Pascal and Baudelaire."
[Said, Edward. "Fifty Year Anniversary of Mimesis," included in Fifty Year Anniversary edition of Mimesis. Princeton University Press, 2003.]
Works
* ''Roman Filolojisine Giriş'' Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakultesi: Horoz Yayinevi, 1944.
* ''Scenes from the Drama of European Literature''. New York: Meridian, 1959. Republished 1984 by Manchester University Press. .
* ''Dante: Poet of the Secular World'' Trans.
Ralph Manheim. New York: NYRB Classics, 1929, 1961, 2007. .
*''Figura, 1938''
* ''Mimesis: Dargestellte Wirklichkeit in der abendländischen Literatur''. Bern: Franke Verlag, 1946.
**Published in English as ''Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature.'' Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1955.
* ''Literary Language and Its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages''. Trans. Ralph Manheim. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. .
* ''Time, History, and Literature: Selected Essays of Erich Auerbach.'' Ed. James I. Porter. Trans. Jane O. Newman. Princeton University Press, 2013. .
References
Bibliography
*
Bakker, Egbert. "Mimesis as Performance: Rereading Auerbach’s First Chapter." ''
Poetics Today
''Poetics Today: International Journal for Theory and Analysis of Literature and Communication'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of poetics. The editors-in-chief
An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chi ...
'' 20.1 (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'' 20.1 (1999): 3–10.
*
Calin, William. "Erich Auerbach’s ''Mimesis'' – ’Tis Fifty Years Since: A Reassessment." ''Style'' 33.3 (1999): 463–474.
Domínguez, César "Auerbach y la literatura comparada ante Babel." ''Cuadernos de teoría y crítica'' 3 (2017): 137–149.
* Doran, Robert.
" ''New Literary History'' 38.2 (2007): 353–369.
* Doran, Robert. "Erich Auerbach's Humanism and the Criticism of the Future." ''Moderna: semestrale di teoria e critica della letteratura'' 11.1/2 (2009): 31–39.
* Green, Geoffrey. "Erich Auerbach." ''Literary Criticism & the Structures of History: Erich Auerbach & Leo Spitzer.'' Nebraska:
University of Nebraska Press
The University of Nebraska Press, also known as UNP, was founded in 1941 and is an academic publisher of scholarly and general-interest books. The press is under the auspices of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the main campus of the Univers ...
, 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'' 20.1 (1999): 77–91.
* Landauer, Carl. "Mimesis and Erich Auerbach’s Self-Mythologizing." ''German Studies Review'' 11.1 (1988): 83–96.
* Lerer, Seth, ''Literary History and the Challenge of Philology: The Legacy of Erich Auerbach.'' Stanford:
Stanford University Press
Stanford University Press (SUP) is the publishing house of Stanford University. It is one of the oldest academic presses in the United States and the first university press to be established on the West Coast. It was among the presses officially ...
, 1996.
*
* Nuttall, A. D. "New Impressions V: Auerbach’s ''Mimesis''." ''Essays in Criticism'' 54.1 (2004): 60–74.
* Porter, James I. "Erich Auerbach and the Judaizing of Philology." ''Critical Inquiry'' 35 (2008): 115–47.
* Said, Edward. "Fifty Year Anniversary of ''Mimesis''," included in Fifty Year Anniversary edition of ''Mimesis''. Princeton University Press, 2003.
External links
*
''Rousseau Hakkinda Bir Baslangic Yazisi''by Erich Auerbach, Editor by Beyaz Arif Akbas, Yalnizgoz Books, Edirne 2011
{{DEFAULTSORT:Auerbach, Erich
1892 births
1957 deaths
Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States
German philologists
Jewish American scientists
Jewish philosophers
German literary critics
Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars
Writers from Berlin
People from Wallingford, Connecticut
University of Marburg faculty
University of Greifswald alumni
Pennsylvania State University faculty
Yale University faculty
Istanbul University faculty
German literary theorists
Comparative literature academics
American people of German-Jewish descent
German expatriates in Turkey
Französisches Gymnasium Berlin alumni
German male non-fiction writers
Yale Sterling Professors
20th-century philologists
20th-century American Jews