Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

Erich Auerbach (1892-1957) was a Romance philologist and professor of literature and language. He was born and educated in Germany, and he worked in a German library until he was dismissed in 1929 due to Nazi Party policies against Jews. He taught philology at a German university for a time, but he left his increasingly dangerous nation in 1936, taking a position at the Turkish State University in Istanbul. In 1947 he took a position at Yale University, and he remained in the United States until his death.

Auerbach’s training as a philologist makes him particularly suited to writing such an expansive survey of Western literary history. Romance philology, the study of literatures deriving from Latin, is not the singular study of literary texts but instead includes the study of the many other arenas that influenced literature, including rhetoric, law, history, religion, culture, and language. Many of the ideas underpinning philology were articulated by Wilhelm Dilthey, who argued that “the world of written texts […] belonged to the realm of lived experience (Erlebnis), which the interpreter attempted to recover through a combination of erudition and a subjective intuition (eingefühlen) of what the inner spirit (Geist) of the work was” (xi). Philologists were expected to consider the experience of a writer, the general culture and spirit of the writer’s society, and important historical events when interpreting works of literature. This training allowed Auerbach to have such a breadth of knowledge that he could: 1) work within the original languages of each text he chose; 2) articulate important meanings of the original language; 3) provide vital social and historical context to parse out why a particular style of writing could be considered “realism” within the author’s society; and 4) make connections across centuries of literary history to help scholars make sense of the complexities and each work’s influence on another.

Auerbach’s nationality and religious affiliation also makes him particularly suited to the work of Mimesis. As a German Jew, he observed firsthand the effects of fascism, which he saw as an outgrowth of German adherence to traditionalism, something he traces in Chapter 17 of Mimesis. As an exile, he could look at the Western literary tradition as both an outsider and someone who was once an insider (through his training in philology was in Europe). He had limited access to critical editions of his chosen texts due to the limitations of the libraries in Istanbul, which likely affected the writing of the book, as well. Without critical editions, he was not as pinned down by current research and could use his memory and his skills in analysis to fully immerse himself in the texts themselves.

Auerbach also exhibits a natural curiosity and a tendency toward a more “natural” method of exploring texts through particular themes that interest him. Said attributes much of Auerbach’s charm to the fact that, “far from seeming heavy-handed and pedantic, he exudes a sense of searching and discovery, the joys and uncertainties of which he shares unassumingly with his reader” (xix). Auerbach treats his study as mental exploration, which allows him to create this vast work of literary criticism without it becoming burdensome.