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Porter nstitute for Poetics and Semiotics

Erich Auerbach and His MimesisAuthor(s): Jan N. BremmerSource: Poetics Today, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Spring, 1999), pp. 3-10Published by: Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1773339.

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ErichAuerbachand His MimesisJan N. BremmerTheology,Groningen

Erich Auerbach's Mimesis:DargestellteWirklichkeitn derabendldndischen iter-aturwas first published in 1946 by A. FranckeVerlag, Bern, Switzerland.An American edition entitled Mimesis: TheRepresentation fReality in WesternLiterature,ranslatedby Willard R. Trask and published by Princeton Uni-versity Press,appeared in 1953.Translationsinto other languages soon fol-lowed. Since then both the German and the American versions have gonethrough numerous printings; both are still on the stock lists of their re-spective publishers. Auerbach's Mimesis s, without a doubt, one of the fewgenuine classics of literaryscholarshipfrom the second half of this century.But who was the authorof Mimesis? t is strikingthat only in recent yearshave there appeared good biographical essays about Auerbach and hisworks, in general, and about the circumstancesin which Mimesiswas com-posed, in particular.'Immediately after his death in 1957, hejournal Roma-nischeForschungenublished a short in memoriam by Fritz Schalk (1902-80),which provides a concise sketch of Auerbach's work and ends with, Von1929-36 lehrte er an der Universitat Marburg, 1936-1946 an der Universi-tat Istanbul (Schalk 1957).Not a word is said about this remarkablecareerThis is the slightly revised opening address of the Groningen conference MIMESIS men-tioned later in the text of my contribution. I would like to thank Bernard Scholz, the confer-ence organizer, for several suggestions, Tom McCreight for a copy of the Spitzer interview(1952),and Henry Remak for an illuminating conversation on May 15, 1998.1. Formy biographical sketch I am much indebted to I. Auerbach 1971:462-63 (with usefulmention of Auerbach's acta in the Staatsarchiv Marburg); Peyre 1977; Christmann 1989;Ziolkowski 1993; Gumbrecht 1996; and Maas 1996: 172-75. Nelson 1980 and Coser 1984:262-64 are less useful than their titles would suggest.PoeticsToday 0:1 (Spring 1999). Copyright ? 1999 by the Porter Institute for Poetics andSemiotics.

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4 Poetics Today 20:1move to the University of Istanbul, not a word about the difficult circum-stances under which Mimesiswas written. Similarly, Schalk only hints atthe circumstances of Mimesis'scomposition in the preface to Auerbach'scollected studies on Romance philology (Auerbach 1967), which he co-edited.2 The entry in the Encyclopediaritannicas even less helpful: From1929-1946 Auerbach taught in Marburg and Istanbul. It is therefore notsurprising that the most detailed biographical lemmata can be found indictionaries specifically concerned with Jewish authors and scholars.3

Except for these specific studies, virtuallynone of the shorterbiographi-cal notices I consulted bothers to mention that Auerbach was of Jewishorigin and that he would never have written Mimesiswithout this back-ground. They might also have mentioned that Auerbach's scholarly lifehad not really been that easy. He was born in Berlin on November 9, 1892into a well-to-do family of merchants. After graduating from the presti-gious FranzosischesGymnasium he went on to studylaw at the universitiesof Berlin, Freiburg,Munich, and Heidelberg (1910-13);in Berlin he wasstrongly affected by the best student ever of classical prose style, EduardNorden (Ziolkowski1993: xiv).4After earning his doctorate in law at Hei-delberg, in 1913with a dissertation entitled Die Teilnahme in den Vorar-beiten zu einem neuen Strafgesetzbuch, he joined the German army inDecember 1914for the duration of the Great War. He spent four years onthe western front where, in April 1918,he suffereda leg wound that wouldtrouble him for the rest of his life. Having decided before the war notto pursue a legal career, he obtained a Greifswald doctorate in Romancephilology in 1921with the dissertation Zur Technik der Fruhrenaissance-novelle in Italien und Frankreich.

In 1924 he became Bibliotheksratt the Prussian State Library in Ber-lin, where he first published on three figures who would interest him forthe rest of his life: Dante, Vico,5 and Croce (Candela 1996). In 1929 hewas transferredto the University Libraryat Marburg, then recommendedfor Habilitation n the basis of his Dante alsDichterder rdischenWelt 1929).In 1930 he was appointed chairman of the Department of Romance Phi-lology at Marburg,where he succeeded another greatJewish scholar, LeoSpitzer (1887-196o),6who had taken a chairmanship in Cologne. Here he2. Schalk was a declared opponent of the Nazis, but it reflects his lack of interest in Auer-bach's fate that, as Hausmann (1989: 46) notes, his prewar correspondence with HugoFriedrichcontains kaumein Wort des Mitleids oder Interesse fur die Vertriebenen.3. See the lemma Auerbach n Caplan and Rosenblatt 1983;Heuer 1992.4. This is not mentioned by the studies on Norden (1868-1941) in Kytzler et al. 1994.5. Auerbachprobablyowed his interest in Vico to Ernst Troeltsch (Della Terza 1987:53-54).6. For a comparison of Auerbach and Spitzer, see Gronau 1979: 128-31. Gronau has beenreviewed in Knoke 1981.


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Bremmer * ErichAuerbach and His Mimesis 5

could work undisturbedfor a relatively short time. Although not immedi-ately affected after 1933,he was dismissed in 1935after the abolition of thelaw that protected the veterans of the Great War.Fortunately,Kemal Ata-tiirk, having decided to modernize the Turkish educational system, wasinviting German professors to Istanbul, including many Jews. Auerbachmade use of this happy circumstance and in 1936 once again succeededSpitzeras chairman of a department of romance philology (Spitzer havingemigrated to the United States);7 he title notwithstanding, however,Auer-bach was faced with teaching all of Western European literature(see Bark1988). The Jewish professors were left in relative peace by the Germanconsulate general in Istanbul until 1938, when they received question-naires requiringinformation about their racial origin; a few years later theGerman citizenship of all these emigrants was revoked (Neumark 1980:182-83; Eckert 1985: 228-29).Auerbach had managed to take along the notes and references of hiswork in progress, and during the firstyears in Istanbul he could still workfrom what he had brought with him. Having completed the workbegun inGermany, including his famous essay Figura, he subsequently wrote thebrief Introductiono RomanceLanguagesnd Literature.8ut he was no longerable to do what he thought he could do best, highly detailed philologicalwork, as Istanbul lacked most Western books and journals-this despitehis having received special permission from the Vatican apostolic delegate(whowould become PopeJohn XXIII) to use the libraryof the Dominicanmonastery, San Pietro di Galata. When Spitzer had complained about thissituation to the dean he had received the severe answer that books werenot significant since they were so easily combustible (see Spitzer 1952:19-21, 26-27).It was these circumstances,and the need to remember and inscribehem,that led Auerbach to record the dates of composition-May 1942-April1945-on the verso of Mimesis's itle page. This context is also clear fromthe contents, which indirectly reflect his experience of the Nazis: fromthe first chapter with its glorification of the Old Testament over Homer,through the depictions of barbarian rulers in Gregory of Tours and of arevolt of the lower classes in Ammianus Marcellinus, to the last chapterswhere the pessimistic views of modern novelists are criticized because theywould weaken our resolve in standing up to negative ideologies.97. Widmann 1973:107-9, 255; Neumark 1980: 92-93 (on Auerbach'ssuccession of Spitzer,otherwise not informative on Auerbach).8. The first edition was in French (1943). For subsequent translations and reviews see Ste-fenelli 1989:95 n. 1.9. The relevance of these chapters to Auerbach's own experiences was noted at a conference


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6 Poetics Today 20:1Auerbach's book, then, is a typical product of a specific moment intime.'?Drawing on concepts developed from his philological research, he

presented a study of reality as represented in literature from antiquityto the present. His presentation would show the variety of these depic-tions but be infused with the general human quality, and that humanquality would transcend and encompass the historically particular. Histask would be to provide humanity with an alternative conception to theone that was threatening the world . . . , an ideal powerful enough tograpple with its enemies and emerge supreme (Green 1982: 37, 68).For this depiction Auerbach chose the Greek term mimesis.n retrospectone may question whether this was a truly fortunate choice. In a way itfixes the depiction in a certain, historically determined, manner, whereasAuerbach'scritics had not failed to notice that he nowhere clearly defines

reality. For the Greeks, mimesis is not only imitation, as one might beinitially inclined to think. In various cases it can indeed be an attempt atrealism in its most trivial form, pure copying; but it is also often more thanthat. In fact, in many passages mimesiss best translated as representa-tion :even Plato realized that artists sometimes represent things that haveno counterpart in real life.Auerbach'sbook was an immediate success.'2Reviewers hailed its trulymonumental greatness (Theophil Spoerri) and praised Auerbach for his

umfassende[s]und vielseitige[s] Wissen (Otto Regenbogen). At the sametime, specialists also complained about his definition of realism, the omis-sion of texts dear to their hearts, or errors in their fields. Auerbach ad-dressed at least one of these complaints in 1949 by adding a chapter onVirginia Woolf and in 1953, by supplementing the American edition witha chapter on Don Quixote.However, in Epilegomena zu Mimesis he vig-orously defended his views, in particular against the complaints of ErnstRobert Curtius (1886-1956) about his separation of styles, declaring hisunwavering adherence to German historicism (Auerbach1953).The success of Mimesisenabled Auerbach to move to America in 1947,where he became visiting professor at Pennsylvania State University butfailed to get tenure due to medical reasons (a serious cardiovascular ail-ment); in any case, shy and refinedas he was, he did not enjoy the campus'son Auerbach in Marburg. Cf. the report in the Frankfurterllgemeine eitung,November 6,1996, for other possible echoes see Damrosch 1995.lo. This also shows in the lack of an Anmerkungsapparat,hich should have been mentionedin Grafton 1997.1n. See, most recently, Murray 1996: 3-6 (with relevant bibliography).12. Lindenberger 1996 provides a nearly exhaustive list of reviews of the first German edi-tion and its American translation, as well as an excellent analysis; see also Enzinger 1950and Caretti 1957.


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Bremmer * ErichAuerbach and His Mimesis 7boisterous atmosphere. In 1949 he joined the Princeton Institute of Ad-vanced Studies, where he inaugurated the Princeton Seminars in LiteraryCriticism (Fitzgerald 1985). Eventually he became professor of medievalliterature at Yale (1950),which named him Sterling Professor of RomancePhilology in 1956. The years in America were relatively happy ones, butAuerbach remained the true European he was: Unlike Spitzer, he neverwrote about aspects of American life and stronglydislikedits leveling char-acteristics.

In his work Auerbach now seems to have paid renewed and expandedattention to the question of audience (Ziolkowski 1993: xxv). He hadalready dated the preface to his last book, LiteraryLanguage ndIts Pub-lic, when, at the height of his powers, he unexpectedly died in Germanyon October 13, 1957.According to a notable description, Auerbach wasslight and dark, gentle to the point of diffidence, yet lively and engagingin conversation[,] . . . looking not unlike one of those kindly ferrets in theillustrations of children'sbooks (Levin 1969: 463).Of all his works,which focus heavily on Dante and Vico, Mimesishas be-come the most popular. It is thereforeunderstandable that the Departmentof Comparative Literatureof the RijksuniversiteitGroningen would orga-nize a conference titled MIMESIS: Fifty Yearsafter Auerbach'sMimesis:The Representation of Reality in Literature, rom May 29-31, 1996. Dur-ing this gathering more than one hundred scholars from twelve countriesdiscussed Auerbach's interpretive achievement and possible advances inthe studyof the representationof reality in literature in the interveningfiftyyears, an eloquent testimony to the statureof Auerbach'swork. Having leftmy firstcopy many years ago on a train between Utrecht and Amsterdam,I was prompted by the Groningen conference, at which the papers selectedfor this issue of PoeticsTodaywere read, to buy a new one, the Americantranslation, which proved to be the tenth printing of the 1991edition. Isthis continual reprinting deserved and, if so, what does it teach us?Few will contest its desirability.The book is still an excellent readand it would be hard to find another work that presentsWestern literaturein such an instructive and fascinating way. At the same time, one is leftwondering who, today, would be equipped to write such a book. Hasn'tthe age of specialization robbed us of the requisite scope and erudition?Who would feel competent to write about authors as diverse as Homerand Virginia Woolf, or Vico and Ammianus Marcellinus?Moreover, withthe increasing pressure on universities and the continuous call for perfor-mance assessment, what scholar would be able to master the philologicalskills that Auerbach possessed to such a large degree and which we alsofind in some of his illustriouscontemporaries, such as Spitzer and Curtius?


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8 Poetics Today 20:1As such, Auerbach's Mimesisremains a standard we should keep tryingto equal.

On the other hand, some of us may wonder about the work'sideologi-cal background. In its final sentence Auerbach expresses the wish thatMimesismight contribute to bringing together again those whose lovefor our western history has serenely persevered. Given the time and cir-cumstances, this desire is understandable and justified. But could a futureMimesisn the contemporary globalvillage still limit itself to the Westerntradition? And which authorswould it select? Europe is not yet torn by thebattles over the canon that rage in America, but in a shrinkingworld thatproblem will sooner or later reach us, too. It would be characteristic of theWestern tradition at its best, I think, if we discussed the selection outsideour by now quite musty trenches of race and gender. An open confronta-tion with other highlights of the representation of human existence, andwith other forms of realism, would not betray Auerbach's work.'3

References

Auerbach,Erich1961 [1929]Dante,Poetof the SecularWorld,ranslatedby Ralph Manheim and editedbyTheodoreSilverstein(Chicago:ChicagoUniversityPress).Originallypublished sDante lsDichter er rdischen eltBerlin ndLeipzig:Walterde Gruyter).1953 EpilegomenauMimesis, omanischeorschungen5:1-18.1961 ntroductiono RomanceanguagesndLiteratureNewYork:Capricorn).1967Gesammelteufsdtzeurromanischenhilologie,ditedbyFritzSchalkand GustavKon-rad(Bern,Switzerland: . Francke).1993[1965]Literary anguagendIts Publicn LateLatinAntiquitynd n theMiddleAges,translatedbyRalphManheim Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress).Auerbach,nge1971Catalogusrofessorumcademicaearburgensis,ol. 2 (Marburg,Germany:Elwert).Bark,Karl-Heinz1988 BriefeE. Auerbachs nd W.Benjamins, n ,s.f Germanistik,ol. 9. French rans-lation n LesTemps odernes9 (1994): 3-62.Candela,Giuseppe1996 Aspectsf Realism n Auerbach ndCroce, CanadianeviewfComparativeitera-ture 3:485-99.Caplan,Hannah,andBelindaRosenblatt,ds.1983InternationaliographicalictionaryfCentraluropeanmigres,933-1945, ol. 2, pt. 1(Munich:K. G. Saur).Caretti,C.1957ReviewofAuerbach,Mimesis,tudiUrbinati1:199-206.Christmann,HansHelmut1989 Auerbach, rich,Prof.Dr.jur.t phil., n DeutschenddsterreichischeomanistenlsverfolgteesNationalsozialismus,ditedby HansHelmut Christmann nd Frank-RutgerHausmannTtibingen,Germany: tauffenburg).

13. Thereis a completebibliography f Auerbachn Auerbach1967;more selectiveonescan be found n Christmann 989;Heuer1992;Auerbach 993.


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Bremmer * ErichAuerbach and His Mimesis 9

Coser, Lewis A.1984 Refugee cholarsn AmericaNew Haven, CT: Yale University Press).

Damrosch, David1995 Auerbach n Exile, Comparativeiterature7(2): 97-117.Della Terza, Dante1987 Da Viennaa Baltimora:La diasporadegliintellettualiuropeinegliStati Uniti d'America

(Rome: Riuniti).Eckert, Brita1985 DiejiidischeEmigrationusDeutschland933-1941:Die GeschichteinerAustreibungFrank-furt a.M.: Buchhaendler-Vereinigung).

Enzinger, M.1950Review of Auerbach, Mimesis,Anzeigerfiir ieAltertumwissenschaft: 168-71.Fitzgerald, Robert

1985 Enlarging he Change:The Princeton eminars n LiteraryCriticism, 949-1951 (Boston:Northeastern University Press).Grafton, Anthony1997 TheFootnote(Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press).Green, Geoffrey1982 LiteraryCriticism nd the Structuresof History:Erich Auerbach nd Leo Spitzer Lincoln:University of Nebraska Press).Gronau, Klaus

1979 Literarische ormundgesellschaftlichentwicklung: richAuerbachsBeitrag ur Theorie ndMethodologieerLiteraturgeschichteKbnigstein, Germany: ForumAcademicum).Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich

1996 'Pathos of the Earthly Progress':Erich Auerbach's Everydays, in LiteraryHistoryand theChallengefPhilology:TheLegacy fErichAuerbach,dited by Seth Lerer (Stanford,CA: Stanford University Press).Hausmann, Frank-Rutger1989 Die nationalsozialistische Hochschulpolitik und ihreAuswirkungenauf die deutscheRomanistik von 1933 bis 1945, in Deutscheundosterreichischeomanisten ls verfolgtees,Nationalsozialismus,dited by Hans Helmut Christmann and Frank-RutgerHausmann(Tubingen, Germany: Stauffenburg).Heuer, Renate, ed.1992Lexikondeutsch-jiidischerAutoren,ol. 1(Munich: Saur).

Knoke, Ulrich1981 Literatursoziologie gestern und heute, Lendemains24: 99-107.Kytzler, Bernhard, Kurt Rudolph, andJorg Riipke, eds.1994 EduardNorden1868-1941) Stuttgart:Franz Steiner).Levin, Harry1969 Two Romanistenn America: Spitzer and Auerbach, in TheIntellectualEmigration,edited by Donald Fleming and BernardBailyn (Cambridge:HarvardUniversity Press).Lindenberger,Herbert1996 On the Reception of Mimesis, n LiteraryHistoryand the Challengef Philology:TheLegacy fErichAuerbach,dited by Seth Lerer (Stanford, CA: StanfordUniversity Press).Nelson, Lowry,Jr.

1980 ErichAuerbach: Memoir of a Scholar, hale eview69: 312-20.Maas, Utz1996 VerfolgungndAuswanderungeutschsprachigerprachforscher933-1945, vol. 1 (Osna-briick, Germany: Secolo).

Murray,Penelope1996 Plato onPoetry(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Neumark, Fritz1980 ZufluchtmBosporus: eutscheGelehrte, olitiker ndKiinstlern derEmigration,933-1953(Frankfurta.M.: Knecht).


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10 PoeticsToday20:1Peyre, Henri1977 ErichAuerbach (1892-1957) / Romanist, in Marburger elehrten dererstenHdlftedes

20. Jahrhunderts,dited by Ingeborg Schnack (Marburg,Germany: Elwert).Schalk, Fritz1957 Erich Auerbach (9.XI.1892 Berlin, d. lo.XI.1957 New Haven), Romanische or-schungen9: 126-28.

Spitzer, Leo1952 Leo Spitzer, nterview,JohnsHopkinsMagazine,April, 19-26.Stefenelli, Arnulf1989 Ein Werk aus dem Exil: Erich Auerbachs Introductionux etudesdephilologie omane,in Deutsche nd6sterreichischeomanisten ls verfolgteesNationalsozialismus,dited by HansHelmut Christmann and Frank-Rutger Hausmann (Tuibingen, Germany: Stauffen-burg).

Widmann, Horst1973Exil undBildungshiife:ie deutschsprachigekademischeEmigrationn dieTiirkeinach1933:Mit einerBio-BibliographieeremigriertenochschullehrermAnhangBern, Switzerland, andFrankfurta.M.: Lang).Ziolkowski,Jan1993 [1965] Foreword to Erich Auerbach, LiteraryLanguage nd Its Public n Late LatinAn-

tiquityand in the MiddleAges,translated by Ralph Manheim (Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press).


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