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Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature
A half-century after its translation into English, Erich Auerbach's "Mimesis" still stands as a monumental achievement in literary criticism. A brilliant display of erudition, wit, and wisdom, his exploration of how great European writers from Homer to Virginia Woolf depicted reality has taught generations how to read Western literature. This new expanded edition includes a substantial essay in introduction by Edward Said as well as an essay, never before translated into English, in which Auerbach responds to his critics.
A German Jew, Auerbach was forced out of his professorship at the University of Marburg in 1935. He left for Turkey, where he taught at the state university in Istanbul. There he wrote "Mimesis," publishing it in German after the end of the war. Displaced as he was, Auerbach produced a work of great erudition that contains no footnotes, basing his arguments instead on searching, illuminating readings of key passages from his primary texts. His aim was to show how from antiquity to the twentieth century literature progressed toward ever more naturalistic and democratic forms of representation. This essentially optimistic view of European history now appears as a defensive--and impassioned--response to the inhumanity he saw in the Third Reich. Ranging over works in Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and English, Auerbach used his remarkable skills in philology and comparative literature to refute any narrow form of nationalism or chauvinism, in his own day and ours.
For many readers, both inside and outside the academy, "Mimesis" is among the finest works of literary criticism ever written.
A German Jew, Auerbach was forced out of his professorship at the University of Marburg in 1935. He left for Turkey, where he taught at the state university in Istanbul. There he wrote "Mimesis," publishing it in German after the end of the war. Displaced as he was, Auerbach produced a work of great erudition that contains no footnotes, basing his arguments instead on searching, illuminating readings of key passages from his primary texts. His aim was to show how from antiquity to the twentieth century literature progressed toward ever more naturalistic and democratic forms of representation. This essentially optimistic view of European history now appears as a defensive--and impassioned--response to the inhumanity he saw in the Third Reich. Ranging over works in Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and English, Auerbach used his remarkable skills in philology and comparative literature to refute any narrow form of nationalism or chauvinism, in his own day and ours.
For many readers, both inside and outside the academy, "Mimesis" is among the finest works of literary criticism ever written.
616 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1942
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About the author
Erich Auerbach
62books123followersGerman philologist Erich Auerbach served as professor of Romance philology at Marburg University (1929-35), taught at the Turkish State University in Istanbul (1936-47), and became professor of French and Romance philology at Yale University in 1950. He published several books and many papers on Dante, Medieval Latin literature, methods of historical criticism, and the influence of Christian symbolism on literature. He is best known for
Mimesis
, a volume on literary criticism written in Turkey, first published in Berne, Switzerland in 1946, and subsequently widely translated.
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July 14, 2007
Maybe the most impressive work of literary criticism ever written, not least because of the circumstances under which it was composed: Auerbach, a German philologist fired by the Nazis for being a Jew, in exile in an Istanbul library as European civilization destroyed itself � re-imagining the literature that had given it birth. The book's insights are inexhaustible. I've returned to it again and again for 30 years.
November 14, 2020
mimesis alanında temel eserlerden biri. bugün için güncelliğini koruyor, hiçbir zaman da eskimeyecek muhtemelen. bu nitelikleriyle birlikte, ikinci dünya savaşı sürerken yazılmış olmasıyla, istanbul'da yazılmış olmasıyla ve yazılma biçimiyle de edebiyat tarihinin efsanelerinden biri.
auerbach'ı mimesis çalışmasının başlangıcında düşünelim. 1942 olsa gerek. malum sebeplerle ülkesinden ayrılmak zorunda kalmış, davet üzerine türkiye'ye yerleşmiş, 1936'dan beri istanbul üniversitesi'nde görev yapıyor. ülkesinin, dünyanın, insanlığın durumu vahim. belki uzaklaşmak için belki tam tersine şartlar böyle olduğu için, başyapıtını yazmak, tamamlamak istiyor. tam anlamıyla başyapıt olacak bir kitap. iddialı, çok iddialı: edebiyatın 3000 yılını konu edinecek, 3000 yılı edebiyat eserleri üzerinden anlatacak. bir ömrün birikimiyle, emeğiyle yazma aşamasına gelmiş artık. ama istanbul'da kütüphane yok, araştırma imkanı yok, eserini tamamlaması için gerekli kitapların neredeyse hiçbiri yok.
mimesis'in kapsamının 3000 yıl olması temel eser vasfını açıklarken, imkansızlıklar içinde yazılması da efsane diyebileceğimiz, mucize diyebileceğimiz şeyler çağrıştırıyor. normal şartlarda böyle iddialı bir çalışmanın başarılı olma şansı bir tarafa, bu çabaya girişilmesi bile cesaret, çalışmanın hiç bitmemesi söz konusu zira. kitabında bizzat auerbach söylüyor bunu. peki hal böyleyken imkansızlıklar içinde nasıl tamamlanıyor ve bu denli başarılı oluyor bu çalışma? klişe tabirle söylemek gerekirse, imkansızlığın gücünü kullanarak.
auerbach "batı edebiyatında gerçekiliğin tasviri" gibi sonsuz sınırsız genişleyebilecek başlığını sınırlandıryor öncelikle. gerçekliğin tasvirini, temsili demek kesinlikle daha doğru geliyor, hangi ölçütlerle inceleyeceğini belirliyor ve kitabın başından sonuna bu ölçütlerin dışına hiç çıkmıyor, konu asla dağılmıyor. sonra yöntem meselesine geliyor, burada bilgi, birikim, deha her şey var artık. auerbach her bölüm için dönemini temsil gücü yüksek bir eser seçiyor. eserden alıntılar yapıyor, alıntıladığı metni sınırlandırdığı ölçütleri üzerinden inceliyor. eseri dönemindeki ya da başka dönemlerdeki eserlerle karşılaştırıyor. böylece içerik zenginleşiyor, çok katmanlı hale geliyor ve kronolojik olarak açıklıkla izlenebiliyor.
auerbach'ın analizlerinde neler var: eserin zamanına, arka planına dair bilgiler, dönemin anlatı kuralları-kalıpları, yazarın bu kalıplara ne kadar bağlı kaldığı ne kadar zorladığı. yazarın toplumsal konumu, eserine konu olan kişilerin sosyal konumu. konunun sınırlandırılmış hali bu, evet. somutlaşırmak gerekirse, homeros'la başlayıp virginia woolf'la tamamlanıyor kitap. bu da eşittir: ayrıcalıklı kişilerin ve büyük olayların anlatısı olarak başlayan edebiyatın, sıradan kişilerin iç dünyalarının anlatısına dönüşümü.
mimesis'in güncel kalmasının, eskimeyecek olmasının da açık bir sebebi var: auerbach eser incelemelerini sadece metin üzerinden yapıyor. cümlelerden, tek tek kelime seçimlerimden bile çıkarımlar, hem de harika çıkarımlar yapıyor ama metnin dışına çıkmıyor. kurama hiç ama hiç girmiyor. akımlar, dönem ayrımları, kavramlaştırmalar, meselenin özünden koparacak hiçbir şeyle ilgilenmiyor.
mimesis'i okumayı düşünenlere bir fikir verebildiğimi umuyorum buraya kadar. kitap elbette su gibi akmıyor ancak çok zor bir okuma değil kesinlikle. zorluk-kolaylıktan ziyade ayrılacak zamana, verilecek çabaya göre maksimum fayda veren bir kitap mimesis: edebiyatın tüm yolculuğu, 3000 yıl!..özellikle roman okurlarını, belli başlı eserleri-yazarları okumuş olan herkesi hem bilgi hem bakış açısı hem de okuduğu-okuyacağı kitapların analizi konusunda zenginleştirecektir kesinlikle.
bunları belirttikten sonra 1946 yılına dönmek istiyorum. mimesis'in türkiye hikayesi kadar mimesis özelinde bir türkiye hikayesi de var çünkü. değinmesem olmayacak. mimesis 1946 yılında yayımlanıyor ilk kez. zamanla değeri anlaşılıyor, tüm avrupa dillerine çevriliyor, avrupayı aşıyor sonra, çin'e kadar gidiyor. her dilde, her ülkede, türkiye'de yazıldığı vurgusuyla yayımlanıyor. bu vurgunun zor şartlara, imkansızlıklara yönelik tarafını anlatmaya çalıştım. bunun dışında bizim için başka anlamları da olsa gerek. türkiye, imkansızlıkları kadar imkanı da bu kitabın çünkü. 1936 yılında auerbach'ı ülkeye davet eden, uzun yıllar çalışmasını sağlayan türkiye. mimesis'e değil, auerbach'a değil kendi geçmişine, geçmişteki vizyonuna bir saygısı olur diye düşünüyor insan. ama yok. türkiye'de yazılan bu değerli, anlamlı kitabı 73 yıl türkçeye çevirmemenin başka nasıl bir açıklaması olabilir?
bilinmemesi imkanız bir kitap, çevrilmesinin, basılmasının, okunmasının önünde engel yok. umursamamaktan başka bir sebep, bahane bulmak zor. belki böyle temel eserlere ihtiyacımız yok artık. temelimizi çoktan kaybettik. bilmiyorum. ithaki yayınları 2019'da türkiye'de herkes bu kitabı bekliyormuş gibi bir hava yarattı, sonra kitabı basıp dağıttıktan sonra hatalı baskı yaptığı ortaya çıktı, hatalı baskıyı toplatıp yeniden yayınladı. sonrası sessizlik. büyük sessizlik. kitap bir tarafa, her şey bir tarafa, insan 1936'nın umuduna, bugünün umutsuzluğuna bakıp üzülüyor. bu son cümlenin ardından iyimser bir cümle yazarak bitirmek için çok düşündüm.
auerbach'ı mimesis çalışmasının başlangıcında düşünelim. 1942 olsa gerek. malum sebeplerle ülkesinden ayrılmak zorunda kalmış, davet üzerine türkiye'ye yerleşmiş, 1936'dan beri istanbul üniversitesi'nde görev yapıyor. ülkesinin, dünyanın, insanlığın durumu vahim. belki uzaklaşmak için belki tam tersine şartlar böyle olduğu için, başyapıtını yazmak, tamamlamak istiyor. tam anlamıyla başyapıt olacak bir kitap. iddialı, çok iddialı: edebiyatın 3000 yılını konu edinecek, 3000 yılı edebiyat eserleri üzerinden anlatacak. bir ömrün birikimiyle, emeğiyle yazma aşamasına gelmiş artık. ama istanbul'da kütüphane yok, araştırma imkanı yok, eserini tamamlaması için gerekli kitapların neredeyse hiçbiri yok.
mimesis'in kapsamının 3000 yıl olması temel eser vasfını açıklarken, imkansızlıklar içinde yazılması da efsane diyebileceğimiz, mucize diyebileceğimiz şeyler çağrıştırıyor. normal şartlarda böyle iddialı bir çalışmanın başarılı olma şansı bir tarafa, bu çabaya girişilmesi bile cesaret, çalışmanın hiç bitmemesi söz konusu zira. kitabında bizzat auerbach söylüyor bunu. peki hal böyleyken imkansızlıklar içinde nasıl tamamlanıyor ve bu denli başarılı oluyor bu çalışma? klişe tabirle söylemek gerekirse, imkansızlığın gücünü kullanarak.
auerbach "batı edebiyatında gerçekiliğin tasviri" gibi sonsuz sınırsız genişleyebilecek başlığını sınırlandıryor öncelikle. gerçekliğin tasvirini, temsili demek kesinlikle daha doğru geliyor, hangi ölçütlerle inceleyeceğini belirliyor ve kitabın başından sonuna bu ölçütlerin dışına hiç çıkmıyor, konu asla dağılmıyor. sonra yöntem meselesine geliyor, burada bilgi, birikim, deha her şey var artık. auerbach her bölüm için dönemini temsil gücü yüksek bir eser seçiyor. eserden alıntılar yapıyor, alıntıladığı metni sınırlandırdığı ölçütleri üzerinden inceliyor. eseri dönemindeki ya da başka dönemlerdeki eserlerle karşılaştırıyor. böylece içerik zenginleşiyor, çok katmanlı hale geliyor ve kronolojik olarak açıklıkla izlenebiliyor.
auerbach'ın analizlerinde neler var: eserin zamanına, arka planına dair bilgiler, dönemin anlatı kuralları-kalıpları, yazarın bu kalıplara ne kadar bağlı kaldığı ne kadar zorladığı. yazarın toplumsal konumu, eserine konu olan kişilerin sosyal konumu. konunun sınırlandırılmış hali bu, evet. somutlaşırmak gerekirse, homeros'la başlayıp virginia woolf'la tamamlanıyor kitap. bu da eşittir: ayrıcalıklı kişilerin ve büyük olayların anlatısı olarak başlayan edebiyatın, sıradan kişilerin iç dünyalarının anlatısına dönüşümü.
mimesis'in güncel kalmasının, eskimeyecek olmasının da açık bir sebebi var: auerbach eser incelemelerini sadece metin üzerinden yapıyor. cümlelerden, tek tek kelime seçimlerimden bile çıkarımlar, hem de harika çıkarımlar yapıyor ama metnin dışına çıkmıyor. kurama hiç ama hiç girmiyor. akımlar, dönem ayrımları, kavramlaştırmalar, meselenin özünden koparacak hiçbir şeyle ilgilenmiyor.
mimesis'i okumayı düşünenlere bir fikir verebildiğimi umuyorum buraya kadar. kitap elbette su gibi akmıyor ancak çok zor bir okuma değil kesinlikle. zorluk-kolaylıktan ziyade ayrılacak zamana, verilecek çabaya göre maksimum fayda veren bir kitap mimesis: edebiyatın tüm yolculuğu, 3000 yıl!..özellikle roman okurlarını, belli başlı eserleri-yazarları okumuş olan herkesi hem bilgi hem bakış açısı hem de okuduğu-okuyacağı kitapların analizi konusunda zenginleştirecektir kesinlikle.
bunları belirttikten sonra 1946 yılına dönmek istiyorum. mimesis'in türkiye hikayesi kadar mimesis özelinde bir türkiye hikayesi de var çünkü. değinmesem olmayacak. mimesis 1946 yılında yayımlanıyor ilk kez. zamanla değeri anlaşılıyor, tüm avrupa dillerine çevriliyor, avrupayı aşıyor sonra, çin'e kadar gidiyor. her dilde, her ülkede, türkiye'de yazıldığı vurgusuyla yayımlanıyor. bu vurgunun zor şartlara, imkansızlıklara yönelik tarafını anlatmaya çalıştım. bunun dışında bizim için başka anlamları da olsa gerek. türkiye, imkansızlıkları kadar imkanı da bu kitabın çünkü. 1936 yılında auerbach'ı ülkeye davet eden, uzun yıllar çalışmasını sağlayan türkiye. mimesis'e değil, auerbach'a değil kendi geçmişine, geçmişteki vizyonuna bir saygısı olur diye düşünüyor insan. ama yok. türkiye'de yazılan bu değerli, anlamlı kitabı 73 yıl türkçeye çevirmemenin başka nasıl bir açıklaması olabilir?
bilinmemesi imkanız bir kitap, çevrilmesinin, basılmasının, okunmasının önünde engel yok. umursamamaktan başka bir sebep, bahane bulmak zor. belki böyle temel eserlere ihtiyacımız yok artık. temelimizi çoktan kaybettik. bilmiyorum. ithaki yayınları 2019'da türkiye'de herkes bu kitabı bekliyormuş gibi bir hava yarattı, sonra kitabı basıp dağıttıktan sonra hatalı baskı yaptığı ortaya çıktı, hatalı baskıyı toplatıp yeniden yayınladı. sonrası sessizlik. büyük sessizlik. kitap bir tarafa, her şey bir tarafa, insan 1936'nın umuduna, bugünün umutsuzluğuna bakıp üzülüyor. bu son cümlenin ardından iyimser bir cümle yazarak bitirmek için çok düşündüm.
November 8, 2019
If Borges, writer of reflections, labyrinths and expanses can be called master of the infinite, then Auerbach must be that of the finite. For Mimesis is a work which not only takes the limitations of literary representation for its subject, but is selfsame spawned from finitude, tragic and wholly contingent. Exiled into a foreign library, with but a ramshackle supply of scholarship to consult, Auerbach ventures quixotically to trace from sheer erudition the development of historical consciousness through the ages. We learn of the epochal struggles to delimit an autonomous realm for the aesthetic; the unfathomability of depicting the phenomenal excess of everyday reality up until the modernist present.
Speaking of his contemporary literary condition, Auerbach details the new temporal aesthetic of the novel. In the masterpieces of Flaubert, then Woolf, Proust and Joyce, time thickens, becomes congealed, such that exterior events turn into stations of repose for a multi-perspectival subjectivity; the quiet, dignified sublime of the quotidian moment once and for all abolishes the ancient hierarchies of literary expression, and in this movement, claims Auerbach, lies the potential for an trans-linguistic, post-national aesthetic. An optimistic prediction, to be sure, especially in light of the postmodern "crisis of representation" still to come, with its splintering of totalities into so many local idioms. Inevitably Auerbach's great work, as the author himself confesses in an elegiac closing passage, is circumscribed, as all before and after, by the course of time.
Speaking of his contemporary literary condition, Auerbach details the new temporal aesthetic of the novel. In the masterpieces of Flaubert, then Woolf, Proust and Joyce, time thickens, becomes congealed, such that exterior events turn into stations of repose for a multi-perspectival subjectivity; the quiet, dignified sublime of the quotidian moment once and for all abolishes the ancient hierarchies of literary expression, and in this movement, claims Auerbach, lies the potential for an trans-linguistic, post-national aesthetic. An optimistic prediction, to be sure, especially in light of the postmodern "crisis of representation" still to come, with its splintering of totalities into so many local idioms. Inevitably Auerbach's great work, as the author himself confesses in an elegiac closing passage, is circumscribed, as all before and after, by the course of time.
July 15, 2023
Edebiyata derinlemesine merakı olanlara hitap eden çok özel bir çalışma. 3,000 yıllık bir tarihi kapsayan dönemde Homeros’tan Virginia Woolf’a uzanan bir spektrumda Batı edebiyatında gerçekliğin temsilinin, seçilen metinler temelinde analizi yapılıyor. Edebiyat eserlerine bakış açınıza ciddi katkılar sağlayabilecek bir eser özetle. İncelemeye alınan bazı yazarların en azından benim için marjinal/bilinmez veya eskimiş olması, bazı bölümlerde fazla teknik detaya girilmesi kitabın eksileri. Öte yandan, özellikle antik dönemden fazla bilinmeyen ilginç yazarların incelenmesi ise artılarından.
İthaki Yayınevi, 1942-45 döneminde İstanbul’da çok sınırlı koşullarda kaleme alınan (Auerbach 1930’larda Nazi zulmünden kaçıp Türkiye’de çalışma imkanı bulan Yahudi kökenli Alman akademisyenlerden) ve Almanca özgün metni 1946’da basılan kitabı, ancak 2019’da dilimize çevrilip basılmasını sağladığı için takdiri hak ediyor.
Ancak ilk basımdaki bazı hatalardan ötürü bu çevirinin toplatılıp tekrar basıldığı söyleniyor. Bu hatalar şimdi değineceğim şeyler mi bilmiyorum ama benim okuduğum çeviride okumayı, anlamayı zorlaştıran çok ciddi bir eksiklik var. 329. sayfaya kadar kitapta özgün diliyle (Latince, İtalyanca, Fransızca� vs) yer verilen alıntıların çevirisi yapılmamış, nedense kitabın yarısında bu alıntılar çevrilmeye başlanmış ve son kısma eklenmiş! Ayrıca bu görece uzun alıntılar dışında 640 sayfalık kitabın tamamında yer alan çok kısa alıntılar da sadece özgün dilleriyle konulmuş! Yani bu dilleri bilmiyorsanız alıntılara “fransız� kalıyorsunuz! Bu bence yayınevi bakımından muazzam bir özensizlik, umursamazlık�
İthaki Yayınevi, 1942-45 döneminde İstanbul’da çok sınırlı koşullarda kaleme alınan (Auerbach 1930’larda Nazi zulmünden kaçıp Türkiye’de çalışma imkanı bulan Yahudi kökenli Alman akademisyenlerden) ve Almanca özgün metni 1946’da basılan kitabı, ancak 2019’da dilimize çevrilip basılmasını sağladığı için takdiri hak ediyor.
Ancak ilk basımdaki bazı hatalardan ötürü bu çevirinin toplatılıp tekrar basıldığı söyleniyor. Bu hatalar şimdi değineceğim şeyler mi bilmiyorum ama benim okuduğum çeviride okumayı, anlamayı zorlaştıran çok ciddi bir eksiklik var. 329. sayfaya kadar kitapta özgün diliyle (Latince, İtalyanca, Fransızca� vs) yer verilen alıntıların çevirisi yapılmamış, nedense kitabın yarısında bu alıntılar çevrilmeye başlanmış ve son kısma eklenmiş! Ayrıca bu görece uzun alıntılar dışında 640 sayfalık kitabın tamamında yer alan çok kısa alıntılar da sadece özgün dilleriyle konulmuş! Yani bu dilleri bilmiyorsanız alıntılara “fransız� kalıyorsunuz! Bu bence yayınevi bakımından muazzam bir özensizlik, umursamazlık�
January 21, 2024
Nema u "Mimesisu" onog odviše diskurzivnog obnaživanja u predgovoru, jer predgovora, uostalom, nema. Problem se zato jasno očitava u podnaslovu - "Prikazivanje stvarnosti u zapadnoevropskoj knjizevnosti" - koji u neku ruku predstavlja sabijeni predgovor. Auerbah je, reklo bi se, u saglasju sa onim Hristićevim stavom prema kome teorijski tekst treba da bude zavodljiv u postupnom razotkrivanju, poput dobre proze. Možda me zato ona druga teorijska literatura glavnicom odbija, jer se tamo sve što je bilo važno dokazati, iznosi unapred [Prosti, Bahtine, u "Stvaralaštvu Fransoa Rablea...", ti si to uradio!], tako da je preostalo još samo da se minuciozno razlaže. Ili razglaba.
U začetku svakog (narednog) poglavlja, Auerbah nudi insert narativa koji će potom zajedno promatrati s čitaocem. To povlači interpretativno udruživanje (Joj, šta li ćemo pronaći na malom uzorku!) ili samostalno interpretativno ogledanje (Ček, ček da probam nešto da uvidim i sam, pre nego što prepustim caru carevo!), to jest ako se nestrpljivost uspe suzbiti. Proučavani isečak podrazumeva lekovitu konkretnost, na petoparcu. Stoga, iako je svrsishodno poznavati čitavo delo o kome je reč - tek smo tu čašćavani - nije postidno ni što (u)poznajemo samo datu komadešku. Izlišno je govoriti o tome da onde gde nema primera, sve može otklizati dođavola, u praznoslovlje. Teorija kopa rupu u koju će sama da se uruši.
Svest o celini (knjige i književnosti) iskrsava u hodu, tokom ispisivanja. Čitalac, recimo, s ushićenjem pamti skokove u protospektivne analogije ili, s druge strane, ne otpočne li redom, rado će istupati ka retrospektivnim uputnicama. Ako li se u knjigu ulazi tumbe ili fragmentarno, dobijaju se podsetnice/smernice, pa se "Mimesis" neumitno konstituiše. Na ovaj ili onaj način, sinhronijski i(li) dijahronijski, zaokružuje se total.
Auerbahov komparativni talenat, onaj od najizvrsnije sorte kakav nikada ne beži od vrednovanja - in your face Studijama kulture - vidljiv je svuda: unutar aktuelnog poglavlja, u linearnom doticaju poglavljâ, u udaljenim poglavljima. [Primer? Hint: Koji postupak povezuje Petronija i Prusta! Zašto Dante a ne Bokačo?] Primamljivi izazov "Mimesisa"jeste to što saputništvo traje sa sveukupnošću onoga što se ovde, pomalo neprecizno - zna to Auerbah naravno, kao što zna i šta sve izostavlja ili simplifikuje*, pa se stoga i izvinjava** - naziva zapadnoevropskom književnošću: u lancu od "Odiseje" i "Starog Zaveta", do Prusta, Džojsa i Virdžinije Vulf.
Ukoliko se knjiga čita sukcesivno - svesrdno preporučujem! - lepota i težina su u otkrivajućem totalitetu, u (samo)razumljivosti i samoosvešćivanju procesa. Sledeći auerbahovski akt priznanja, beskrajno mi je krivo što sam "Mimesis", poput svakog prosečnog studenta knjizevnosti, saznavao samo u parcijalu. Znate već ono: "Odisejev ožiljak", "Farinata", "Fra Alberto", "Svet u Pantagruelovim ustima", "U kući De La Mol", "Začarana Dulsineja"... U vezi s ovom poslednjom: podsticajan je Erih čak i onda kada promaši, mada, naknadno upoznat s idejom-vodiljom, uviđam ispravnost tog promašaja. Jer "Mimesis" se, ponad svega, vrhuni u nespoznatim očiglednostima. Čim se truizam ovaploti, on to namah prestaje da bude, postavši otkriće - recimo: šta za književnost praktično znači prelazak s latinskog (crkvenog) na narodni jezik - kao što se i pronicljivost teorijskog nauma, vrhuni u svojoj jednostavnosti: Kada, kako i zašto ono nisko, svakidašnje i obično postaje mogućno prikazati bez ismejavanja, s (tragičkom) ozbiljnošću?
U svakom slučaju, čitava ova tiradna slavopojka mogla se etiketirati:
Književno-teorijska Biblija.
*Citat koji doživljam pritajeno autoironično-referentnim:"Pisanje istorije je toliko teško da je većina istoričara prisiljena da čini ustupke tehnici legende." a legenda, reći će se, ne trpi trenje i sve ono što joj se protivstavlja.
**Auerbah isečke analizira uglavnom na njihovom izvornom jeziku. Umalo nisam pao sa stolice u trenutku kada se Auerbah uz izvinjenje ograđuje od toga što ne secira dela ruske književnosti, budući da ne barata ruskim i da to onda ne bi bilo pošteno, a sve nakon što je pedantno lingvo-stilistički analizirao segmente na latinskom, italijanskom, francuskom, španskom, engleskom, delimice i starogrčkom, i napokon nemačkom. A šta tek reći o osobenom kontekstu u kome "Mimesis" nastaje: Istanbul, tokom II sv. rata, kada mu kao izbeglici većina neophodne literature nije bila dostupna. Puna jedra humanizma!
U začetku svakog (narednog) poglavlja, Auerbah nudi insert narativa koji će potom zajedno promatrati s čitaocem. To povlači interpretativno udruživanje (Joj, šta li ćemo pronaći na malom uzorku!) ili samostalno interpretativno ogledanje (Ček, ček da probam nešto da uvidim i sam, pre nego što prepustim caru carevo!), to jest ako se nestrpljivost uspe suzbiti. Proučavani isečak podrazumeva lekovitu konkretnost, na petoparcu. Stoga, iako je svrsishodno poznavati čitavo delo o kome je reč - tek smo tu čašćavani - nije postidno ni što (u)poznajemo samo datu komadešku. Izlišno je govoriti o tome da onde gde nema primera, sve može otklizati dođavola, u praznoslovlje. Teorija kopa rupu u koju će sama da se uruši.
Svest o celini (knjige i književnosti) iskrsava u hodu, tokom ispisivanja. Čitalac, recimo, s ushićenjem pamti skokove u protospektivne analogije ili, s druge strane, ne otpočne li redom, rado će istupati ka retrospektivnim uputnicama. Ako li se u knjigu ulazi tumbe ili fragmentarno, dobijaju se podsetnice/smernice, pa se "Mimesis" neumitno konstituiše. Na ovaj ili onaj način, sinhronijski i(li) dijahronijski, zaokružuje se total.
Auerbahov komparativni talenat, onaj od najizvrsnije sorte kakav nikada ne beži od vrednovanja - in your face Studijama kulture - vidljiv je svuda: unutar aktuelnog poglavlja, u linearnom doticaju poglavljâ, u udaljenim poglavljima. [Primer? Hint: Koji postupak povezuje Petronija i Prusta! Zašto Dante a ne Bokačo?] Primamljivi izazov "Mimesisa"jeste to što saputništvo traje sa sveukupnošću onoga što se ovde, pomalo neprecizno - zna to Auerbah naravno, kao što zna i šta sve izostavlja ili simplifikuje*, pa se stoga i izvinjava** - naziva zapadnoevropskom književnošću: u lancu od "Odiseje" i "Starog Zaveta", do Prusta, Džojsa i Virdžinije Vulf.
Ukoliko se knjiga čita sukcesivno - svesrdno preporučujem! - lepota i težina su u otkrivajućem totalitetu, u (samo)razumljivosti i samoosvešćivanju procesa. Sledeći auerbahovski akt priznanja, beskrajno mi je krivo što sam "Mimesis", poput svakog prosečnog studenta knjizevnosti, saznavao samo u parcijalu. Znate već ono: "Odisejev ožiljak", "Farinata", "Fra Alberto", "Svet u Pantagruelovim ustima", "U kući De La Mol", "Začarana Dulsineja"... U vezi s ovom poslednjom: podsticajan je Erih čak i onda kada promaši, mada, naknadno upoznat s idejom-vodiljom, uviđam ispravnost tog promašaja. Jer "Mimesis" se, ponad svega, vrhuni u nespoznatim očiglednostima. Čim se truizam ovaploti, on to namah prestaje da bude, postavši otkriće - recimo: šta za književnost praktično znači prelazak s latinskog (crkvenog) na narodni jezik - kao što se i pronicljivost teorijskog nauma, vrhuni u svojoj jednostavnosti: Kada, kako i zašto ono nisko, svakidašnje i obično postaje mogućno prikazati bez ismejavanja, s (tragičkom) ozbiljnošću?
U svakom slučaju, čitava ova tiradna slavopojka mogla se etiketirati:
Književno-teorijska Biblija.
*Citat koji doživljam pritajeno autoironično-referentnim:"Pisanje istorije je toliko teško da je većina istoričara prisiljena da čini ustupke tehnici legende." a legenda, reći će se, ne trpi trenje i sve ono što joj se protivstavlja.
**Auerbah isečke analizira uglavnom na njihovom izvornom jeziku. Umalo nisam pao sa stolice u trenutku kada se Auerbah uz izvinjenje ograđuje od toga što ne secira dela ruske književnosti, budući da ne barata ruskim i da to onda ne bi bilo pošteno, a sve nakon što je pedantno lingvo-stilistički analizirao segmente na latinskom, italijanskom, francuskom, španskom, engleskom, delimice i starogrčkom, i napokon nemačkom. A šta tek reći o osobenom kontekstu u kome "Mimesis" nastaje: Istanbul, tokom II sv. rata, kada mu kao izbeglici većina neophodne literature nije bila dostupna. Puna jedra humanizma!
June 2, 2019
Mimesis
By Erich Auerbach (1892-1957)
Auerbach was a German philologue, literature critic and author of the German Romantic tradition.
‘Mimesis� or by the subtitle ‘Imitation of Reality in Western Literature� is a work of Philological analysis of selected chapters of outstanding works of literature since the beginning of records.
Instead of providing a definition to explain his aim, the author takes the reader to comparisons of historical and linguistic aspects.
-By Homer in the Odyssey; the return of Ulysses to Penelope
-The Old Testament by early Hebraic authors; God’s test of Abraham’s faith.
-Petronius’s Satyricon.
-Ammianus Marcellinus� report of the arrestation of Petrus Volvomeres.
-Grégoire de Tours' Histoire des Francs.
-Rolands Song; how he was appointed to lead the rearguard of the French army.
-Chretien de Troyes� Yvain, the story of one of King Arthurs knights.
-Adam, a mystery Christmas play of the 12th century, by anonymous.
-Dante Alighieri’s Devine Comedy, Farinata and Cavalcante.
-Boccaccio’s Decameron, Frate Alberto.
-Antoine de la Sale’s Madame du Chastel.
-Rabelais� Pantagruel.
-Montaigne's� Essais, the Human condition.
-Shakespeare's Henry IV., the tired Prince.
-Cervantes Don Quijote; Dulcinea bewitched.
-La Bruyere’s Caracteres; The Hypocrite.
-Abbé Prevost's Manon Lescaut.
-Schiller's drama Luise Millerin.
-Stendhal’s Rouge et Noire; Hotel de la Mole.
-Brothers Goncourt’s Germinie Lacerteux.
-Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse;
We can see that the author's selection of literature covers almost three thousand years.
His proposed chapters are presented in its original language.
It is, therefore, an advantage for the reader to be multilingual for easy reading and understanding.
This book is for me the first purely Philological work with a wealth of culture revealed in each chapter.
I would highly recommend it to all readers of classics and lovers of literature per se.
September 21, 2008
This thing blew my mind.
January 4, 2013
This book is encompassing and mind-bending in that specifically unique way that will make some people revere it like a religious text and will drive other people absolutely nuts.
As you can see from all the stars I threw at it in my rating, I lean more towards the former camp. I can very much understand why/how someone would wind up disagreeing with Auerbach's thesis (and even more so with his methodology in getting there), but at the same time this book has such an open, ambitious, and kind of lovely approach to literature that I couldn't help but falling in love with it a little. And I honestly do believe that reading it will make you a better reader and a better writer.
Auerbach's main theme is the issue of how reality is represented in literature, particularly how a relatively strict separation of styles and classes gave way in slips and bursts towards a more modern sense of realism in which everyday accidentals could be imbued with tragic weight. He traces the main impetus behind this trend to Christianity, particularly the manner in which the story of Christ broke down traditional literary barriers by allotting tragic weight and grand importance to people who were frequently from the lowest classes of society. This, however, did not immediately lead to a modern sense of realistic representation, predominantly because Christianity also brought with it the concept of figuralism - the idea that every little detail to be represented stands not only for itself, but something in the future and the past, all the better to tie together universal history in a Christian framework. Dante's Comedy is particularly key for Auerbach in this argument. Modern realism takes longer to get going, needing to proceed through a labyrinth of expressions from Shakespeare's limited mixing of styles to neo-classicism in the 18th century, and leading to the birth of modern realism in the Romantic movement.
That's a summary that really doesn't do justice to the work, which is just bursting at the seams with ideas and observations. Auerbach clearly knows loads of stuff about loads of things, and he brings all of it to work for him here - the work covers a solid 3,000 years of literary history but never feels too diffuse. I think a lot of that is because Auerbach grounds all of his chapters in specific, concrete texts. That opens him up to accusations that he simply cherry-picked unrepresentative examples to suit his case, and that's a fair point (and one that Auerbach is explicitly acknowledges). But I think on the whole he makes a compelling case, and this work deserves 5 stars if only for its sheer breadth of ambition and imagination.
PS: It's an undeniably dense book, but one that can be understood even if you're not familiar with literary theory (I'm definitely not) and even if you haven't read all the works he spotlights. I'd love to hear how a modern literary scholar would view this work.
As you can see from all the stars I threw at it in my rating, I lean more towards the former camp. I can very much understand why/how someone would wind up disagreeing with Auerbach's thesis (and even more so with his methodology in getting there), but at the same time this book has such an open, ambitious, and kind of lovely approach to literature that I couldn't help but falling in love with it a little. And I honestly do believe that reading it will make you a better reader and a better writer.
Auerbach's main theme is the issue of how reality is represented in literature, particularly how a relatively strict separation of styles and classes gave way in slips and bursts towards a more modern sense of realism in which everyday accidentals could be imbued with tragic weight. He traces the main impetus behind this trend to Christianity, particularly the manner in which the story of Christ broke down traditional literary barriers by allotting tragic weight and grand importance to people who were frequently from the lowest classes of society. This, however, did not immediately lead to a modern sense of realistic representation, predominantly because Christianity also brought with it the concept of figuralism - the idea that every little detail to be represented stands not only for itself, but something in the future and the past, all the better to tie together universal history in a Christian framework. Dante's Comedy is particularly key for Auerbach in this argument. Modern realism takes longer to get going, needing to proceed through a labyrinth of expressions from Shakespeare's limited mixing of styles to neo-classicism in the 18th century, and leading to the birth of modern realism in the Romantic movement.
That's a summary that really doesn't do justice to the work, which is just bursting at the seams with ideas and observations. Auerbach clearly knows loads of stuff about loads of things, and he brings all of it to work for him here - the work covers a solid 3,000 years of literary history but never feels too diffuse. I think a lot of that is because Auerbach grounds all of his chapters in specific, concrete texts. That opens him up to accusations that he simply cherry-picked unrepresentative examples to suit his case, and that's a fair point (and one that Auerbach is explicitly acknowledges). But I think on the whole he makes a compelling case, and this work deserves 5 stars if only for its sheer breadth of ambition and imagination.
PS: It's an undeniably dense book, but one that can be understood even if you're not familiar with literary theory (I'm definitely not) and even if you haven't read all the works he spotlights. I'd love to hear how a modern literary scholar would view this work.
September 28, 2021
Raccolta di saggi imprescindibile.
June 4, 2019
Mimesis
By Erich Auerbach (1892-1957)
Auerbach was a German philologue, literature critic and author of the German Romantic tradition.
‘Mimesis� or by the subtitle ‘Imitation of Reality in Western Literature� is a work of Philological analysis of selected chapters of outstanding works of literature since the beginning of records.
Instead of providing a definition to explain his aim, the author takes the reader to comparisons of historical and linguistic aspects.
-By Homer in the Odyssey; the return of Ulysses to Penelope
-The Old Testament by early Hebraic authors; God’s test of Abraham’s faith.
-Petronius’s Satyricon.
-Ammianus Marcellinus� report of the arrestation of Petrus Volvomeres.
-Grégoire de Tours' Histoire des Francs.
-Rolands Song; how he was appointed to lead the rearguard of the French army.
-Chretien de Troyes� Yvain, the story of one of King Arthurs knights.
-Adam, a mystery Christmas play of the 12th century, by anonymous.
-Dante Alighieri’s Devine Comedy, Farinata and Cavalcante.
-Boccaccio’s Decameron, Frate Alberto.
-Antoine de la Sale’s Madame du Chastel.
-Rabelais� Pantagruel.
-Montaigne's� Essais, the Human condition.
-Shakespeare's Henry IV., the tired Prince.
-Cervantes Don Quijote; Dulcinea bewitched.
-La Bruyere’s Caracteres; The Hypocrite.
-Abbé Prevost's Manon Lescaut.
-Schiller's drama Luise Millerin.
-Stendhal’s Rouge et Noire; Hotel de la Mole.
-Brothers Goncourt’s Germinie Lacerteux.
-Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse;
We can see that the author's selection of literature covers almost three thousand years.
His proposed chapters are presented in its original language.
It is, therefore, an advantage for the reader to be multilingual for easy reading and understanding.
This book is for me the first purely Philological work with a wealth of culture revealed in each chapter.
I would highly recommend it to all readers of classics and lovers of literature per se.
By Erich Auerbach (1892-1957)
Auerbach was a German philologue, literature critic and author of the German Romantic tradition.
‘Mimesis� or by the subtitle ‘Imitation of Reality in Western Literature� is a work of Philological analysis of selected chapters of outstanding works of literature since the beginning of records.
Instead of providing a definition to explain his aim, the author takes the reader to comparisons of historical and linguistic aspects.
-By Homer in the Odyssey; the return of Ulysses to Penelope
-The Old Testament by early Hebraic authors; God’s test of Abraham’s faith.
-Petronius’s Satyricon.
-Ammianus Marcellinus� report of the arrestation of Petrus Volvomeres.
-Grégoire de Tours' Histoire des Francs.
-Rolands Song; how he was appointed to lead the rearguard of the French army.
-Chretien de Troyes� Yvain, the story of one of King Arthurs knights.
-Adam, a mystery Christmas play of the 12th century, by anonymous.
-Dante Alighieri’s Devine Comedy, Farinata and Cavalcante.
-Boccaccio’s Decameron, Frate Alberto.
-Antoine de la Sale’s Madame du Chastel.
-Rabelais� Pantagruel.
-Montaigne's� Essais, the Human condition.
-Shakespeare's Henry IV., the tired Prince.
-Cervantes Don Quijote; Dulcinea bewitched.
-La Bruyere’s Caracteres; The Hypocrite.
-Abbé Prevost's Manon Lescaut.
-Schiller's drama Luise Millerin.
-Stendhal’s Rouge et Noire; Hotel de la Mole.
-Brothers Goncourt’s Germinie Lacerteux.
-Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse;
We can see that the author's selection of literature covers almost three thousand years.
His proposed chapters are presented in its original language.
It is, therefore, an advantage for the reader to be multilingual for easy reading and understanding.
This book is for me the first purely Philological work with a wealth of culture revealed in each chapter.
I would highly recommend it to all readers of classics and lovers of literature per se.
May 15, 2015
I read this in a reading/discussion group with Dr. Richard Stivers, Dr. James Van Der Laan, Rochelle Stivers, and Brian Simpson while in Normal at ISU and finished 18 months after moving to Urbana.
We read a chapter a month (basically) and also read whichever book went along with that chapter. I am not sure when we started but it took us a couple of years. Before reading the final chapter and Woolf's To the Lighthouse we read several other books from around that time frame that were not covered by Auerbach.
I would love to do this again some day with other intelligent, well read, interested, and interesting people.
We read a chapter a month (basically) and also read whichever book went along with that chapter. I am not sure when we started but it took us a couple of years. Before reading the final chapter and Woolf's To the Lighthouse we read several other books from around that time frame that were not covered by Auerbach.
I would love to do this again some day with other intelligent, well read, interested, and interesting people.
January 27, 2023
Just staggering. Leaving aside the erudition required to assimilate so many texts in so many different languages, Auerbach writes with such piercing clarity, stripped of excess, penetrating directly into the the given text. I thought his study on Dante was magnificent, and it's frankly astonishing that he could write that well not just about Dante but, as it turns out, about the whole of European literature.
January 16, 2019
I will not to attempt to review a book of this scope. I will briefly say that Auerbach's intention was to show how literature through the ages interpret reality. He starts with Ancient Greek saga and compares it with Bible epics and shows the different intentions in each.
He moves on to the lore of the middle ages and the impact Christianity had on that literature. He also analyzes the enlightenment and gives one of the most piercing and scathing observations about Voltaire's work. I must say I enjoyed Auerbach reinforcing what I had always thought about Voltaire, namely that the author creates fantasy worlds to prove his enlightenment points. Voltaire loved stretching reality out of proportion and depicting people as buffoons as if this really showed how things were and why his personal philosophy held water.
Another observation he makes about several authors from Voltaire's time to the 20th century is how the Bourgeoisie become the universal scapegoats as to what is wrong with the world. And who is condemning and holding them in contempt? Author and artists from the elite wealthy class who consider it immoral that the middle class should work hard for the material comforts that they, the elite were born into.
His final essay is about Virginia Woolf and really all I learned is that I do not find her a particularly interesting writer. He quotes great swathes of her "To The Lighthouse" which seems bogged down in trivial minutia.
This is a valuable read, but also a weighty one and I am sure someone more intelligent than me could do better justice in reviewing it.
He moves on to the lore of the middle ages and the impact Christianity had on that literature. He also analyzes the enlightenment and gives one of the most piercing and scathing observations about Voltaire's work. I must say I enjoyed Auerbach reinforcing what I had always thought about Voltaire, namely that the author creates fantasy worlds to prove his enlightenment points. Voltaire loved stretching reality out of proportion and depicting people as buffoons as if this really showed how things were and why his personal philosophy held water.
Another observation he makes about several authors from Voltaire's time to the 20th century is how the Bourgeoisie become the universal scapegoats as to what is wrong with the world. And who is condemning and holding them in contempt? Author and artists from the elite wealthy class who consider it immoral that the middle class should work hard for the material comforts that they, the elite were born into.
His final essay is about Virginia Woolf and really all I learned is that I do not find her a particularly interesting writer. He quotes great swathes of her "To The Lighthouse" which seems bogged down in trivial minutia.
This is a valuable read, but also a weighty one and I am sure someone more intelligent than me could do better justice in reviewing it.
March 19, 2021
I’m a terrible guitarist. I can strum some Beatles songs, pluck along occasionally with a Modest Mouse tune...so why do I still play? Because it is the best way I’ve found to enhance my appreciation for all those wonderful musicians who can play.
In the same vein I read books like this which is above my skill level but still great at enhancing my enjoyment and appreciation of great literature. I could follow along the French parts fairly well but this is a challenging book with the various languages used and the scholarly level of the critical interpretation but as a microcosmic history of literary realism it’s fantastic, and that’s really what I was looking for.
In the same vein I read books like this which is above my skill level but still great at enhancing my enjoyment and appreciation of great literature. I could follow along the French parts fairly well but this is a challenging book with the various languages used and the scholarly level of the critical interpretation but as a microcosmic history of literary realism it’s fantastic, and that’s really what I was looking for.
July 14, 2021
Among literary criticism this book is a giant.
Strong meat indeed.
Strong meat indeed.
May 9, 2019
Mimesis is the kind of book that reminded me to be thankful for being literate. I've been reading so much, in such a habitual fashion, in many directions and to no particular end, I'd lost awareness of the giddy vastness of the literary expanse.
Anyone who wants to read seriously reads within Auerbach's chronology of Western literary evolution to some extent. It is extremely limited, as Auerbach admits, by his resources and ability. It only covers these works:
1. Odysseus' Scar -- Odyssey by Homer and Genesis 22
2. Fortunata -- Satyricon by Petronius, Annals Book 1 by Tacitus and Mark ch. 14
3. The Arrest of Peter Valvomeres -- Res Gestae by Ammianus Marcellinus
4. Sicharius and Chramnesindus -- History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours
5. Roland Against Ganelon -- Chanson de Roland
6. The Knight Sets Forth -- Yvain by Chrétien de Troyes
7. Adam and Eve -- The medieval mystery play Mystère d'Adam; St. Bernard of Clairvaux; St. Francis of Assisi
8. Farinata and Cavalcante -- Inferno, The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
9. Frate Alberto -- The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
10. Madame Du Chastel -- Le Réconfort de Madame du Fresne by Antoine de la Sale
11. The World in Pantagruel's Mouth -- Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
12. L'Humaine Condition -- Essays by Michel de Montaigne
13. The Weary Prince -- Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 by William Shakespeare
14. The Enchanted Dulcinea -- Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
15. The Faux Dévot -- Tartuffe by Molière
16. The Interrupted Supper -- Manon Lescaut by Abbé Prévost; Candide by Voltaire; Mémoires by Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon
17. Miller the Musician -- Luise Miller by Friedrich Schiller
18. In the Hôtel de la Mole -- The Red and the Black by Stendhal and Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
19. Germinie Lacerteux -- Germinie Lacerteux by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt and Germinal by Émile Zola
20. The Brown Stocking -- To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf and In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
A pretty paltry list, considering what is left out and, to a lesser extent, what is worthy of study since the time of publication. If Auerbach were immortal, I'm sure he would've used his time to write thousands pages more on the literature of the rest of the world, starting from Russia and steadily moving east. We must be reluctantly satisfied with the work of a mortal man.
I read Mimesis quite quickly, as I was always excited about what period of literary history Auerbach would jump into next, whether or not it was an author I knew of, or perhaps had even read, or if it was something I was entirely ignorant of. To the particularly neurotic character of a person with a ŷ account, he is brilliant, because he gives one a reading list that might take a decade to work through, while also offering lucid, compelling explorations into the styles of the texts and how they function. Perhaps if he was a little more boring, I would've been more compelled to take my time and take notes!
There's no real reason to read this book cover-to-cover unless you want to set yourself on a particular scholarly path through every text Auerbach mentions, but if you've read any of these books - you're missing out if you don't at least intend to read a few - Auerbach provides a new sense of appreciation in their aesthetic sensibility and significance. He writes without secondary sources because he didn't have access to any. If you've tried to write essays, that feat is worth exploration in and of itself.
Anyone who wants to read seriously reads within Auerbach's chronology of Western literary evolution to some extent. It is extremely limited, as Auerbach admits, by his resources and ability. It only covers these works:
1. Odysseus' Scar -- Odyssey by Homer and Genesis 22
2. Fortunata -- Satyricon by Petronius, Annals Book 1 by Tacitus and Mark ch. 14
3. The Arrest of Peter Valvomeres -- Res Gestae by Ammianus Marcellinus
4. Sicharius and Chramnesindus -- History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours
5. Roland Against Ganelon -- Chanson de Roland
6. The Knight Sets Forth -- Yvain by Chrétien de Troyes
7. Adam and Eve -- The medieval mystery play Mystère d'Adam; St. Bernard of Clairvaux; St. Francis of Assisi
8. Farinata and Cavalcante -- Inferno, The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
9. Frate Alberto -- The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
10. Madame Du Chastel -- Le Réconfort de Madame du Fresne by Antoine de la Sale
11. The World in Pantagruel's Mouth -- Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
12. L'Humaine Condition -- Essays by Michel de Montaigne
13. The Weary Prince -- Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 by William Shakespeare
14. The Enchanted Dulcinea -- Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
15. The Faux Dévot -- Tartuffe by Molière
16. The Interrupted Supper -- Manon Lescaut by Abbé Prévost; Candide by Voltaire; Mémoires by Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon
17. Miller the Musician -- Luise Miller by Friedrich Schiller
18. In the Hôtel de la Mole -- The Red and the Black by Stendhal and Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
19. Germinie Lacerteux -- Germinie Lacerteux by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt and Germinal by Émile Zola
20. The Brown Stocking -- To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf and In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
A pretty paltry list, considering what is left out and, to a lesser extent, what is worthy of study since the time of publication. If Auerbach were immortal, I'm sure he would've used his time to write thousands pages more on the literature of the rest of the world, starting from Russia and steadily moving east. We must be reluctantly satisfied with the work of a mortal man.
I read Mimesis quite quickly, as I was always excited about what period of literary history Auerbach would jump into next, whether or not it was an author I knew of, or perhaps had even read, or if it was something I was entirely ignorant of. To the particularly neurotic character of a person with a ŷ account, he is brilliant, because he gives one a reading list that might take a decade to work through, while also offering lucid, compelling explorations into the styles of the texts and how they function. Perhaps if he was a little more boring, I would've been more compelled to take my time and take notes!
There's no real reason to read this book cover-to-cover unless you want to set yourself on a particular scholarly path through every text Auerbach mentions, but if you've read any of these books - you're missing out if you don't at least intend to read a few - Auerbach provides a new sense of appreciation in their aesthetic sensibility and significance. He writes without secondary sources because he didn't have access to any. If you've tried to write essays, that feat is worth exploration in and of itself.
Read
December 19, 2010Studying the progressive combination of tragic seriousness with the everyday.
Odysseus' Scar: We are ever foregrounded in the present. No such thing as flashbacks in the characters' minds; the narrator leaves aside the present narrative to tell a past narrative. It is not therefore a multi-layered telling (as is common in modern fiction) but a simple movement on a linear surface line.
... progressive awareness of social strata, the backgrounded figural meaning, etc...
... Farinate and Cavalcante: With Dante comes the vernacular. A mediation between elevated epic language and dialogic voices whose individual personalities/lives exist in preserved vividness even in the afterlife.
Frate Alberto: With Boccaccio comes the exaggeration of that visceral individuality, the primacy of sensory experience and depiction.
... The World in Pantagruel's Mouth: Rabelais' reflection of our world provided by the depiction and commentary of a superior world, which is functionally identical except for the fact that it is aware of ours while ours is ignorant of it.
L'Humaine Condition: Montaigne's conflation/unity of author and book. Idiosyncrasy justified by a changing self reacting to a changing reality. The human condition is contained within the lowest human being and not abstracted into an Everyman.
The Weary Prince: Though Shakespeare has aristocratic tendencies in making only the most socially noble characters tragic, he is the Cosmic Poet because of the interrelatedness of this world he creates and which renews itself with each character. No shyness to name low things amidst high tragedy; all depictions are vividly validated. Even Osric is given individuality despite his being only a plot device. Shakespearean tragedy is distinct from Greek tragedy on two counts: 1) the chronotopic possibility of a story is expanded to any time and place since society now has a sense of history, and 2) tragic events stem from the heart of individual characters rather than from puppet personages.
The Enchanted Dulcinea: The equanimity of Don Quixote's illusion forgoes all questions of value and tragic/comic strata. Everybody exists rightly where they are, including the remarkably intelligent Don Quixote except when his madness strikes him. "The theme of the mad country gentleman who undertakes to revive knight-errantry gave Cervantes an opportunity to present the world as play in that spirit of multiple, perspective, non-judging, and even non-questioning neutrality which is a brave form of wisdom." (357)
...
... The Brown Stocking: Woolf, Joyce, Proust... narrative contingent on consciousness's unpredictability, external events divested of hegemony, the small and ordinary given primacy. "In this unprejudiced and exploratory type of representation we cannot but see to what an extent--below the surface conflicts--the differences between men's ways of life and forms of thought have already lessened. The strata of societies and there different ways of life have become inextricably mingled. There are no longer even exotic peoples. ... Beneath the conflicts, and also through them, an economic and cultural leveling process is taking place. It is still a long way to a common life of mankind on earth, but the goal begins to be visible. And it is most concretely visible now in the unprejudiced, precise, interior and exterior representation of the random moment in the lives of different people." (552)
Odysseus' Scar: We are ever foregrounded in the present. No such thing as flashbacks in the characters' minds; the narrator leaves aside the present narrative to tell a past narrative. It is not therefore a multi-layered telling (as is common in modern fiction) but a simple movement on a linear surface line.
... progressive awareness of social strata, the backgrounded figural meaning, etc...
... Farinate and Cavalcante: With Dante comes the vernacular. A mediation between elevated epic language and dialogic voices whose individual personalities/lives exist in preserved vividness even in the afterlife.
Frate Alberto: With Boccaccio comes the exaggeration of that visceral individuality, the primacy of sensory experience and depiction.
... The World in Pantagruel's Mouth: Rabelais' reflection of our world provided by the depiction and commentary of a superior world, which is functionally identical except for the fact that it is aware of ours while ours is ignorant of it.
L'Humaine Condition: Montaigne's conflation/unity of author and book. Idiosyncrasy justified by a changing self reacting to a changing reality. The human condition is contained within the lowest human being and not abstracted into an Everyman.
The Weary Prince: Though Shakespeare has aristocratic tendencies in making only the most socially noble characters tragic, he is the Cosmic Poet because of the interrelatedness of this world he creates and which renews itself with each character. No shyness to name low things amidst high tragedy; all depictions are vividly validated. Even Osric is given individuality despite his being only a plot device. Shakespearean tragedy is distinct from Greek tragedy on two counts: 1) the chronotopic possibility of a story is expanded to any time and place since society now has a sense of history, and 2) tragic events stem from the heart of individual characters rather than from puppet personages.
The Enchanted Dulcinea: The equanimity of Don Quixote's illusion forgoes all questions of value and tragic/comic strata. Everybody exists rightly where they are, including the remarkably intelligent Don Quixote except when his madness strikes him. "The theme of the mad country gentleman who undertakes to revive knight-errantry gave Cervantes an opportunity to present the world as play in that spirit of multiple, perspective, non-judging, and even non-questioning neutrality which is a brave form of wisdom." (357)
...
... The Brown Stocking: Woolf, Joyce, Proust... narrative contingent on consciousness's unpredictability, external events divested of hegemony, the small and ordinary given primacy. "In this unprejudiced and exploratory type of representation we cannot but see to what an extent--below the surface conflicts--the differences between men's ways of life and forms of thought have already lessened. The strata of societies and there different ways of life have become inextricably mingled. There are no longer even exotic peoples. ... Beneath the conflicts, and also through them, an economic and cultural leveling process is taking place. It is still a long way to a common life of mankind on earth, but the goal begins to be visible. And it is most concretely visible now in the unprejudiced, precise, interior and exterior representation of the random moment in the lives of different people." (552)
September 9, 2024
Sendo um livro enciclopédico que percorre milhares de anos da história da literatura foi uma leitura lenta que me levou a consideráveis aprendizagens. O destaque vai especial para o capítulo sobre Homero. E pela proximidade os dois últimos capítulos sobre o romance realista e o modernismo.
Um livro a que voltarei com certeza.
Um livro a que voltarei com certeza.
April 12, 2018
Autore: tedesco (1892-1957). Saggio critica letteraria. Edizione PBE del 1975.
E� uno di quei testi che annullano il concetto di tempo relativo.
Dimostra che certi scritti sono legati solo al tempo “giovane�. Il tempo “maturo� ha più riferimenti, informazioni, ma perde in elasticità e concentrazione.
E non dipende dal punto di vista in cui mi colloco. L’oggettività è una fregatura.
Ogni tanto (ogni tanto) ravano un po� sugli scaffali. Lo chiamo togliere la polvere o riordino, così mi capitano tra le mani libri che dovrei rileggere (senso di colpa), altri di cui non ricordo quasi nulla (senso di frustrazione), e quelli che a rileggerli dovrei tornare sulle frasi almeno due volte (senso di inadeguatezza).
Polvere sui libri? magico potere del riordino?
Chissenefrega.
9.12.2017
E� uno di quei testi che annullano il concetto di tempo relativo.
Dimostra che certi scritti sono legati solo al tempo “giovane�. Il tempo “maturo� ha più riferimenti, informazioni, ma perde in elasticità e concentrazione.
E non dipende dal punto di vista in cui mi colloco. L’oggettività è una fregatura.
Ogni tanto (ogni tanto) ravano un po� sugli scaffali. Lo chiamo togliere la polvere o riordino, così mi capitano tra le mani libri che dovrei rileggere (senso di colpa), altri di cui non ricordo quasi nulla (senso di frustrazione), e quelli che a rileggerli dovrei tornare sulle frasi almeno due volte (senso di inadeguatezza).
Polvere sui libri? magico potere del riordino?
Chissenefrega.
9.12.2017
January 1, 2018
Auerbach is the dreamguide in literature.
January 25, 2018
Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature
by Erich Auerbach 1946 - 573 p For many readers, both inside and outside the academy, Mimesis is among the finest works of literary criticism ever written.
.A half-century after its translation into English, Erich Auerbach's Mimesis still stands as a monumental achievement in literary criticism. A brilliant display of erudition, wit, and wisdom, his exploration of how great European writers from Homer to Virginia Woolf depicted reality has taught generations how to read Western literature. This new expanded edition includes a substantial essay in introduction by Edward Said as well as an essay, never before translated into English, in which Auerbach responds to his critics.
A German Jew, Auerbach was forced out of his professorship at the University of Marburg in 1935. He left for Turkey, where he taught at the state university in Istanbul. There he wrote Mimesis, publishing it in German after the end of the war. Displaced as he was, Auerbach produced a work of great erudition that contains no footnotes, basing his arguments instead on searching, illuminating readings of key passages from his primary texts. His aim was to show how from antiquity to the twentieth century literature progressed toward ever more naturalistic and democratic forms of representation. This essentially optimistic view of European history now appears as a defensive--and impassioned--response to the inhumanity he saw in the Third Reich. Ranging over works in Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and English, Auerbach used his remarkable skills in philology and comparative literature to refute any narrow form of nationalism or chauvinism, in his own day and ours.
by Erich Auerbach 1946 - 573 p For many readers, both inside and outside the academy, Mimesis is among the finest works of literary criticism ever written.
.A half-century after its translation into English, Erich Auerbach's Mimesis still stands as a monumental achievement in literary criticism. A brilliant display of erudition, wit, and wisdom, his exploration of how great European writers from Homer to Virginia Woolf depicted reality has taught generations how to read Western literature. This new expanded edition includes a substantial essay in introduction by Edward Said as well as an essay, never before translated into English, in which Auerbach responds to his critics.
A German Jew, Auerbach was forced out of his professorship at the University of Marburg in 1935. He left for Turkey, where he taught at the state university in Istanbul. There he wrote Mimesis, publishing it in German after the end of the war. Displaced as he was, Auerbach produced a work of great erudition that contains no footnotes, basing his arguments instead on searching, illuminating readings of key passages from his primary texts. His aim was to show how from antiquity to the twentieth century literature progressed toward ever more naturalistic and democratic forms of representation. This essentially optimistic view of European history now appears as a defensive--and impassioned--response to the inhumanity he saw in the Third Reich. Ranging over works in Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and English, Auerbach used his remarkable skills in philology and comparative literature to refute any narrow form of nationalism or chauvinism, in his own day and ours.
February 22, 2015
one of the great works of philology/literary criticism in world history. opens with a famous reading of homer and the hebrew scripture, and builds it episodically through history, culminating in , which is perhaps as it should be.
Written while on the run from the NSDAP and without his library (though not without a library, as folk history has it), has as its purpose tracing the "complete emancipation" from the doctrine of the ancients regarding literary representation, one which is "more complete, and more significant for later literary forms of the imitation of life, than the mixture of le sublime and le grotesque proclaimed by the contemporary romanticists" (554). that is to say, for "modern realism" (id.).
anyway, very slick local readings of numerous texts here.
Written while on the run from the NSDAP and without his library (though not without a library, as folk history has it), has as its purpose tracing the "complete emancipation" from the doctrine of the ancients regarding literary representation, one which is "more complete, and more significant for later literary forms of the imitation of life, than the mixture of le sublime and le grotesque proclaimed by the contemporary romanticists" (554). that is to say, for "modern realism" (id.).
anyway, very slick local readings of numerous texts here.
March 10, 2017
Esse livro é simplesmente maravilhoso. Se você é "de humanas" mas por algum motivo tem um problema com "os clássicos", acho que é uma boa entrada, tão empolgante é a análise. Quando algo que não tinha lido era discutido, me dava vontade de ler; quando já conhecia o material, era muito gratificante. É testemunho da qualidade artística do próprio livro que ele é uma tentativa de propor e demonstrar algumas teses sobre o que vem a ser a representação da realidade na literatura ocidental, mas o texto é tão absorvente que isso muitas vezes não passa de um detalhe.
February 9, 2022
Don't let this book intimidate you, the writing flows really nicely.
February 8, 2024
Erich Auerbach’s monumental work seeks to map out the development of Western realism from antiquity to the early 20th century. He is particularly fascinated about this development from the point of view of the modern depictions of reality, which for him is represented by the serious and problematic portrayal of the world in all its historical mutability, and especially of the lower classes and workaday items and instances. Thus, he does not simply describe how realism has developed, but he often contrasts earlier examples with the modern ones.
The modern realism, as moulded by giants like Joyce, Proust and Woolf, marks the end of completeness of the scenes and includes the element of randomness within the design. Using a similar method, Auerbach seeks to find out different characteristics of various realisms in randomly selected bits of text from the realistic works of Western literature. His thesis is that these characteristics must be discoverable in all excerpts—much like modernist writers can find general significances in the most mundane concatenation of events. This naturally means that the definition of realism is a foregone conclusion, but Auerbach does acknowledge this: Mimesis is not a work that defines the term once and for all, but rather it traces a development. I will attempt to state this development in as succinctly as I can (trying to keep my own opinions in check).
Back in antiquity, the separation of styles obtained: it was condemnable to mix the low style with the high style, and the styles had strict objects which they could depict. The low style was for comedy, which depicts everyday things and the lower classes, while the high style was for tragic portrayals of important personages. The epic style was also considered high in status, even if it differs from the tragic.
The classical authors were highly aware of this standard and respected it. However, the separation was not really adhered to in Christian works. In the Bible, the humble mixes with the sublime, and the lowly carpenter’s son comes to overturn the entire world order. Not to mention the maverick genius of St. Augustine, who would portray his everyday vices with considerable interest and pathos.
The literature of antiquity could touch upon the lower classes and the environs, but it would never treat them seriously or problematically—their viewpoint was moral. The social order was left unscathed in even vicious satires, only the individuals are to blame. This trend obtained even as the Empire crumbled, even if the changes did change the tone of the narratives into something more grotesque and distorted. Meanwhile, and onto the Middle Ages, the so-called “creatural realism� held sway: Christianity would continue to emphasise the misery of the lives of humble folk and their worries, the transitoriness of all earthly things.
This creatural realism was what Auerbach termed “figural�. It retained the historical aspect, the present significance of the things it portrayed, but they simultaneously stood for something transcendental: the perfected things in the world beyond. Thus, the people and things were not described for their own sake or for the sake of social reform, but from the perspective of the greatest tragedy Christianity could know: the Passion of Christ. And also from the point of view of the Last Judgement.
During the Renaissance, when new lands were discovered and many domains underwent upheaval, Man needed to re-orientate himself in the new world. This is the first time proper social critique emerged (in the form of utopian settings), and the elation brought on by scientific breakthroughs and bourgeoning humanism was palpable in the texts of the time. The creatural realism and figuralism took a more secular turn or were entirely abandoned, which can be seen from the buoyant hodgepodge of Rabelais or from the philosophical egoism of Montaigne. Now, bodily matters were no longer emblems of suffering, and humble things were worth serious notice. While the new world had less fixed points of support, the re-orientated people still did not enter the realm of tragic in their descriptions.
Already back in the 14th century, the “patrician bourgeois� had begun to emerge as a class, and now the middle class had become more solidified, and its needs simultaneously. Also, the rise of the “educated class�, who sought general knowledge, was witnessed. The so-called “intermediate style�, mixing both the low and the tragic into an entertaining amalgam, was created already by Boccaccio, but there was more demand for it now. The proper tragedy was brought into contact with the humble by Shakespeare, whose tragedies always had something of the low style in them. The works of the Elizabethan era on the whole focused more on the heroes� individual characteristics as the driving force of the plays: no longer were they simply pawns of fate. However, the serious portrayal of the lower classes was still not witnessed. Even if Don Quixote takes a step towards the portrayal of the humble folk, yet for Auerbach, it is done more in the spirit of comedy than for actual realistic depiction.
During the 17th and 18th centuries in France, the focus is put on general knowledge and general vocabulary (for specialisation was seen as vulgar), and the characters, especially in tragedies, were of a princely standing. Sensual love and the erotic became worthy of tragic treatment (as opposed to the intermediate style), yet the settings of tragedy take a mighty stride away from anything that is not upper class.
After the French Revolution and its aftereffects, literature began to smack more of modern realism. Artists such as Stendhal, Balzac, the Goncourts and especially Flaubert were more keenly aware of the social reality and its “minor� things, and the Sturm und Drang and the Age of Goethe brought in what is termed as “historism�, the acknowledgement of historical forces at play in human societies. However, the first author whom we can truly call modern in their realism is Zola: he mixes styles and raises the question of social reform with works like Germinal.
From Zola, through the vaguely stated influence of Russian literature, we reach the end point: Woolf, Proust and Joyce. Their depictions sunder the ties between external and internal time, bring in various perspectives to everyday phenomena, and call to question the idea of the objective authority of the author. There is an air of freedom and randomness in the narratives, and the voices can attain confusing polyphony at times, poignantly emphasising the fleeting nature of our reality.
That’s the story. During the course of his research, Auerbach gives us close interpretations on many renowned and less known literary figures, yet he can’t but omit a great deal, and he can’t but gloss over certain aspects quite unceremoniously. He barely treats idyllic literature or the works of Ovid, does not mention Sappho once, brusquely thrusts Dickens and Ibsen aside and gives a wide berth to the social commentary of Engels (which preceded Zola’s by several decades). I also couldn’t help thinking that Auerbach could have received plenty of insights from English poetry, especially the world-weary cynicism of Sir Walter Raleigh, or the rustic power of Robert Burns.
But the whole project was an unfathomably vast undertaking, and Auerbach acknowledged this. In fact, he pointed out that had he not been in exile in Istanbul, thus having access to a wider selection of literature and especially contemporary periodicals of literary studies, Mimesis might not have come about at all due to its scope. And this would have been a calamity.
For Mimesis is an invaluable work. It has been written by a polyglot, whose ability to read and relish literature is shockingly beautiful. Furthermore, his views and insights, especially given his background and the then-current events in the world, are inspiringly multifaceted and mature. When such a figure relates you the beauty of the styles of St. Francis, St. Jerome, Chanson de Roland or Dante, you hear the genuine tremble in his voice and can see the ecstatic tears trickling. No matter how pointless or amateurish the excerpts may appear to you at first sight, it is likely that the calm charisma of Auerbach will make you change your mind and enlighten you.
We need such works, because they teach us what a wealth of nuances there are in works of literature, and how easy it is to overlook them. Most people probably are inundated with text, and thus it becomes even more difficult to really wind down and take in the words and effects the works of fine literature have to offer to their readership. Auerbach shows us the effects the use of parataxis (such as “and�) and hypotaxis (such as “because�) can have, and what kind of things affect the tempo of narration. More importantly, his contagious enthusiasm allows us to view works of antiquity, Middle Ages, Renaissance and Restoration more seriously and to withhold crass judgement before their apparent deficiencies. By putting things into a historical perspective, Mimesis creates multiple contexts that broaden our understanding and help us understand, sympathise and enjoy.
Due to the torrents of inspiring data, I sometimes lost the track of the actual thesis of the book and just zoomed in on the individual aspects of the works under scrutiny. For example, I couldn’t quite understand why Voltaire, a satirist, was included here, but I loved the way Auerbach shed light on his propagandist techniques: searchlight way of obscuring the “truth� and a rapid tempo and graceful language. Neither was I entirely sold on what was said on Saint-Simon, but the way Auerbach contextualised his apparently randomly collated character portraits against the backdrop of French classicism and post-classicism made my eyes dilate. In addition, the subject of love was of particular interest, since it is all too easy to regard it as a ubiquitous topic that has barely developed across millennia—what a foolish statement that would be!
I loved most chapters and gleaned copious insights from them, but above all I revere the chapters on the Odyssey, the Bible, Dante and Shakespeare. My understanding of Homer’s crystal immediacy was broadened; my appreciation for the reticence and imperiousness of the Bible was deepened; my distant reverence towards Dante’s secular side and his portrayal of humans was imbued with heartfelt adoration; and my realisation of the significance of Shakespeare solidified, while the vastness of his creation gained an extra dimension.
A monument, a monument! It provided a great framework for future research, but it also gifted its readers the silent solemnity of a temple, under whose tranquil influence we may more deeply appreciate the works of mankind.
The modern realism, as moulded by giants like Joyce, Proust and Woolf, marks the end of completeness of the scenes and includes the element of randomness within the design. Using a similar method, Auerbach seeks to find out different characteristics of various realisms in randomly selected bits of text from the realistic works of Western literature. His thesis is that these characteristics must be discoverable in all excerpts—much like modernist writers can find general significances in the most mundane concatenation of events. This naturally means that the definition of realism is a foregone conclusion, but Auerbach does acknowledge this: Mimesis is not a work that defines the term once and for all, but rather it traces a development. I will attempt to state this development in as succinctly as I can (trying to keep my own opinions in check).
Back in antiquity, the separation of styles obtained: it was condemnable to mix the low style with the high style, and the styles had strict objects which they could depict. The low style was for comedy, which depicts everyday things and the lower classes, while the high style was for tragic portrayals of important personages. The epic style was also considered high in status, even if it differs from the tragic.
The classical authors were highly aware of this standard and respected it. However, the separation was not really adhered to in Christian works. In the Bible, the humble mixes with the sublime, and the lowly carpenter’s son comes to overturn the entire world order. Not to mention the maverick genius of St. Augustine, who would portray his everyday vices with considerable interest and pathos.
The literature of antiquity could touch upon the lower classes and the environs, but it would never treat them seriously or problematically—their viewpoint was moral. The social order was left unscathed in even vicious satires, only the individuals are to blame. This trend obtained even as the Empire crumbled, even if the changes did change the tone of the narratives into something more grotesque and distorted. Meanwhile, and onto the Middle Ages, the so-called “creatural realism� held sway: Christianity would continue to emphasise the misery of the lives of humble folk and their worries, the transitoriness of all earthly things.
This creatural realism was what Auerbach termed “figural�. It retained the historical aspect, the present significance of the things it portrayed, but they simultaneously stood for something transcendental: the perfected things in the world beyond. Thus, the people and things were not described for their own sake or for the sake of social reform, but from the perspective of the greatest tragedy Christianity could know: the Passion of Christ. And also from the point of view of the Last Judgement.
During the Renaissance, when new lands were discovered and many domains underwent upheaval, Man needed to re-orientate himself in the new world. This is the first time proper social critique emerged (in the form of utopian settings), and the elation brought on by scientific breakthroughs and bourgeoning humanism was palpable in the texts of the time. The creatural realism and figuralism took a more secular turn or were entirely abandoned, which can be seen from the buoyant hodgepodge of Rabelais or from the philosophical egoism of Montaigne. Now, bodily matters were no longer emblems of suffering, and humble things were worth serious notice. While the new world had less fixed points of support, the re-orientated people still did not enter the realm of tragic in their descriptions.
Already back in the 14th century, the “patrician bourgeois� had begun to emerge as a class, and now the middle class had become more solidified, and its needs simultaneously. Also, the rise of the “educated class�, who sought general knowledge, was witnessed. The so-called “intermediate style�, mixing both the low and the tragic into an entertaining amalgam, was created already by Boccaccio, but there was more demand for it now. The proper tragedy was brought into contact with the humble by Shakespeare, whose tragedies always had something of the low style in them. The works of the Elizabethan era on the whole focused more on the heroes� individual characteristics as the driving force of the plays: no longer were they simply pawns of fate. However, the serious portrayal of the lower classes was still not witnessed. Even if Don Quixote takes a step towards the portrayal of the humble folk, yet for Auerbach, it is done more in the spirit of comedy than for actual realistic depiction.
During the 17th and 18th centuries in France, the focus is put on general knowledge and general vocabulary (for specialisation was seen as vulgar), and the characters, especially in tragedies, were of a princely standing. Sensual love and the erotic became worthy of tragic treatment (as opposed to the intermediate style), yet the settings of tragedy take a mighty stride away from anything that is not upper class.
After the French Revolution and its aftereffects, literature began to smack more of modern realism. Artists such as Stendhal, Balzac, the Goncourts and especially Flaubert were more keenly aware of the social reality and its “minor� things, and the Sturm und Drang and the Age of Goethe brought in what is termed as “historism�, the acknowledgement of historical forces at play in human societies. However, the first author whom we can truly call modern in their realism is Zola: he mixes styles and raises the question of social reform with works like Germinal.
From Zola, through the vaguely stated influence of Russian literature, we reach the end point: Woolf, Proust and Joyce. Their depictions sunder the ties between external and internal time, bring in various perspectives to everyday phenomena, and call to question the idea of the objective authority of the author. There is an air of freedom and randomness in the narratives, and the voices can attain confusing polyphony at times, poignantly emphasising the fleeting nature of our reality.
That’s the story. During the course of his research, Auerbach gives us close interpretations on many renowned and less known literary figures, yet he can’t but omit a great deal, and he can’t but gloss over certain aspects quite unceremoniously. He barely treats idyllic literature or the works of Ovid, does not mention Sappho once, brusquely thrusts Dickens and Ibsen aside and gives a wide berth to the social commentary of Engels (which preceded Zola’s by several decades). I also couldn’t help thinking that Auerbach could have received plenty of insights from English poetry, especially the world-weary cynicism of Sir Walter Raleigh, or the rustic power of Robert Burns.
But the whole project was an unfathomably vast undertaking, and Auerbach acknowledged this. In fact, he pointed out that had he not been in exile in Istanbul, thus having access to a wider selection of literature and especially contemporary periodicals of literary studies, Mimesis might not have come about at all due to its scope. And this would have been a calamity.
For Mimesis is an invaluable work. It has been written by a polyglot, whose ability to read and relish literature is shockingly beautiful. Furthermore, his views and insights, especially given his background and the then-current events in the world, are inspiringly multifaceted and mature. When such a figure relates you the beauty of the styles of St. Francis, St. Jerome, Chanson de Roland or Dante, you hear the genuine tremble in his voice and can see the ecstatic tears trickling. No matter how pointless or amateurish the excerpts may appear to you at first sight, it is likely that the calm charisma of Auerbach will make you change your mind and enlighten you.
We need such works, because they teach us what a wealth of nuances there are in works of literature, and how easy it is to overlook them. Most people probably are inundated with text, and thus it becomes even more difficult to really wind down and take in the words and effects the works of fine literature have to offer to their readership. Auerbach shows us the effects the use of parataxis (such as “and�) and hypotaxis (such as “because�) can have, and what kind of things affect the tempo of narration. More importantly, his contagious enthusiasm allows us to view works of antiquity, Middle Ages, Renaissance and Restoration more seriously and to withhold crass judgement before their apparent deficiencies. By putting things into a historical perspective, Mimesis creates multiple contexts that broaden our understanding and help us understand, sympathise and enjoy.
Due to the torrents of inspiring data, I sometimes lost the track of the actual thesis of the book and just zoomed in on the individual aspects of the works under scrutiny. For example, I couldn’t quite understand why Voltaire, a satirist, was included here, but I loved the way Auerbach shed light on his propagandist techniques: searchlight way of obscuring the “truth� and a rapid tempo and graceful language. Neither was I entirely sold on what was said on Saint-Simon, but the way Auerbach contextualised his apparently randomly collated character portraits against the backdrop of French classicism and post-classicism made my eyes dilate. In addition, the subject of love was of particular interest, since it is all too easy to regard it as a ubiquitous topic that has barely developed across millennia—what a foolish statement that would be!
I loved most chapters and gleaned copious insights from them, but above all I revere the chapters on the Odyssey, the Bible, Dante and Shakespeare. My understanding of Homer’s crystal immediacy was broadened; my appreciation for the reticence and imperiousness of the Bible was deepened; my distant reverence towards Dante’s secular side and his portrayal of humans was imbued with heartfelt adoration; and my realisation of the significance of Shakespeare solidified, while the vastness of his creation gained an extra dimension.
A monument, a monument! It provided a great framework for future research, but it also gifted its readers the silent solemnity of a temple, under whose tranquil influence we may more deeply appreciate the works of mankind.
January 27, 2025
Ten stars. Twenty stars? This is what literature is for. Any bounty I could have reaped from becoming a dermatologist instead of studying books has been won back tenfold by getting to read this. It’s dense and technical, but so alive, lit from within by the author’s erudition and care. Sending all love & admiration to Auerbach, who I imagine sipping espresso with Dante in heaven.
January 27, 2021
I read the Introduction and Epilogue, as well as the following chapters: 1, 2, 8, 12, 14, & 20. For anyone even remotely interested in literary criticism, I highly recommend this book. Auerbach writes with such genuine love for the material, is heartfelt in his treatment of the texts, his reflections contain such substance and grit, that I found myself at times moved, at times pensive, and even laughing aloud (his section on Don Quixote is great) while reading this, experiences I rarely associate with literary criticism. I think this is partly due to his treatment of the text itself without reliance on much outside material: there are no notes, no bibliography, very few references to other scholars. Rather, this book is Auerbach's raw (though well thought-out) reflections on how reality is portrayed and aesthetically constructed in the great works of Western Literature. In my opinion, this is what literary criticism is supposed to be, or at least the type of criticism I would like to read and create.
February 25, 2017
Not only a monument of literary criticism, but one of the most thrilling adventures of the mind, ever-- EA traces the development of the "representation of reality" from Homer and the Old Testament to twentieth century writers. Two chapters were particularly illuminating, the one on Dante which deals with the Farinata/Cavalcante Episode and the initial chapter which is a comparative study of mimetic techniques in Homer and the Book of Genesis. Edward Said's introduction is also very good; he places EA and his work in context and discusses the immense influence this book has had.
May 30, 2020
Auerbach's overall project in this outrageously ambitious book—mapping the development of the “representation of reality� over the course of Western literature from Homer to Virginia Woolf—is a little perplexing, and at times incoherent. It’s never exactly clear what Auerbach means by “reality�; the definition seems to shift through the book; and it’s also not clear why he chose to focus on realism as the sine qua non of literary merit or success, as opposed to any number of other aspects of literature.
In the Epilogue, Auerbach acknowledges that “[n]ot even the term ‘realistic� is unambiguous,� as he uses it throughout the book. And he even hints that though mapping the career of realism in Western literature was his project, the “specific purpose� that “guided� his “interpretations� of the various texts he took up “assumed form only as [he] went along, playing as it were with [his] texts, and for long stretches of [the] way, [he was] guided only by the texts themselves,� which he acknowledges were largely “chosen at random, on the basis of accidental acquaintance and personal preference rather than in view of a definite purpose.� (Epilogue.)
It does sound like Auerbach is quietly backing away from making any sweeping judgments or conclusions about the career of realism in literature, and is instead noting that he took a random path, guided by an aleatory assortment of texts, and wandered where the texts took him; and that’s what a lot of this book feels like. There’s certainly great pleasure in watching Auerbach carry out his meticulous close readings of various texts and provide a historical context of the development of literature he maps. But one shouldn’t expect, as Auerbach acknowledges, some grand overarching theory or conclusion to emerge.
* * * * *
To take one example, the chapter on Montaigne's Essays felt out of place, coming after many chapters on fictional forms of literary representation. What did Montaigne's writing have to do with fictional forms of representation? I get that Auerbach likely selected Montaigne because of his uninhibited range of topics—from literature to farting. But this valorization of the mixture of styles, of the ability to deftly incorporate high and low, the sublime and the grotesque (or “creatural�), and to provide concrete, realistic representations of reality, seems a little overemphasized by Auerbach. Or, perhaps, it just feels like that emphasis doesn't bear the weight that's put on it by him, and also feels like not all that overwhelming a point. Montaigne helps him show a successful mixture of styles, but so what?
Auerbach comes back, again and again through the book, to the significance of the Christ story shattering old barriers between high and low styles: The Christ story placed a focus on the poor, the non-aristocratic for the first time, in a way that was not comic or boorish, but serious and tragic; and Western literature bobbed in the wake of that seminal event for a while. But, again, this argument feels a little tendentious to me. Is Auerbach trying to map a progression or development in Western Lit—as one might try to map the development and steady improvement of, say, techniques of perspective in painting, or lifelike qualities and structural freedom in sculpture? Because that project seems fundamentally wrong-headed (though that's probably too strong a word for it).
But there’s something odd about Auerbach’s insistent focus on reality (and therefore successful literary representation) being the presentation of the “human beings in the midst of their everyday environment, with their background, multifarious relations, their possessions, every particle of their bodies, their gestures, every nuance of their speech, their hopes, and their fears,� expressing both “physical [creatural?] and . . . spiritual factors,� with “absolute precision, scorning nothing.� (Ch. 16.)
What Auerbach describes here sounds a lot like how an art historian might describe Dutch or Flemish realism, the work of Vermeer, Van Eyck, Bruegel, et al. (Indeed, he makes a direct comparison between the coarse literary realism of Zola and Dutch and Flemish painterly realism in Chapter 19.) Thought of in terms of varying historical styles, Auerbach’s project seems all the stranger. Why fixate and elevate this type of precise, concrete, everyday realism above other styles? Above impressionism, abstraction, the fantastic, etc.? And does it make any sense to focus on the representation of “reality� when analyzing, say, The Inferno?
Auerbach seems to set up a running contrast between the brittle, stiff, pleonastic, turgid, pompous, conventional—the lifeless, or “unrealistic”—texts of and medieval writers versus the vernacular, demotic, multiplex, whole, broad, human, vivid, robust—the alive, or “realistic”—texts of more successful writers, those who more successfully represented “reality.� The adjectives I’ve listed here seem to get deployed again and again through the book by Auerbach in creating the faint outlines of his division between the “realistic� and the “unrealistic.�
But it’s not quite enough in his view that the representation be alive and concrete and depicting everyday life. As he says about Dante and Montaigne, the author must also be in command of both high and low styles, must depict the everyday from a perspective of learning and wisdom. As he says about Zola,
(Ch. 19.)
Perhaps this is a form of complexity—a kind of deeply granular photorealism in representation—that he values, and that he calls “realism.� To capture reality, in his view, an author must faithfully and seriously capture high and low. To me, these evaluations of whether a text was succesfully “realistic� simply began to sound like an appraisal of whether a text was successful, with “realistic� becoming a stand in for “successful.�
Because whether a text is successful, whether it has power and a hold over us—that’s very difficult to articulate or explain with any kind of precision. I wonder if Auerbach was trying here to figure out a way to talk about the frustrating ideas of appreciation—why we like some writing more than others—in a more concrete and systematic way, and settled on “realism,� a project that was never going to work, as it was a stand-in for whether a work was successful, a hopelessly complex question?
Sidenote: A 2012 article in The New Yorker on Mimesis made the following observation re Auerbach's holding up of the common man's experience as the ultimate goal of representation:
It’s a fair point, and there are times, especially near the end, where Auerbach’s meandering takes on “realism� begin to feel like a gesture toward a Marxism-lite, without actually pushing on toward an actual Marxist critique.
* * * * *
As to the teleology of literary development Auerbach attempts to map, modernism in Virginia Woolf and Proust and Co., his final destination, is surely not some apotheosis of literary evolution. That’s not how the history of art (or literature) works? Always higher and better? Literary evolution is probably more like actual evolution: Sometimes things devolve into simpler forms. Sometimes they evolve into "higher" forms. But there's not necessarily a teleology of upwards and better toward the angels and pure light, etc.?
Auerbach seems to recognize this to some degree, as he notes that even after the crisis of the Christ story, Western Lit struggled with the conflict between stiff, turgid medieval forms, and more "lifelike," concrete, vivid forms of representation of reality.
* * * * *
All of that said, the book somehow manages to remain interesting and weirdly compelling despite the patent flaws with the project and the overall thesis. It's the industriousness with which Auerbach dives into each text he's selected that's compelling. His precision and acute attention to minutiae are kind of thrilling, in the weird mania of it all. I've found that, after spending time with this book, I come away a bit more hyper-attuned to the syntax and form of the things I'm reading, and the things I might be writing.
That is to say, the book isn’t all that compelling in presenting an overarching argument about the history of Western literature, but it is compelling in how Auerbach goes about offering a close reading (I think I'm using that term correctly here) of each text he chooses, and a historical context for the text, analyzing how each text works, etc. My interest was maintained by the variety of each new chapter: I was curious to see what he had to say about Shakespeare or Cervantes or Montaigne, and how he would apply his techniques of dissection to them. Watching him at work is the pleasure, not so much the grand theory that one comes away with.
As a further aside, going backward in the history of literary criticism to Mimesis could itself be seen as a recognition that literary criticism, like literature itself, does not necessarily constantly evolve to higher and better forms. There are swings, trends, and corrections. It's interesting to note that the technique of close reading, which was much emphasized by the school of New Criticism, and which went out of style for its generally detached, clinical, ahistorical, and apolitical approach, appears to be making tentative steps back towards relevance. (Auerbach's approach doesn't seem to fit into the box of New Criticism, as its purpose is to provide a historical context for texts, and suggest a historical trend, based on insights gleaned from close readings of texts seemingly chosen at random--like an analysis of broken pottery at archaeological sites or fossilized femurs.)
That the techniques of close reading may be having a new moment makes sense. What is it English majors actually do? Yes, they can deconstruct or apply psychoanalysis to texts, often, in the process, reducing, ignoring, and simplifying in the way structuralists did before them, to successfully achieve the ends of their deconstructive or psychoanalytic projects. But after the project is completed, the text remains, mocking the successful deconstruction or psychoanalysis: It's still a thing of pleasure, beauty, power. What is that? How does that work? What school of analysis or method do we have for understanding that? And here, maybe, is where close reading still has a role to play. Trying to actually figure out how language works in literature, how it achieves the effects that it does, etc. Is this going backwards? Maybe? Maybe it's a synthesis of techniques and approaches over time? I don’t know, but there’s much to be gained in an engagement with Auerbach and his somewhat Quixotic project. It’s worth taking a look back at the brand of serious, meticulous close reading, attention to context and the history of literature, and broad erudition that Auerbach offers here.
In the Epilogue, Auerbach acknowledges that “[n]ot even the term ‘realistic� is unambiguous,� as he uses it throughout the book. And he even hints that though mapping the career of realism in Western literature was his project, the “specific purpose� that “guided� his “interpretations� of the various texts he took up “assumed form only as [he] went along, playing as it were with [his] texts, and for long stretches of [the] way, [he was] guided only by the texts themselves,� which he acknowledges were largely “chosen at random, on the basis of accidental acquaintance and personal preference rather than in view of a definite purpose.� (Epilogue.)
It does sound like Auerbach is quietly backing away from making any sweeping judgments or conclusions about the career of realism in literature, and is instead noting that he took a random path, guided by an aleatory assortment of texts, and wandered where the texts took him; and that’s what a lot of this book feels like. There’s certainly great pleasure in watching Auerbach carry out his meticulous close readings of various texts and provide a historical context of the development of literature he maps. But one shouldn’t expect, as Auerbach acknowledges, some grand overarching theory or conclusion to emerge.
* * * * *
To take one example, the chapter on Montaigne's Essays felt out of place, coming after many chapters on fictional forms of literary representation. What did Montaigne's writing have to do with fictional forms of representation? I get that Auerbach likely selected Montaigne because of his uninhibited range of topics—from literature to farting. But this valorization of the mixture of styles, of the ability to deftly incorporate high and low, the sublime and the grotesque (or “creatural�), and to provide concrete, realistic representations of reality, seems a little overemphasized by Auerbach. Or, perhaps, it just feels like that emphasis doesn't bear the weight that's put on it by him, and also feels like not all that overwhelming a point. Montaigne helps him show a successful mixture of styles, but so what?
Auerbach comes back, again and again through the book, to the significance of the Christ story shattering old barriers between high and low styles: The Christ story placed a focus on the poor, the non-aristocratic for the first time, in a way that was not comic or boorish, but serious and tragic; and Western literature bobbed in the wake of that seminal event for a while. But, again, this argument feels a little tendentious to me. Is Auerbach trying to map a progression or development in Western Lit—as one might try to map the development and steady improvement of, say, techniques of perspective in painting, or lifelike qualities and structural freedom in sculpture? Because that project seems fundamentally wrong-headed (though that's probably too strong a word for it).
But there’s something odd about Auerbach’s insistent focus on reality (and therefore successful literary representation) being the presentation of the “human beings in the midst of their everyday environment, with their background, multifarious relations, their possessions, every particle of their bodies, their gestures, every nuance of their speech, their hopes, and their fears,� expressing both “physical [creatural?] and . . . spiritual factors,� with “absolute precision, scorning nothing.� (Ch. 16.)
What Auerbach describes here sounds a lot like how an art historian might describe Dutch or Flemish realism, the work of Vermeer, Van Eyck, Bruegel, et al. (Indeed, he makes a direct comparison between the coarse literary realism of Zola and Dutch and Flemish painterly realism in Chapter 19.) Thought of in terms of varying historical styles, Auerbach’s project seems all the stranger. Why fixate and elevate this type of precise, concrete, everyday realism above other styles? Above impressionism, abstraction, the fantastic, etc.? And does it make any sense to focus on the representation of “reality� when analyzing, say, The Inferno?
Auerbach seems to set up a running contrast between the brittle, stiff, pleonastic, turgid, pompous, conventional—the lifeless, or “unrealistic”—texts of and medieval writers versus the vernacular, demotic, multiplex, whole, broad, human, vivid, robust—the alive, or “realistic”—texts of more successful writers, those who more successfully represented “reality.� The adjectives I’ve listed here seem to get deployed again and again through the book by Auerbach in creating the faint outlines of his division between the “realistic� and the “unrealistic.�
But it’s not quite enough in his view that the representation be alive and concrete and depicting everyday life. As he says about Dante and Montaigne, the author must also be in command of both high and low styles, must depict the everyday from a perspective of learning and wisdom. As he says about Zola,
[He] knows how these [industrial workers] thought and talked. He also knows every detail of the technical side of mining; he knows the psychology of the various classes of workers and of the administration, the functioning of the central management, the competition between the capitalist groups, the cooperation of the interests in capital, with the government, the army. But he did not confine himself to writing about industrial workers. His purpose was to comprise . . . the whole life of the period . . . : the people of Paris, the rural population, the theater, the department stores, the stock exchange, and very much more besides. He made himself an expert in all fields; everywhere he penetrated into social structure and technology.
(Ch. 19.)
Perhaps this is a form of complexity—a kind of deeply granular photorealism in representation—that he values, and that he calls “realism.� To capture reality, in his view, an author must faithfully and seriously capture high and low. To me, these evaluations of whether a text was succesfully “realistic� simply began to sound like an appraisal of whether a text was successful, with “realistic� becoming a stand in for “successful.�
Because whether a text is successful, whether it has power and a hold over us—that’s very difficult to articulate or explain with any kind of precision. I wonder if Auerbach was trying here to figure out a way to talk about the frustrating ideas of appreciation—why we like some writing more than others—in a more concrete and systematic way, and settled on “realism,� a project that was never going to work, as it was a stand-in for whether a work was successful, a hopelessly complex question?
Sidenote: A 2012 article in The New Yorker on Mimesis made the following observation re Auerbach's holding up of the common man's experience as the ultimate goal of representation:
[Auerbach’s] characterization of realism as the unvarnished reënactment of the common man’s sojourn on earth is oddly restrictive. As [Terry] Eagleton pointed out [in critiquing Mimesis], ordinary life is no more real than "courts and country houses," and "cucumber sandwiches are no less ontologically solid than pie and beans."
It’s a fair point, and there are times, especially near the end, where Auerbach’s meandering takes on “realism� begin to feel like a gesture toward a Marxism-lite, without actually pushing on toward an actual Marxist critique.
* * * * *
As to the teleology of literary development Auerbach attempts to map, modernism in Virginia Woolf and Proust and Co., his final destination, is surely not some apotheosis of literary evolution. That’s not how the history of art (or literature) works? Always higher and better? Literary evolution is probably more like actual evolution: Sometimes things devolve into simpler forms. Sometimes they evolve into "higher" forms. But there's not necessarily a teleology of upwards and better toward the angels and pure light, etc.?
Auerbach seems to recognize this to some degree, as he notes that even after the crisis of the Christ story, Western Lit struggled with the conflict between stiff, turgid medieval forms, and more "lifelike," concrete, vivid forms of representation of reality.
* * * * *
All of that said, the book somehow manages to remain interesting and weirdly compelling despite the patent flaws with the project and the overall thesis. It's the industriousness with which Auerbach dives into each text he's selected that's compelling. His precision and acute attention to minutiae are kind of thrilling, in the weird mania of it all. I've found that, after spending time with this book, I come away a bit more hyper-attuned to the syntax and form of the things I'm reading, and the things I might be writing.
That is to say, the book isn’t all that compelling in presenting an overarching argument about the history of Western literature, but it is compelling in how Auerbach goes about offering a close reading (I think I'm using that term correctly here) of each text he chooses, and a historical context for the text, analyzing how each text works, etc. My interest was maintained by the variety of each new chapter: I was curious to see what he had to say about Shakespeare or Cervantes or Montaigne, and how he would apply his techniques of dissection to them. Watching him at work is the pleasure, not so much the grand theory that one comes away with.
As a further aside, going backward in the history of literary criticism to Mimesis could itself be seen as a recognition that literary criticism, like literature itself, does not necessarily constantly evolve to higher and better forms. There are swings, trends, and corrections. It's interesting to note that the technique of close reading, which was much emphasized by the school of New Criticism, and which went out of style for its generally detached, clinical, ahistorical, and apolitical approach, appears to be making tentative steps back towards relevance. (Auerbach's approach doesn't seem to fit into the box of New Criticism, as its purpose is to provide a historical context for texts, and suggest a historical trend, based on insights gleaned from close readings of texts seemingly chosen at random--like an analysis of broken pottery at archaeological sites or fossilized femurs.)
That the techniques of close reading may be having a new moment makes sense. What is it English majors actually do? Yes, they can deconstruct or apply psychoanalysis to texts, often, in the process, reducing, ignoring, and simplifying in the way structuralists did before them, to successfully achieve the ends of their deconstructive or psychoanalytic projects. But after the project is completed, the text remains, mocking the successful deconstruction or psychoanalysis: It's still a thing of pleasure, beauty, power. What is that? How does that work? What school of analysis or method do we have for understanding that? And here, maybe, is where close reading still has a role to play. Trying to actually figure out how language works in literature, how it achieves the effects that it does, etc. Is this going backwards? Maybe? Maybe it's a synthesis of techniques and approaches over time? I don’t know, but there’s much to be gained in an engagement with Auerbach and his somewhat Quixotic project. It’s worth taking a look back at the brand of serious, meticulous close reading, attention to context and the history of literature, and broad erudition that Auerbach offers here.
November 15, 2024
I found this to be an incredibly frustrating read, both methodologically and stylistically.
Methodologically (and part of the frustration is that Auerbach doesn't explain his approach until the "Epilogue"), the book charts a series of "motifs" gleaned through a lifetime of reading � in particular, the classical separation of styles (high and low, tragedy and comedy) versus the modern realist portrayal of the everyday (in authors such as Balzac and Woolf). Auerbach takes these motifs and, over the course of 550+ pages, applies them to a hodgepodge of Western texts spanning thousands of years, from Augustine to Zola, "the majority" of which, Auerbach tells us, "were chosen at random."
Each chapter proceeds in much the same fashion. Auerbach reproduces a lengthy passage in its native language, followed by, in Princeton Classics edition, an English translation. Subsequent quotations, annoyingly, are left untranslated. Auerbach then restates the text in his own words � sometimes it’s a sentence-by-sentence retelling � framed in such a way as to lend credence to his thesis. The effect for the reader is not unlike hearing a lecture on literature by an erudite but not especially prepared professor, who seeks to impress more so with the breadth of his knowledge than with the clarity of his analysis.
Suffice to say, the project is as ambitious as it is haphazard. And perhaps that wouldn't be a problem were Mimesis not written (or translated) in such dry, unduly technical mid-century academic prose. (Take, for instance, the discussion on Montaigne, which Auerbach needlessly complicates by invoking � in a rather loose fashion � the language of syllogistic logic; the fact that he misapplies the logical concepts he cites in no way detracts from his main points, but it does put up a veil between the reader and his analysis.) Here’s something else that would’ve improved the book’s readability: the occasional paragraph break.
At the end of the day, speaking as someone familiar with at least some (but in no way all) of the primary texts discussed in this book, I found that Mimesis commits that cardinal sin of criticism: by approaching these texts through the (sometimes forced) lens of high-level motifs, it often fails to meet them on their own terms and ends up being less perceptive, less creative and less engaging than much of its source material.
Methodologically (and part of the frustration is that Auerbach doesn't explain his approach until the "Epilogue"), the book charts a series of "motifs" gleaned through a lifetime of reading � in particular, the classical separation of styles (high and low, tragedy and comedy) versus the modern realist portrayal of the everyday (in authors such as Balzac and Woolf). Auerbach takes these motifs and, over the course of 550+ pages, applies them to a hodgepodge of Western texts spanning thousands of years, from Augustine to Zola, "the majority" of which, Auerbach tells us, "were chosen at random."
Each chapter proceeds in much the same fashion. Auerbach reproduces a lengthy passage in its native language, followed by, in Princeton Classics edition, an English translation. Subsequent quotations, annoyingly, are left untranslated. Auerbach then restates the text in his own words � sometimes it’s a sentence-by-sentence retelling � framed in such a way as to lend credence to his thesis. The effect for the reader is not unlike hearing a lecture on literature by an erudite but not especially prepared professor, who seeks to impress more so with the breadth of his knowledge than with the clarity of his analysis.
Suffice to say, the project is as ambitious as it is haphazard. And perhaps that wouldn't be a problem were Mimesis not written (or translated) in such dry, unduly technical mid-century academic prose. (Take, for instance, the discussion on Montaigne, which Auerbach needlessly complicates by invoking � in a rather loose fashion � the language of syllogistic logic; the fact that he misapplies the logical concepts he cites in no way detracts from his main points, but it does put up a veil between the reader and his analysis.) Here’s something else that would’ve improved the book’s readability: the occasional paragraph break.
At the end of the day, speaking as someone familiar with at least some (but in no way all) of the primary texts discussed in this book, I found that Mimesis commits that cardinal sin of criticism: by approaching these texts through the (sometimes forced) lens of high-level motifs, it often fails to meet them on their own terms and ends up being less perceptive, less creative and less engaging than much of its source material.
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