Erich Auerbach

Erich Auerbach
Born	09 November 1892 Berlin, Germany
Died	13 October 1957(1957-10-13) (aged 64) Wallingford, USA
Occupation	Literary critic, Philologist
Notable work(s)	Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature
Influences G. W. F. Hegel, Eduard Norden, Giambattista Vico

Erich Auerbach (November 9, 1892 – October 13, 1957) was a philologist and comparative scholar and critic of literature. His best-known work is Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, a history of representation in Western literature from ancient to modern times.

Biography

Auerbach, who was Jewish, was born in Berlin. He was trained in the German philological tradition and would eventually become, along with Leo Spitzer, one of its best-known scholars.[1] After participating as combatant in World War I, he earned a doctorate in 1921 at University of Greifswald and in 1929 became a member of the philology faculty at the University of Marburg, publishing a well-received study entitled Dante: Poet of the Secular World. With the rise of National Socialism, however, Auerbach was forced to vacate his position in 1935. Exiled from Nazi Germany, he took up residence in Istanbul, Turkey, where he wrote Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (1946), generally considered his masterwork.

He moved to the United States in 1947, teaching at Pennsylvania State University and then working at the Institute for Advanced Study. He was made a Professor of Romance philology at Yale University in 1950, a position he held until his death in 1957 in Wallingford, Connecticut. While at Yale he supervised Fredric Jameson's doctoral work.

Works

• Roman Filolojisine Giris Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakultesi: Horoz Yayinevi, 1944.
• Dante: Poet of the Secular World Trans. Ralph Manheim. New York: NYRB Classics, 2007. ISBN 978-1590172193.
• Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Fiftieth Anniversary Ed. Trans. Willard Trask. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.
• Literary Language and Its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages. Trans. Ralph Manheim. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. ISBN 978-0691024684.

References

Bibliography

• Bakker, Egbert. "Mimesis as Performance: Rereading Auerbach’s First Chapter." Poetics Today 20.1 (1999): 11-26.
• Baldick, Chris. “Realism.” Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. 184.
• Bremmer, Jan. "Erich Auerbach and His Mimesis." Poetics Today 20.1 (1999): 3-10.
• Calin, William. "Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis – ’Tis Fifty Years Since: A Reassessment." Style 33.3 (1999): 463-474.
• Doran, Robert. "Literary History and the Sublime in Erich Auerbach´s Mimesis." New Literary History 38.2 (2007): 353-369.
• Doran, Robert. "Erich Auerbach's Humanism and the Criticism of the Future." Moderna : semestrale di teoria e critica della letteratura 11.1/2 (2009): 31-39.
• Green, Geoffrey. "Erich Auerbach." Literary Criticism & the Structures of History: Erich Auerbach & Leo Spitzer. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1982.
• Holmes, Jonathan, and Streete, Adrian, eds. Refiguring Mimesis: Representation in Early Modern Literature. Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2005.
• Holquist, Michael. “Erich Auerbach and the Fate of Philology Today.” Poetics Today 20.1 (1999): 77-91.
• Konuk, Kader. East West Mimesis: Auerbach in Turkey. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010.
• Landauer, Carl. "Mimesis and Erich Auerbach’s Self-Mythologizing." German Studies Review 11.1 (1988): 83-96.
• Lerer, Seth, Literary History and the Challenge of Philology: The Legacy of Erich Auerbach. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996.
• Lerer, Seth (2005). "Auerbach, Erich". Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism (2 ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/hopkins_guide_to_literary_theory/erich_auerbach.html. 
• Nuttall, A. D. "New Impressions V: Auerbach’s Mimesis." Essays in Criticism 54.1 (2004): 60-74.
• Porter, James I. "Erich Auerbach and the Judaizing of Philology." Critical Inquiry 35 (2008): 115-47.

External links

• Sebastian Sobecki (2006). Bautz, Traugott. ed (in German). Erich Auerbach. Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). 26. Nordhausen. cols. 55–71. ISBN 3-88309-354-8. http://www.bautz.de/bbkl/a/auerbach_er.shtml. 
• [2] Yalnizgoz Books: Rousseau Hakkinda Bir Baslangic Yazisi by Erich Auerbach, Editor by Beyaz Arif Akbas, Edirne 2011