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Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (German:Mimesis: Dargestellte Wirklichkeit in der abendländischen Literatur) is a book ofliterary criticism byErich Auerbach, and his most well known work. It was written in German between 1942 and 1945, while Auerbach was teaching inIstanbul,Turkey, where he fled after being ousted from his professorship in RomancePhilology at theUniversity of Marburg by theNazis in 1935,[1] it was first published in Switzerland in 1946 by A. Francke Verlag, with an English translation byPrinceton University Press following in 1953, since when it has remained in print.
Mimesis is arranged in twenty sections, in chronological order. Each section analyses one to three works from the particular period, often beginning with a lengthy extract from the work, given in the original language and English translation. Nearly all the passages selected are narratives of some sort (# 12, covering an essay byMichel de Montaigne is one exception). The literary forms covered includeepic poetry, novels, plays,memoirs, and letters.
The book opens with a comparison between the way the world is represented inHomer’sOdyssey and the way it appears in the biblicalBook of Genesis's account of theSacrifice of Isaac, and ends with analysis of a passage fromTo the Lighthouse byVirginia Woolf (1927). From his analyses, Auerbach attempts to make the foundation for a unified theory ofrepresentation that spans the entire history of Western literature, including even theModernist novelists writing at the time Auerbach began his study.
Mimesis gives an account of the way in whicheveryday life in its seriousness has been represented by many Western writers, from ancientGreek andRoman writers such asPetronius andTacitus, earlyChristian writers such asAugustine,Medieval writers such asChretien de Troyes,Dante, andBoccaccio,Renaissance writers such asMontaigne,Rabelais,Shakespeare, andCervantes, 17th-century writers such asMolière andRacine,Enlightenment writers such asVoltaire, 19th-century writers such asStendhal,Balzac,Flaubert, andZola, and 20th-century writers such asProust andWoolf. Despite his treatment of the many major works, Auerbach apparently did not think he was comprehensive enough, and apologized in the original publication in 1946 explaining that he had access only to the 'insufficient' resources available in the library atIstanbul University where he worked;[2] Auerbach did not know Turkish and so could not use locally available sources, and did not have access to non-Turkish secondary sources.[3]
The mode of literary criticism in whichMimesis operates is often referred to among contemporary critics ashistoricism, since Auerbach largely regarded the way reality was represented in the literature of various periods to be intimately bound up with social and intellectual conventions of the time in which they were written. In this he followedGiambattista Vico.[4] Auerbach considered himself a historicalperspectivist in the German tradition (he mentionedHegel in this respect), and interpreted specific features ofstyle,grammar,syntax, anddiction to make much broader claims about cultural and historical questions. OfMimesis, Auerbach wrote that his "purpose is always to write history".[citation needed]
Auerbach is in the same German tradition ofphilology asErnst Curtius,Leo Spitzer, andKarl Vossler, having a mastery of many languages and epochs and all-inclusive in its approach, incorporating just about any intellectual endeavor into the discipline of literary criticism. Auerbach was aRomance language specialist, which explains his admitted bias towards treating texts from French compared to other languages.
To the consternation of his colleagueErnst Curtius,[citation needed] Auerbach's work is marked by an openly anti-rhetorical position. Auerbach criticizes classical writers such asHomer,Tacitus, andPetronius, as well as medieval theologians (exceptSt. Augustine) and writers of the 17th century, likeRacine, for their adherence to the rhetorical doctrine of "styles" with their corresponding subject matters: the low style's association with the comedic and the popular classes, and the elevated style's association with the tragic, the historic, and the heroic. Auerbach sees the Bible as opposing this rhetorical doctrine in its serious and poignant portrayals of common folk and their encounter with the divine. As Auerbach notes in Chapter 2 when discussing the New Testament:
The Bible will ultimately be responsible for the "mixed style" of Christian rhetoric, a style that is described by Auerbach in Chapter 7 as the "antithetical fusion" or "merging" of the high and low style. The model is Christ'sIncarnation as bothsublimitas andhumilitas. This mixture ultimately leads to a "popular realism" seen in the religious plays and sermons of the 12th century. Auerbach also discusses the development of an intermediate or middle style due to medieval influences from the Bible andcourtly love (see chapters 9 and 15 onBoccaccio andMolière). This development of an intermediate and then ultimately another "mixed style" (Shakespeare,Hugo) leads to what Auerbach calls the "modern realism" of the 19th century (see Chapter 18 onFlaubert).
Auerbach champions[clarification needed] writers likeGregory of Tours and St.Francis of Assisi, whose Latin was poor and whose rhetorical education was minimal, but who were still able to convey vivid expression and feeling. He also champions the diaristSaint-Simon, who wrote about the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century French court. Completely free of the absolute constraints of style found in Racine or the superficial use of reality found inPrévost orVoltaire, Saint-Simon's portraits of court life are considered by Auerbach, somewhat surprisingly, to be the precursor ofProust (an admirer of Saint-Simon) andZola.
Mimesis is a sprawling, wide-ranging work. It has been praised for its insights on the particular works it addresses, and for the way the author revels in the complexities of each work andepoch without resorting toreductive generalities. At the same time, it has been criticized for its lack of a single overarching theme or claim. For this reason, individual chapters of the book are often read independently.
Auerbach summarizes his comparison of the texts as follows:
Auerbach concludes by arguing that the "full development" of these two styles, the rhetorical tradition with its constraints on representing reality and the Biblical or "realist" tradition with its engagement of everyday experience, exercised a "determining influence upon the representation of reality in European literature”.[citation needed]
By far the most frequently reprinted chapter is Chapter 1, "Odysseus' Scar", in which Auerbach compares the scene in book 19 ofHomer’sOdyssey, whenOdysseus finally returns home from his two decades of warring and journeying, toGenesis 22, the story ofThe Binding of Isaac. Highlighting the rhetorically determined simplicity of characters in theOdyssey (what he calls the "external") against what he regards as the psychological depth of the figures in theOld Testament, Auerbach suggests that the Old Testament gives a more powerful and historical impression than theOdyssey, which he classifies as closer to "legend" in which all details are fleshed out in a leisurely manner and all actions occur in a simple present – indeed even flashbacks are narrated in the present tense. It is in the context of this comparison between the Biblical and the Homeric that Auerbach draws his famous conclusion that the Bible's claim to truth is "tyrannical", since:
By the time Auerbach treats the work ofFlaubert, he has come full circle. Like the Biblical writers whose faith in the so-called "tyrannical" truth of God produces an authentic expression of reality, Flaubert's "faith in the truth of language" (ch. 18) represents "an entire human experience".[6]
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