Erich Auerbach

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Erich Auerbach : biography

November 9, 1892 – October 13, 1957

Erich Auerbach (September 11, 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 and frequently cited as a classic in the study of realism in literature.

Works

  • Auerbach, Erich. Roman Filolojisine Giris Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakultesi: Horoz Yayinevi, 1944.
  • Auerbach, Erich. Dante: Poet of the Secular World Trans. Ralph Manheim. New York: NYRB Classics, 2007. ISBN 978-1-59017-219-3.
  • Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Fiftieth Anniversary Ed. Trans. Willard Trask. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.
  • Auerbach, Erich. Literary Language and Its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages. Trans. Ralph Manheim. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. ISBN 978-0-691-02468-4.

Biography

Auerbach, who was Jewish and born in Berlin, was trained in the German philological tradition and would eventually become, along with Leo Spitzer, one of its best-known scholars. 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.Wellek, Rene. "Erich Auerbach (1892-1957)." Comparative Literature 10: 1 (Winter, 1958), 93-95.

He moved to the United States in 1947, teaching at Pennsylvania State University and then working at the Institute for Advanced Study. He was appointed professor of Romance philology at Yale University in 1950, a position he held until his death in 1957 in Wallingford, Connecticut.Wellek, 1958.

While at Yale, Auerbach supervised Fredric Jameson’s doctoral work.Best, Steven, and Kellner, Douglas. Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations. New York: Guilford Press, 1991.