Erich Auerbach – Antihero of Criticism

Abstract

Erich Auerbach (1892–1957) is indisputably one of the most important figures in the history of twentieth-century criticism. The historical place of his legacy, however, is anything but clearly defined. As a result of the remarkable impact of his 1946 masterpiece Mimesis and other works since the postwar era, as well as a repeated attention to his exilic biography between Turkey (1936–1947) and the US (1947–1957), Auerbach has become not only a canonic figure in the field of literary and cultural studies, but also the subject of a highly ambiguous and often conflicted history of reception. My dissertation turns to this reception and asks for the discursive-historical place that emerges from it for Auerbach as assigned from today’s perspective. As I argue, this place is on the one hand delineated by the high esteem Auerbach’s legacy continues to hold, while on the other hand defined by the frequent interrogation of this value and a recurring sense of unease with Auerbach’s work, receiving its historical specificity by the depiction of Auerbach’s legacy as either imperiled (underappreciated) or to be further displaced (lacking, or not ‘enough’). Like the antihero in modern drama, Auerbach appears to occupy a center, the legitimacy of which is perennially put into question. Understood in this way, Auerbach emerges not only as a discursive ‘figure,’ but also as a gauge and barometer for the conflicts and turning points of criticism. My dissertation unfolds this reading of Auerbach in three chapters. Chapter 1 examines the methodological origins of his work in the early 1920s against the backdrop of its critique as transgressing traditional scholarship towards the realm of art, highlighting Auerbach’s quest for models of historical accuracy beyond the positivist legacy of the nineteenth century. Chapter 2 examines the understanding of Auerbach’s method as based on models of Christian-figural reading as expressed specifically around the 2000s, suggesting that such interpretation may reflect less of Auerbach’s methodology than of the fading reception of his work in the context of the symptomatic tradition. In Chapter 3, I turn to Auerbach as a case for examining Jewish and postcolonial history in critical relation to each other, surveying Auerbach’s frequent ‘exclusions’ from both fields and suggesting a reading of his work as reflective of the interconnectedness of both histories. In the afterword, I reflect on Auerbach’s audience as –in a Brechtian sense– co-producers of his ‘unfinished’ work and ask for the prospect of his reception in the twenty-first century.