|Born||9 November 1892
Berlin, German Empire
|Died||13 October 1957
Wallingford, Connecticut, USA
|Occupation||Literary critic, Philologist|
|Notable works||Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature|
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 and frequently cited as a classic in the study of realism in literature.
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 a 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 appointed professor of Romance philology at Yale University in 1950, a position he held until his death in 1957 in Wallingford, Connecticut.
- 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.
- Time, History, and Literature: Selected Essays of Erich Auerbach. Edited and with an introduction by James I. Porter and translated by Jane O. Newman. Princeton University Press, 2013. ISBN 978-0-691-13711-7.
- Greenberg, Mark L. (1992). Literature and Technology. Lehigh UP. p. 280. ISBN 978-0-934223-20-1. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
- Auerbach (1993), p. xiii
- Wellek, Rene. "Erich Auerbach (1892–1957)." Comparative Literature 10: 1 (Winter, 1958), 93–95.
- Wellek, 1958.
- Best, Steven, and Kellner, Douglas. Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations. New York: Guilford Press, 1991.
- 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.
- 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.
- Sebastian Sobecki (2006). "Erich Auerbach". In Bautz, Traugott. Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German) 26. Nordhausen: Bautz. cols. 55–71. ISBN 3-88309-354-8.
- Rousseau Hakkinda Bir Baslangic Yazisi by Erich Auerbach, Editor by Beyaz Arif Akbas, Yalnizgoz Books, Edirne 2011 (Turkish)