Time, History, and Literature: Selected Essays of Erich Auerbach

The 20 essays collected here—many of them translated from the German for the first time—bear out editor Porter’s contention that Auerbach (1892–1957), best known for his literary study Mimesis, was one of the 20th century’s great literary critics. Though themes range from the study of “passion” as a concept in world literature to appreciations of Proust, Rousseau, and Montaigne, two areas of special interest dominate this collection: the theories of 18th-century philologist Giambattista Vico regarding primitive humans and the origins of our culture; and the concept of figuration (elaborated in the lengthy essay “Figura”), especially as it pertains to the work of Dante. In “Vico and Herder,” Auerbach discusses how “primitive humans created their lives as a form of poetry” that acknowledged the gods and their handiwork, and how the rites and ceremonies they instituted to placate those gods gave rise to the customs and laws that have shaped our civilization since. In “Typological Symbolism in Medieval Literature,” Auerbach shows how Dante, in his Divine Comedy, deploys a figurative or typological interpretation of events in the Bible as prefigurations or recapitulations that reflect history’s “providential design.” Auerbach packs his dense prose with literary and philosophical references that show his formidable scholarship, which sometimes makes the reading slow-going. Those well-versed in comparative literature will find his insights stimulating. (Dec.)