Istanbul, 1945 Erich Auerbach's Philology of Extremity
-
Sarah Pourciau
Abstract
Erich Auerbach's Mimesis has a profoundly pessimistic conclusion. The present paper takes seriously the consequences of the apocalyptic rhetoric therein introduced for Auerbach's humanist historicist project, arguing that Auerbach holds responsible his own brand of secular humanism – whose story his book tells and whose method it implements – for the “Nivellierungseffekt” he so clearly deplores. As an exile on the outskirts of European space and time (Istanbul, 1945), Auerbach possesses a privileged philological perspective from which to synthesize a history nearing its end; the techniques he employs in order to do so, however, are for him complicit in the destruction. The final chapter of Mimesis, so often considered a weak point of the work, provides a condensed and lyrical account of this predicament.
© Walter de Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- The Avant-Garde and Modern Sovereignty. By Way of Introduction
- Militant Politics and Avant-garde Performance Art in the Early Futurist Movement
- “You Feed Us So that We Can Fight Against You”. Concepts of the Art and State in the Hungarian Avant-Garde
- Reciting Shells. Dada and, Dada in & Dadaists on the First World War
- Dada as Politics
- L'avant-garde littéraire roumaine et la politique
- Mapping Old Traces of the New. Towards a Historical Topography of Early Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde(s) in the European Cultural Field(s)
- Wiener Gruppe und Transfurismus. Zwei Beispiele für die literaturgeschichtliche Weiterwirkung der historischen Avantgarden im deutschen und russischen Sprachraum
- Schwebe der Körper, Stammeln der Sprache. Strategien literarischer und sexueller Subversion bei Julia Kristeva und Gilles Deleuze
- How to Do Things With Poems Performativity in the Poetry of C.P. Cavafy
- Regarding Paintings. Works of El Greco in Simon Vestdijk's Het vijfde zegel
- Istanbul, 1945 Erich Auerbach's Philology of Extremity
- Rezensionen
- Inhalt des 41. Bandes (2006)
Articles in the same Issue
- The Avant-Garde and Modern Sovereignty. By Way of Introduction
- Militant Politics and Avant-garde Performance Art in the Early Futurist Movement
- “You Feed Us So that We Can Fight Against You”. Concepts of the Art and State in the Hungarian Avant-Garde
- Reciting Shells. Dada and, Dada in & Dadaists on the First World War
- Dada as Politics
- L'avant-garde littéraire roumaine et la politique
- Mapping Old Traces of the New. Towards a Historical Topography of Early Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde(s) in the European Cultural Field(s)
- Wiener Gruppe und Transfurismus. Zwei Beispiele für die literaturgeschichtliche Weiterwirkung der historischen Avantgarden im deutschen und russischen Sprachraum
- Schwebe der Körper, Stammeln der Sprache. Strategien literarischer und sexueller Subversion bei Julia Kristeva und Gilles Deleuze
- How to Do Things With Poems Performativity in the Poetry of C.P. Cavafy
- Regarding Paintings. Works of El Greco in Simon Vestdijk's Het vijfde zegel
- Istanbul, 1945 Erich Auerbach's Philology of Extremity
- Rezensionen
- Inhalt des 41. Bandes (2006)
