German · 1892–1957
Erich Auerbach wrote "Mimesis" in Istanbul exile without access to a research library—and produced the twentieth century's most influential work of literary criticism. The German philologist traced Western literature's representation of reality from Homer through Virginia Woolf, arguing that the Judeo-Christian tradition introduced a revolutionary seriousness about ordinary life. Published in 1946, "Mimesis" emerged from catastrophe: Auerbach, a Jewish scholar expelled from Marburg, composed it as both scholarly monument and act of cultural preservation against barbarism.