Erich Auerbach

Erich Auerbach (1892-1957), a German Romance philologist forced by Nazism to emigrate first to Turkey and later to the United States, is known above all for his Mimesis, a fundamental essay on realism in Western literature. He also wrote important studies on Dante, the outcomes of which have influenced modern criticism. In Dante: Poet of the Secular World, he observes that the souls inhabiting the afterlife described by Dante have not lost their historical-earthly character and that Dante makes an effort to lend forceful empirical and dramatic evidence to his narrative, to the extent that he persuades readers that it is real. The basis of this realism in representation is subsequently (Figura, 1939) identified as figural interpretation, which, Auerbach argues, dominated medieval culture. The principle underlying the interpretation is the stable link between two historical events or figures, where the first is real and historical not only of itself, but announces something else that is also real and historical. Thus in biblical exegesis, the Old Testament maintains its historical veracity but prefigures the New Testament, which authenticates and fulfils the meanings implicit in the former. Figural interpretation is thus distinct from allegory because it acknowledges equal historicity to both the signifier and the signified. Taking the Commedia as example, Auerbach explains that Virgil is not so much an abstract allegory of reason, but the fulfilment of the historical Virgil, who has finally unveiled his place in the providential history of the world. The same goes for the historical Cato, who committed suicide for political freedom, and who prefigures Cato the guardian of Purgatorio, kingdom of the freedom from sin. This perspective has the advantage of framing the extraordinary realism of the Commedia within Dante’s theological conceptualization. Importantly, Auerbach also notes a link between the Commedia’s comic style and the Scriptural sermo humilis, able to convey depth of content also by means of concrete images of daily life.