Auerbach’s choices: a matter of reality

Abstract

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-7917.2014v19n2p139

This paper seeks to discuss some of the concepts proposed by German philologist Erich Auerbach, focusing on his work Mimesis: the representation of reality in Western literature, from 1946, problematizing his hypothesis in what concerns to the relations between literature and reality, the motto through which the quoted work is constructed. Starting with the exploration of some relevant concepts to philosophy and literary critic of 20^th century, we will show, through exposition of some parts of Mimesis, especially the chapter about Don Quixote, that there is, by Auerbach, an openly conservative attempt to rescue a cultural tradition which, to Europe, had been lost since the advent of the 1^st and 2^nd World Wars. His attempt is that which still tries to ratify the idea of a literature which exists to the duty of representation of reality, something that will be put to check from the 19^th century, and more radically in the 20^th. Thus, we will demonstrate how dissonant is Auerbach’s hypothesis, in his crusade to retake a certain order that art itself had disowned a long time ago.