Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

In the Introduction to the 50th-Anniversary Edition of Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, Edward W. Said, a well-known literary scholar in his own right, reflects on Auerbach’s book, his critical processes, and the influence of Auerbach’s personal history on his interpretations. Said explains the “separation of styles” and later co-mingling of them that Auerbach explores as a key difference between certain eras of Western literary history. Homer’s Odyssey pre-figures elements of the future literary separation of styles. This separation of styles refers to the use of “higher,” or more refined, literary style only for stories of the gods, spirituality, or aristocratic and heroic tales and the use of “lower,” or farcical, styles to portray everyday life or the lives of lower-class peoples. Auerbach, Said notes, illustrates how the Hebrew Bible mingles these styles and how the literature of later eras either continues to mingle these styles or returns to the separation of styles.

Auerbach wrote Mimesis in the midst of the rise of the Nazi party in Germany, during which time Auerbach was exiled from his home country to avoid persecution as a Jew. Said explores the ways that Auerbach’s text reflects Auerbach’s feelings and approaches to the events in Europe: