Time, History, and Literature

James I. Porter is Chancellor's Professor in the Department of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. Jane O. Newman is Professor of Comparative Literature and European Languages and Studies at the University of California, Irvine.

Jane O. Newman, Co-Winner of the 2014 Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Scholarly Study of Literature, Modern Language Association "The 20 essays collected here--many of them translated from the German for the first time--bear out editor Porter's contention that Auerbach (1892-1957), best known for his literary study Mimesis, was one of the 20th century's great literary critics... Those well-versed in comparative literature will find his insights stimulating."--Publishers Weekly "Editor Porter purposefully organizes Auerbach's writings ... in order to sketch a historical panorama of erudite language to predictions for future literary invention. He skillfully accomplishes these goals by drawing out examples of Auerbach's writing focused on humans and their language as earthly (irdisch) artifacts, each created with a historical perspective, not just as poetic language steeped in spiritual motifs alone... [S]uited for literary theorists writing from disparate paradigms and for most scholars from the humanities engaged in granularly close readings pursuing the understanding of writing as one of many human creations."--Library Journal "For scholar and non-academic alike, this work is of extreme importance, especially given the relatively scanty number of works available on such a key figure to the development of the study of comparative literature."--Lois Henderson, BookPleasures.com "This collection will be invaluable to anyone studying literary theory, historiography, or cultural studies."--Choice "The publication of Time, History, and Literature: Selected Essays of Erich Auerbach provides an excellent opportunity to witness a master philologist at work."--Joseph Epstein, Weekly Standard "[A] career-spanning collection that includes several essays which are appearing in English for the first time... [E]xcellent introduction... One of the most valuable aspects of this volume is that these essays set out ... the extent of Auerbach's intellectual debt to Vico, whom he credits as the first methodical theorist of history... The densely written, subtle essays towards the end of Time, Literature, and History ... are models of careful scholarly contextualization and analysis."--James Ley, Sydney Review of Books

• Acknowledgments James I. Porter vii Introduction James I. Porter ix Translator's Note Jane O. Newman xlvii Part I. History and the Philosophy of History: Vico, Herder, and Hegel 1. Vico's Contribution to Literary Criticism (1958) 3 2. Vico and Herder (1932) 11 3. Giambattista Vico and the Idea of Philology (1936) 24 4. Vico and Aesthetic Historism (1948) 36 5. Vico and the National Spirit (1955) 46 6. The Idea of the National Spirit as the Source of the Modern Humanities (ca. 1955) 56 Part II. Time and Temporality in Literature 7. Figura (1938) 65 8. Typological Symbolism in Medieval Literature (1952) 114 9. On the Anniversary Celebration of Dante (1921) 121 10. Dante and Vergil (1931) 124 11. The Discovery of Dante by Romanticism (1929) 134 12. Romanticism and Realism (1933) 144 13. Marcel Proust and the Novel of Lost Time (1927) 157 Part III. Passionate Subjects, from the Bible to Secular Modernity 14. Passio as Passion (1941) 165 15. The Three Traits of Dante's Poetry (1948) 188 16. Montaigne the Writer (1932) 200 17. On Pascal's Political Theory (1941) 215 18. Racine and the Passions (1927) 236 19. On Rousseau's Place in History (1932) 246 20. The Philology of World Literature (1952) 253 Appendix: Sources for Translated Citations Jane O. Newman 267 Bibliographical Overview James I. Porter 271 Index 277