Mimesis Quotes

“Abraham’s actions are explained not only by what is happening to him at the moment, nor yet only by his character (as Achilles’ actions by his courage and his pride, and Odysseus’ by his versatility and foresightedness), but by his previous history; he remembers, he is constantly conscious of, what God has promised him and what God has already accomplished for him—his soul is torn between desperate rebellion and hopeful expectation; his silent obedience is multilayered, has background. Such a problematic psychological situation as this is impossible for any of the Homeric heroes, whose destiny is clearly defined and who wake every morning as if it were the first day of their lives: their emotions, though strong, are simple and find expression instantly.”
― Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

“The Scripture stories do not, like Homer’s, court our favor, they do not flatter us that they may please us and enchant us—they seek to subject us, and if we refuse to be subjected we are rebels.”
― Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

“… human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them to give birth to themselves. —Gabriel García Márquez”
― Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

“Adil olanin pesinden gidilmesi dogrudur, en guclunun pesinden gidilmesi ise kacinilmazdir. Gucu olmayan adalet acizdir; adaleti olmayan guc ise zalim. Gucu olmayan adalete mutlaka bir karsi cikan olur, cunku kotu insanlar her zaman vardir. Adaleti olmayan guc ise tohmet altinda kalir. Demek ki adalet ile gucu bir araya getirmek gerek; bunu yapabilmek icin de adil olanin guclu, guclu olanin ise adil olmasi gerekir.
Adalet tartismaya aciktir. Guc ise ilk bakista tartisilmaz bir bicimde anlasilir. Bu nedenle gucu adalete veremedik, cunku guc, adalete karsi cikip kendisinin adil oldugunu soylemisti. Hakli olanin guclu kilamadigimiz icin de guclu olani hakli kildik.”
― Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

“The Bible’s claim to truth is not only far more urgent than Homer’s, it is tyrannical—it excludes all other claims. The world of the Scripture stories is not satisfied with claiming to be a historically true reality—it insists that it is the only real world, is destined for autocracy.”
― Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

“Examining the Homeric epics from the perspective of when and by whom they were composed, Vico refutes generations of interpreters who had assumed that because Homer was revered for his great epics he must also have been a wise sage like Plato, Socrates, or Bacon. Instead Vico demonstrates that in its wildness and willfulness Homer’s mind was poetic, and his poetry barbaric, not wise or philosophic, that is, full of illogical fantasy, gods who were anything but godlike, and men like Achilles and Patrocles, who were most uncourtly and extremely petulant.”
― Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

“Vico, who looks at the whole of human history and says, “mind made all this,”
― Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

“The writers of Scripture enter into the random everyday depths of popular life, taking seriously whatever is encountered there, clinging to the concrete and refusing to systematize experience in concepts.”
― Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

“To be sure, in the case of such long episodes as the one we are considering, a purely syntactical connection with the principal theme would hardly have been possible; but a connection with it through perspective would have been all the easier had the content been arranged with that end in view; if, that is, the entire story of the scar had been presented as a recollection which awakens in Odysseus’ mind at this particular moment. It would have been perfectly easy to do; the story of the scar had only to be inserted two verses earlier, at the first mention of the word scar, where the motifs “Odysseus” and “recollection” were already at hand. But any such subjectivistic-perspectivistic procedure, creating a foreground and background, resulting in the present lying open to the depths of the past, is entirely foreign to the Homeric style; the Homeric style knows only a foreground, only a uniformly illuminated, uniformly objective present.”
― Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

“The effect, to be sure, is precisely that which they describe, and is, furthermore, the actual source of the conception of epic which they themselves hold, and with them all writers decisively influenced by classical antiquity. But the true cause of the impression of “retardation” appears to me to lie elsewhere—namely, in the need of the Homeric style to leave nothing which it mentions half in darkness and unexternalized.”
― Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

“Thus the figural interpretation of history emerged unqualifiedly victorious.”
― Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

“Figural interpretation “establishes a connection between two events or persons in such a way that the first signifies not only itself but also the second, while the second involves or fulfills the first.”
― Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

“I do not believe that there is a single passage in an antique historian where direct discourse is employed in this fashion in a brief, direct dialogue.”
― Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

“The way in which we view human life and society is the same whether we are concerned with things of the past or things of the present.”
― Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature