Philosophy or Philology: Auerbach and Aesthetic Historicism Author(s): Charles Breslin Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal of the History

of Ideas, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1961), pp. 369-381 Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2708131 . Accessed: 30/04/2012 19:47
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PHILOSOPHY OR PHILOLOGY: AUERBACH AND AESTHETIC HISTORICISM

BY CHARLES BRESLIN The cultural phenomenonknown as historicism * has made a somewhatbelated appearance in Americanintellectuallife.This concept is still an innovationforus and that accounts,perhaps,forits very imperfectassimilation into our pragmatic thought patterns. Fanatic espousal and total excoriation both betraya shallow understandingof historicism, which in realityis not a single idea but an historicalcomplex of ideas. The fieldof literarystudies reflects the inadequacy of our assimilationto quite a pronounceddegree."After the year 1858 came the year 1859, that is historicism." Such are the wordsof an eminentAmericancriticand man of letters.Most of our avowed historicists and, conversely, their critics,are far more concerned with what they believe to be the essential philosophicalimplications of historicism, viz. relativism,scepticism, moral and aesthetic indifferentism, etc., than with historicismas a hermeneutic principleand generalintellectualorientation through whicha literary workof art, in all its richnessand plenitude,can be made to reveal itselfmeaningfully to the human spirit. This is not to say that the logical nature of the categoryof historicismis free from conceptual confusion.In a recent study the Crocean Carlo Antoni has viewed historicism as a multifaceted concept formedby the liberal historicism of XVIIIth-century Europe, Vico's humanistichistoricism, the romantic historicism of Herder, Savigny, and Jakob Grimm, the dialectical historicismof Hegel, Marx's materialistichistoricism,and the absolute historicismof Benedetto Croce.' Those with a philosophicalturn of mind might legitimately inquire whether historicism denotes a determinate mode of thought,a heuristicor scientific method,an historicaltheoryof knowledge,an interpretation of history,or a completed Weltanor philosophy.What role, forinstance,would the concept schauung play in the construction of a formallogic of historyor of a material philosophyof history?These epistemological complexitiesneed not be elucidatedhere; they are mentionedonly to give some intimation of the kind of problemsthat surround the idea of historicism. It certainlyconfronts us with issues that are among the deepest,the most basic, and the mostmysterious of those whichperpetually engage the powers of the human understanding. As a help toward perspective,
* The termHistorismus is of Germanorigin; the Frenchl'historisme, the Italian lo storicismo, and the English historicism are adaptations of thatword. I Carlo Antoni, Lo Storicismo (Roma, 1957).

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however,we can do no betterthan to considerthe words of Friedrich Meinecke and Ernst Troeltsch,two of the most sensitive and learnedinvestigators of thismovement. For Meinecke "the essence of historicism consists in the substitutionof an individualizingview towardhistorical-human forcesfora generalizing one, . . . one of the 2 For greatest revolutions that human thought has undergone." Troeltschthe phenomenonsignified "the radical historicizing of our entireknowledge and perception of the spiritualworld"; he regarded historicism and naturalismas the "two great scientific creationsof the modernworld"3 In orderto definethe relationof literary we study to historicism must first of all turn to the workof Erich Auerbach,a scholar who enhas brilliantly realized the full depth and range of potentialities compassed by aesthetic historicism. His understanding of this concept is stated with clarityand eloquence in a passage fromhis wellknown book Mimesis: The Representationof Reality in Western Literature: Whenpeoplerealizethatepochs and societies are notto be judgedin terms of a pattern in concept ofwhatis desirable absolutely speaking but rather every case in terms oftheir ownpremises; whenpeoplereckon among such premises notonlythenatural factors likeclimate andsoilbutalso theintela lectualand historical factors; when, in other words, theycometo develop senseofhistorical dynamics, oftheincomparability ofhistorical phenomena thevital and oftheir constant inner mobility; when they cometo appreciate unityof individual epochs, so that each epochappearsas a wholewhose character is reflected in eachofitsmanifestations; accept when, finally, they in abstract and cannot be grasped theconviction thatthemeaning ofevents it forms of cognition neededto understand and that the material general and in major in theupperstrataof society mustnotbe sought exclusively material and intellectual events but also in art,economy, culture, political becauseit is in thedepths worldand its menand women, oftheworkaday whatis animated thatone can graspwhatis unique, onlythere by inner in other as a pieceof stateof development; forces and in a constant words, structure and total inner history whoseeveryday depths lay claimto our takenin their and in thedirection interest bothin their origins development. whichI have just enumerated and which Now we knowthatthe insights trendknownas Historismus the intellectual taken all together represent in the secondhalf of the eighteenth werefullydeveloped century during Germany.4 statementof the hisThe above is obviouslya most comprehensive illuminates its convergence with also one that view of life and toristic
2

1932),13. (Tiubingen, des Historismus 4 E. Auerbach, 1953),443-4. Mimesis (Princeton,

3 F. Wagner, Die Krisis (Munich, 1951),360.K. Heussi, Geschichtswissenschaft

1959), 2, 1. des Historismus (Munich, Die Enstehung F. Meinecke,

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This way of lookingat thingshas the traditionof Geistesgeschichte. and intensehistorical everbeen latentin the secularization dynamism in the hisdisclosednew dimensions of the West; it has progressively toricalbeing of the human race. Auerbach'sconceptionis akin to the which pertainsto the inner freedomand indiaesthetichistoricism This type of historicism is exemplividual creativity of the historian. fiedin the writings of Carlyle,Michelet,and Burckhardt;it arose in of the XIXth centuryas a reaction against the monisticstrictures the one seekingto subsume naturalistic and metaphysical historicism, historicalphenomenawithinthe categoriesof exact or positive science, the other seeking to formulatea metaphysicalprinciplethat Its rise was also a conwould unifythe realmsof natureand history. sequence of the prodigous accumulation and pillaging of culturalhistoricalmaterials,a process which alienated the study of human of genuinely from history its vital contextand obscuredall possibility fruitful creativity. The doctrine of L'histoirepour 1'histoire provoked Nietzsche's famous Zweite Unzeitgemdsse, which deplored the submergence of human lifebeneatha monstrous antiquarianism. Another aspect of this conditionwas the historian'sproclivity to lapse into a kind of aesthetic,sceptical,or ironiccontemplation in the face of a multitudeof individualities, endless transformations, and vast interplay of forces.The fact that resignation, pessimism, and enervating relativismcould result fromthis aesthetichistoricism was a contingency Auerbach himselfrecognizedwhen he spoke of general and aesthetichistoricism as "a precious(and also verydangerous)acquisition of the human mind."' His own conceptionis derivedfromthe breadth and diversity of the contemporary aesthetichorizon and is groundedin the beliefthat historicalrelativism or perspectivism has a twofoldaspect: "it concernsthe understanding historianas well as 6 The historical antecedents for the phenomenonhe understood." these views are, of course,to be foundin the XIXth and in the latter part of the XVIIIth century. Aesthetichistoricism forAuerbachwas a productof Germanromanticism, and it restson the conviction that "every civilizationand everyperiod has its own possibilitiesof aesthetic perfection; that the works of art of different peoples and periods,as well as theirgeneralformsof life,must be understood as products of variable individual conditions,and have to be judged each by its own development, not by absolute rules of beauty and ugliness." The real importand validity of Auerbach's historistic approach to literaturewill become apparent if we recall that he was imbued
7Scenes,183-4.
6 StudiaPhilologica et Litteraria in Honorem L.

5 Scenesfrom theDrama ofEuropean Literature (New York,1959),184.

Spitzer(Bern,1958),35.

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withall thatwas mostfertile in the XIXth-century German tradia tradition tionofphilology, we have no exactcounterpart forwhich in thiscountry. a Indeed,formanyof us the wordphilology itself, in German, term which has a verywidesignification tendsto evoke thoughts suggesting themostconcentrated and aridsortofpedantry. Yet Theophil Spoerri, a critic reminiscent ofRene Wellekin his prewith literature andvaluetheory, has described occupation thephilologistas one whois concerned with"thereflections oflife, withshining of a creative appearances, which are theproducts of a transprocess, 8 If we are to believethe mature and a transfiguration." formation, Philolog(Auerbach, E. R. Curtius, Leo Spitzer, Karl Vossler, Helmut Hatzfeld, are probably thebestknown in America), thediscipline of philology mustbe regarded as an indispensable prolegomenon to genuineliterary criticism; in fact, it is thesource and foundation ofany soundliterary judgment which has as its objecta workof artwhose medium is language. Philology is morethanan auxiliary, or instrumentalscience;actuallyit forms an integral and necessary partof whatwe call literary criticism. For Auerbach the highly developed critical faculty consists of a specialsenseforsignificant factsand fora synoptic comprehension of the "breadth of thegeneral culture, which restson the passionate inclination to absorbeverything thatcouldbe useful fortheinterest O under pursuit." The literary critic mustultimately possessan imaginationof considerable innatevitalityand revelatory powerif he everhopesto penetrate language, whichitself is not onlythe substanceof the literary of art workbut also the mostfundamental forms. symbolic the manifold of linguistic acThrough expressions tivity thehistorical dimension ofhuman existence makesitself known to men, in thewords ofGiambattista Vico,a thinker esteemed highly by Auerbach, il mondodelle nazione.The critical acumenrequisite fortheir comprehension is not transmissible it cannot pedagogically, be reduced to questions of method, but is rather the function and telos of all method.Methodology, howeverextensiveor finely willremain ifit failsto culminate in thecritical sterile wrought, qualitiesthatAuerbach criticism mentions. One might think thatliterary as it is currently practised often exhibits theseveryqualitiesand in mostcaseswithout benefit ofthatlaborious in grammar, background lexicography, sourceand textualcriticism, bibliography, techniques of collecting, etc.,which Auerbach considers so essential. But he also statesthatif thecritical virtues cannot be taught theycan and must
9.
9 Vier Untersuchungen zur Geschichte derFranz6sischen Bildung(Bern,1951),

8T. Spoerri, Der Wegzur Form(Hamburg, 1954), 156.

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It is philology that will enableus to reand sharpened. be formed the past structures of the humanspiritand to evoke,to re-know whether thisbe donethrough repossess theminternally a literary or kindoflinguistic anyother document. This process is notequivalent
of literaturewith history,using literatureas a to an identification kind of external 'source' for historicalknowledge.But literatureis of an image or vision of human life,and this image the embodiment work are indissolublywelded to its particularvision of reality,its

reflected the prismof its own historical is inevitably onlythrough matrix. Whatwe tryto define as the aesthetic of a literary qualities representation of humanlife.The taskof philology, as Wilamowitzlife live again,the song of the poet,the to make that transpired of the philosopher and the lawgiver, thoughts the sanctity of the and the of the faithful and the sceptical, chapel, the variefeelings
Moellendorfonce expressedit, is "throughthe power of knowledge

gated activityin marketand harbor,land and sea, and men in their work and play." 10 The objective of philologyis the resuscitation of man's successiveand multiform visionsof himself and his worldin all dimensions of theirbeing.Withoutthisdisciplinethe primalor onto-

of a literary work logicalidentity of art can easilybecome dissolved intopsychologism; its essence willremain encrusted withthoseambivalent 'concretions,' to use Roman Ingarden's term,which mirror

theviscissitudes of its historical fortunes. In one of his works Auerbach defines as "theaggregate philology which ofactivities themselves occupy withthelanguage methodically 11For of man and the works of art composed within thislanguage." himtheterm retains thecomprehensive it received meaning from one ofits mostdistinguished modern founders August Boeckh;philology variousdifferent forms at least one, the critical editionof texts, is quiteancient;others suchas linguistics, bibliography and biography, critical aesthetics, literary and explicationdes textes are of history, recentorigin. comparatively As a translator and student of Vico's "New Science" Auerbach, in formulating his own idea of 'style' and philology, has substantially adopted Vico'sfilologia, which designates the wholeresidualcorpusof the historical processin all its If we refer staggering complexity. to thestylistic concepts ofmodern literary sciencethisfiologiawill appearvirtually synonymous with Geistesgeschichte. The contemporary literary scholar can be said to
represent the human spiritat a given stage of its self-realization and
10 Geschichte derPhilologie (Leipzig,1959),

is "Erkenntnisdes Erkannten,"knowledgeof what is known.Of its

thiscan be asserted without the intrusion of any Hegelianpettifog1. "Introduction aux etudesde Philologie Romane(Frankfurt, 1949), 9.

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gery. In addressinghimselfto literarydocumentsof the past the scholaris in realityconfronted with an orderof symbolicexpressions forms of life.His understanding of them whichare literally transpired and systematic will be based on an intimate,intuitive, knowledgeof those peculiar formsof life and expressionembedded in and significative of the culturalmatrixfromwhich a literarywork springs and of whichit is a spiritualarticulation. Accordingto Auerbach,then, it is philologythat engendersand cultivatesa "state of mind capable of revealingin itselfall varieties of human experience,of rediscovering them in its own 'modifica11 12 modern world is Our tions.' picture a realization of certain poof human existence, tentialitiesinherentwithin the total structure but the presentis nevertheless only one particularstage in the colAuerbachspeaks of our being here of humanity. lectiveconsciousness "with all the richnessand limitedness that this and now historically and singularity, the pervasive contains."13 The sheer preponderance and ubiquityof the modernworld-view act as a hindrance immediacy life a in the effort of literature whichis itselfthe to re-experience the emanationof a remoteor alien mentalformation or culturalcomplex. FollowingVico, Auerbachsees philologyas both the inchoatescience of spirit in the great breadth of its positive momentsand as the hermeneutic or methodforthe intrinsic of thesemoments rediscovery that is, throughtheirhisthroughthe medium of their documents, torical'words,'theirumana Voci. in the methodof explicationde textewill beAuerbach'sinterest come clear if it is seen withinthis philologicalcontext.Explication compelsthe literaryscholar to read "with a fresh,spontaneous,and 14 and abstain scrupulously from premature sustained attention" judgments.In other words it will assist him to attain "the greatest possible freedom from world-view or other dogmatic preconceptions."15 In the age of Malraux's imaginary museum when worksof art have become isolated fromtheir cultural functionand fromthe centerof their epoch it is no doubt correctto referto these works -cf. T. S. Eliot and Rene Wellek-as monuments ratherthan documents.Yet worksof literature are not inertmonuments in the same sense as are worksof plastic art or of architecture or even of music. The verbal medium,unlike the stones or the colors of the architect and painter,is essentiallyliving, dynamic,progressing, and is constantly transforming itself. Also the thoroughlyrationalisticand positivistic trendsof the XXth century must first apprehendthe art
12

Studia, 34-35.

und publikum in der spdtantike und im Lateinisches Mittelalter(Bern, 1958), 22. 14 Introduction, 36. 15 Vier Untersuchungen, 10.
13Literatursprache

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of a Pindar or Dante or Cervantesas a literarydocumentand then, it manifoldexplication, attemptto relivethe vital experience through contains and symbolizes,to perceive its singular nature. Such a of the reader's process,which takes place within the modifications is anteown mind and withinthe depths of his own consciousness, cedent to the developmentand application of formalaestheticcateas do does not have to be 'reconstructed' gories.A workof literature but its completephysicalavailthe eventsof an historicalnarrative, ability to us does not obviate the necessityof explication,which is enough. Without such a heuristicthe literary subtle and difficult documentcan quite easily become subject to what HerbertRead has Throughthe interpretation. aptly called the fallacy of retrospective of thought,a of established modes pervasivenessand ossification as comwork's real characterand its importanceas Anthropologie, lost to us. In on the essentialnatureof man, could be forever mentary the and infinite task to understand Auerbach'swords"it is a difficult a task and theirinterrelations, forms character of historical particular a passionatedevotion, learningand intelligence, apart from requiring, whichmay well be called magnanimmuch patience,and something 16 This magnanimity is connected ideologically with the ity." with Winckelmann'sinVerstehenof Dilthey and Schleiermacher, of art works,and Herder's empathy.C. S. Lewis in our terpretation own time voices similar thoughtswhen he states that in order to we ought,so far as possible,"to contain enjoy our full potentialities and withinus, and on occasion to actualize all the modes of thinking whichman has passed." 17 feeling through The analyses in Mimesis show that explicationde texte-whether its vantage point originates from a special semantic, syntactic, illuminate the aesthetic, or sociological problem-can effectively of its author,or even the aestheticvalue of a text, the psychology spiritof a literaryepoch. Nor does the method disengagea workof literature fromits livingmilieu; both pedagogicallyand scientifically this is a most sane and fertileapproach to literature.Among the many currentsof modern thought which have contributedto its scientificdevelopment is Croce's conception of the identity of and aestheticswhereinthe latter is seen as the science of linguistics is the phenomOf equal importance and generallinguistic. expression enologyof Edmund Husserl which strives,in its search for Wesensschau, to intuitand elucidate the essence of phenomena.The importance of this philosophy for literary theory has been amply demonstratedthrough the intensive studies of Roman Ingarden. has also been a notable conof art history theory HeinrichWoelfflin's 16Studia, 34.
17

A Preface C. S. Lewis, to ParadiseLost (NewYork,1956),63.

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has analyzedthe fundamental structure and mode of beingof the literaryart work. This formidable undertaking is accomplished through utilizing the phenomenology of Husserland the insights of Russianformalism. Ingarden contends that the correct formulation of aestheticproblemsis dependenton the posited results of Wesensanatomie. A keyaxiomof phenomenological analysis requires that the investigator divesthis own consciousness and hence the phenomenon itselffrom all the accretions whichcustom, prejudice, assumption, and tradition have formed aroundthem.Whenapplied to thestudy ofliterature themethod endeavors to define theliterary artwork as a polyphonic harmony ofuniqueaesthetic value-qualities.

Kunstwerk: Eine Untersuchung aus dem Grenzgebiet der Ontologie, (Halle, 1931) the Polish philosopher Logik und Literaturwissenschaft

(Munich, 1957),Hatzfeld discusses a number ofstepsinvolved in the courseof explicating a text,and it is not fortuitous that criticism comeslast in time; the pointis that literary criticism mustawait historical analysisif it is not to stultify itself.Hatzfeld'svalue qualitiesare similar to RudolfUnger's thoseinescapable Probleme, "existential" concomitants of the human condition, such as love, death, and the sense of nature and community. of Historicism, course,does not deny the existence or validityof such values or universal human it does,however, problems; averthattheir material correlates andfunctional thewhole meaning, resonance oftheir sensuous embodiment in languageconstantly shiftsthroughout history withthechanging of thought perspectives and feeling. Certainaspectsof Roman Ingarden's thought strongly support the heuristic claims of aesthetichistoricism. In Das Literarische

In his Initiation d 1'explication human reference. de textesfranvais

tribution. The method of explication has received considerable enlike Leo Spitzerwho seeks the 'inner fromphilologists richment life-center' of a literary workand Karl Vosslerforwhomaesthetic criticism can be thequintessence ofphilology. A radical historicism is, of course, an undeniable of the explication presupposition procedure. whois wellawareofthenecessity HelmutHatzfeld, for historical analysis in literary contends thataxiological historicism study, is not an ineluctable of the historical sequitur He admitsthat approach. erudition can preservethe literaryanalyst from only historical but the readermust at the same time reservethe amateurism, 'existential of embracing or rejecting theviewsexpressed liberty' in a a judgment textanditsform, willbe basedon aesthetic, which moral, or metaphysical values. For him the real significance of a literary workis not explicable or aesthetic purelyin termsof a technical it mustalso comprehend thosemoraland metaphysical formalism; elements whosepresence and elaboration lend a workits essentially

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work is thesumofits concrefateor 'life'ofa literary The historical it acof interpretations of that plethora tions (Konkretizationen), individual with varied association in infinitely quires its long and These of history. culturalclimates and withthe changing psyches someofthem indeed, and important; arebothinteresting concretions but criticism, of literary providethe very materialfor histories The art workitself. is withthe literary concern primary Ingarden's and conare consonant pointbeingthat someof theseconcretions of meaning withthosepotentialities withtheParahaltung, formable materialitself. But manyother thework contained within and affect due to the whether or interpretations, exegeses, readings, izations, of a cultural or to the pressure fancyof an individual subjective of the or aberrations falsifications, climate,will yield distortions, are of literary theory problems work. Certainly thethorniest original conof valid and significant thosethat turnon the determination in the modification an extraneous ofthem Which precipitate cretions. exceed of a work and thereby itspre-established collective polyphony the and whichof them enhanceand fulfill limitsof variability, sees the literary form of the work?Ingarden self-contained genuine constructed a specialsphereof peculiarly workof art as containing or structure fixed and unified pattern as an altogether objectivities, It possesses concretions. of subjective to the manifold not reducible are in at its concretions and although identity,' an 'intersubjective need not be the philosophical least one senseits 'life,'psychologism of this. consequence importance of particular one ofVico'saxioms considers Auerbach of the modern and conception of historicism forthe understanding of (humanor historical) things or period cultural style:"The nature and in certain times intobeingat certain but their coming is nothing is thusand so,suchand not Whenever thetimeand fashion fashions. of this 18 The burden are thethings thatcomeintobeing." otherwise thathuis thatman has no othernaturethanhis history, degnita is sayingmuchthe Ingarden of history. man natureis a function factthat each same thingwhenhe writes:"It is an acknowledged itsspecialtypes culture possesses ofhuman epochin thedevelopment values,its determand extra-aesthetic of aesthetic of understanding, waysof in regard suchand notother to exactly inatepresuppositions of art.":" but also of works of the worldgenerally, comprehension interpreas well as aesthetic creation artistic governs This condition of art to work literary a subject The of history vicissitudes tation. renascences. Analogiretrogressions, transmutations, unpredictable cally a workcan even 'die' a naturaldeath if it shouldbecome
18 G.

1948), 58. and M. H. Fisch (Cornell, tr. T. G. Bergin Vico,New Science, Kunstwerk (Halle, 1931),361. 19R. Ingarden, Das Literarische

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totallyalien or incomprehensible to the readers of a givenperiod. Hence the immediate criticism is necessarily taskof literary an historical one, involvingcertain predispositions impartedby the historicist thescholar mustlaborto restore theoriginal attitude; significance of the text,to uncoverits properform, to discloseits individual essence.Nicolai Hartmann, in the languageof speaking observed thatsucha laborwillbe crowned ontology, by experiencing "theresurrection or rebirth of an historically dead spirit" which has been infusedwith life once again aftera prolonged intervalof Auerbach's earlybookon Dante contains somethoughts thatwill illustrate Dante's work Ingarden's is not so remote analysis. from us in timethatmorethana minimum ofhistorical is required empathy to gainentrance intoitspoeticworld, butneither a powerful senseof suchempathy northemostsearching willbe ofany avail scholarship if the 'will' or mind remainunmovedand is recalcitrant toward Dante's poetry. Auerbach concedesthat historical concretions can exhibit newdimensions within thebeingof thehumanspirit's great creations or destroying without their mutilating or actuality. identity Yet in theDivineComedy "there is a limit ofitspower to transmute itself." He believes thislimitwas reached whenreaders of the Commedia triedto dissociate its poeticbeautiesfrom the doctrine and theobjector substance of the poemand to evaluatethemas purely sensuous phenomena. The Commedia be readas "purepoetry" cannot because"the objectand doctrine of the poemare not an incidental work, buttheroots ofitspoetic . . . they arethemoving beauty forces, the form of thismatter, theyanimateand kindlethe highimaginalendto the visionary tion; theyfirst appearance alongwithits true 21 The linguistic form the powerto seize and enchant." character of theDivine Comedy is determined by the fusion of several elements: one involvesthe hard,realistic, and authentic reporting of actual events, the other didactic or dogmatic promulgation of rational doctrine the world's concerning In the poemitself order. thesetwo elementsare nowhere completely separable and theircoalescence is so perfect thatthecharacteristic ofthepoetic, element theimagination, has forfeited its autonomy. Simply stated, chimerical criticism can be avoidedonlyif we judgea work"in the same spirit thatits author wrote," and aesthetic historicism cultivates a temper ofmindthrough which theoriginal spirit of a work or an age can manifest itself, and can become knowable within itsown"historical space." WhenHeinrich Woelfflin asserted that the formal artistic possithemodes ofvision, bilities, are notthesamein every age,he arrived
20 N. 21 E.

silence.20

Hartmann, Das Problem des Geistigen Seins (Berlin, 1949),487. Auerbach, Dante als Dichterder Irdischen Welt (Berlin, 1929),196.

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at whatis surely a veryfundamental truth. Some fairly obvious examplescan be foundin the sphere of literature itself. For instance the distinctive qualitiesof Rabelais' writing, its syntactic flexibility, of vocabulary, are expressive narrative spontaneity, opulence of cato theexpansive pacities condition ofhis largely indigenous linguistic His time. XVIIth-century suchas BossuetorPascal,howsuccessors, in and strengthened a language ofgreater ever, wrote syntactic rigidand symmetry. to precision, ity,one thatlentitself The reclarity, spective not mutually stylesof Rabelais and Pascal are, of course, The pointis rather thattheexploitation exclusive. and realization of at anygiven timeis dependent artistic possibilities uponand oriented and fusion by an intricate concatenation ofcultural which factors we as an historical designate 'moment.' But Woelfflin's collectively thesis evenbeyond has profound therealm ofaesthetics. consequences What might be calledtheprevailing focus or ethosofan age,its underlying axiological the intrinsic layerof mind,can well determine character or natureof its cultural The historicist expressions. recognizes that no singleera or culture will,or indeedcan,actualize withequal emphasisall thevarious ofknowledge potentialities and expression containedwithin man'screative consciousness. But the form or styleof a period has a discernible and temper force, direction, which is both and distinguishable. limited One of Auerbach's majorpreoccupations was with thegreat ofEuropean themes interlocking spiritual developmentsuch as the effect on subsequent of Christianity forms of expression. Yet, as Max Scheler it is difficult for explained, peopleliving in a scientific age to apprehend cultural manifestations that have from emanated an essentially or metaphysical religious substratum. This is so becausemetaphysics cannotbe practiced in laboratories and the techniques of scientific research do littletoward enhancing theviability ofreligion. Marxputthematter a little when differently he askedif Achilles was reallyconceivable in an era of powder and lead,or the Iliad in thesedaysof the printing-press and press-jack. The Pre-Socratics, the Upanishads, and much ancientChinese writing frequently appear obscureor naive to us becauseour predominantly analyticalthought patterns must becomemodified in order to perceive the semantic coalescence between concrete and abstractwhichunderlies theirexpression. If we want to understand Greek metaphysics we mustaccustom ourselves to a wayof thinking known as conceptual or extreme realism which asserts thatthesupersensible exists no less thanthesensible. This wayof grasping reality is foreign to a contemporary mindsteeped in positivism and nominalism,and itscomprehension necessitates a process ofrediscovery. WilhelmWorringer believedthat our historical realism can give us an extensive knowledge of the outward forms of religious and artistic

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entailsa recreation of the past,but real understanding phenomena of and inevitability and interpretation of the basic creative energy the that pervadethem.WhenJohanHuizingadescribed expression themas one to whomall things mediaevalcitydweller presented and impressive we can but dimly selvesin violentcontrasts forms, of this "violent tenor of Life."Henry the intimate palpablereality de Rolandthat "notone man in a Adamsoncesaid of the Chanson couldnowfeelwhattheeleventh felt"in century hundred thousand and becauseourage has lostmuchofits "ear for poetry theseverses, its eye forcolorand line."22 RosamondTuve's readingof George is marvelously penetrating becausewhenread "by Herbert's Sacrifice of the tradition in which it was concerned it takes the illumination 23 The on a richness, and movingpower." depth,and complexity, of meaningfully assimilating our past is one legacyof possibility historicism was loath to abandonin his that even ErnstTroeltsch ofhistoricism search for an UIberwindung itself. in literary an ultistudy, however, doesnot envisage Historicism mately philosophical goal,one whoseaim wouldbe theideal restorationofthehuman totalpresence. ThisPlatonic idea,or verum spirit's realizesitself in the vision (to use Vico's technical term),partially in every oflifeand senseoforder historical age. It represents present all ofman'sdiverse efforts toward which have reself-understanding history. The expression throughout ceivedand willreceive symbolic initial concern as literary docuscholar is to readliterary ofAuerbach in terms reconditions thattheyimmediately ments ofthehistorical positive flect and express, thatis, in the lightof their to read them, or stages.This orientation enableshimto cope withwhat moments of languageoftenconsider of students the most difficult problem viz. the influence Such extreme of context or situation. meaning, in relativism estimation, historicism which, in Auerbach's eventuates historical is the "prerequisite for all seriousand comprehensive 24 It is Vico,once again,whofurnishes work." himwithan antidote in philosophical whatis pernicious The historically relativism. against diverseforms of humanthought or recreated can be rediscovered, within the structure, of the huthe modificazioni the potentialities, the literature of former ages is not in any manmind.Consequently, senseradically or irrevocably juncaliento man'sspirit at its present ture, but its re-assimilation by us can be effected onlyif thisliterain tureis addressed in sucha waythatit revealsitself and explored bothits uniqueness This is whatAuerbach dimension. and historical thathe [the thematerial itself meanswhenhe saysthat"it is from
23R. Tuve,A Readingof George Herbert (Chicago, 1952),32. 24E. Auerbach, VierUntersuchungen, 10.
22 MontSaint-Michel and Chartres (New York,1904),29.

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critic] will learn to extractthe categoriesor conceptswhichhe needs for describingand distinguishing 25 and the different phenomena," that any valid methodological approach or point of departure"must not only analogically,applicable to the be pregnantly and precisely, historicalobject." 26 Since historicismis an ineradicable componentof our modern its dialectical developmenthas confronted world-view, us with another momentoustask, one which transcendsand absorbs the study of particularhistorical manifestations. The moderninvestigator must now concernhimselfwith continuity, interrelations, and synthesis. to Auerbachhistoricism as a spiritualmovementhas comAccording pelled us to proceed fromhistoricalindividualitiesto an 'historical Typology,' and finallyto the conceptionof a "synthetic-historical philosophy."The stupendous growthin our knowledgeor concrete experienceof the formsof historicallife and the refinement of our methodological techniqueshas renderedthe need forcomparison and synthesisinevitable,but supremelydifficult. Geistesgeschichte, the innergoal of Auerbach'sinvestigations, has become a real possibility and we now need to develop what Fritz Saxl once called "the aesthetic historicalsensibility."The presentobject of philologyis to seek a in such a way that "it worksas a dialecticalunity,like whole formed a drama,or as Vico once said, like a seriouspoem." 27 But the serioso Poema, which is European civilization,is approachingan end; its unityas a spiritualconfiguration is destinedforamalgamationwithin the greaterunityof worldhistory. At the turn of the XIXth centuryFriedrichSchlegel prophesied that the study of literaturein the modern world would demand a scholar,a freeand educatedman, who had the power "to attunehimself at will to philosophyor philology, to criticism or poetry,to his28 to the ancientor the modern." SurelyErich Auertoryor rhetoric, bach possessed this verypower. Louisville,Ky.
25Studia, 35. 26Literatursprache, 20. 28F. Schlegel, Kritische Schriften (Munich, 1956), 12. 27Ibid.,10.