Erich Auerbach: history and metahistory

A comparative analysis between Auerbach and Giambattista Vico, establishing the counter-lesson which Auerbach found in Vico’s work: an alternative to Cartesian positivistic philology. Thus in considering the problematic frontiers between the discourses of historiography and fiction, Auberbach’s distrust of overarching conceptual frameworks, and his preference for a close analysis of single texts arranged contiguously, leads him to the use of mimesis as a metahistorical tool for the understanding of realism in literature across time. Rather than establishing a fixed model for ‘realism’ and applying this to literary texts from different historical periods, mimesis allows Auerbach to establish a ‘constant variable’ to show how the concept of ‘realism’ itself operates differently throughout history