Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848

Patriotic Pantheism { 20 3

Jahrhunderte, ihre Portraits und Biographien (Gallery of the most outstanding

Israelites of all centuries, their portraits and biographies).

After completing his Spinoza edition Auerbach tried in various genres to har-

monize Spinozan ideas, both explicitly and implicitly, with a liberal vision of the

German Volk. He hoped to publish his Spinoza biography in Europa as a sepa-

rate piece prior to its appearance in his Spinoza edition, but Lewald, Europa’s

editor, rejected it on August 16 , 1841 , as unsuitable for the journal. Shortly after

completing the Spinoza edition Auerbach also embarked on what he planned as a

cycle of “philosophical stories” (philosophische Novellen) intended to highlight in

popular form “particular questions [Aufgaben] of speculative ethics.”^12 Auerbach

describes his project of Spinoza-inspired stories in the short preface, dated 1850 ,

to his 1851 story collection Deutsche Abende (German evenings), which included

the only two stories from the planned Spinoza cycle that came to fruition.^13

In the preface to Deutsche Abende Auerbach recalls further stories he had

planned for the Spinoza cycle and remarks that he abandoned the project when

he came to have a different view of life.^14 The other “Fassung des Lebens” Auer-

bach embraced is the one for which he would become famous and for which

he is remembered today: politically, it entailed faith in an idealized concep-

tion of the German Volk; esthetically, it manifested itself in Auerbach’s turn to

what would become his wildly popular Black Forest Village Stories. Although

Auerbach’s explanation that he abandoned his planned Spinoza cycle due to

a changed worldview suggests a neat shift from a concern with Spinoza to a

preoccupation with the Volk, attention to these sources reveals not only cesu-

rae but also surprising continuities between Spinozan philosophy and German

Volkstümlichkeit, as Auerbach conceived them.

Auerbach was at work on his Spinoza stories and earliest Dorfgeschichten

simultaneously, in late 1841 and early 1842.^15 He completed his first Dorfge-

schichte, “Der Tolpatsch” (The bumpkin), on December 1 , 1841 , and a fortnight

later wrote to Rudolf Kausler that he was at work on both Deutsche Abende and

his Dorfgeschichten.^16 Auerbach’s Spinoza stories and village stories overlapped

in in their venues of publication as well as in the chronology of their composi-

tion. The journal that rejected Auerbach’s Spinoza biography, Europa, in Sep-

tember 1842 published “Der Tolpatsch.” In March 1843 it published Joseph

Braun’s highly favorable discussion of Auerbach’s new genre, well before the

appearance of Schwarzwälder Dorfgeschichten in book form in October of that

year.^17 To take another example, the appearance of the Spinozan story “Liebe

Menschen” in Der Freihafen in April 1842 was followed by the Dorfgeschichte

“Tonele mit der gebissenen Wange” (Tonele with the bitten cheek) in the same

journal four months later.