Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848

214 } Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany

about the present and reveling in the future accomplish nothing. Perform-

ing a world-historical deed [eine Weltthat] is something only a few heroes

in human history have succeeded in doing. The nations have ceased to be

place-holding zeros that derive value only from the preceding denominator

of a hero; peoples’ history [Völkergeschichte] has thus not died, even if its mo-

ments [Momente] are not very conspicuous.^80

Auerbach praises literature that engages the present, yet he insists it must distill

a “poetic truth” (poetische Wahrheit) from the present age that transcends its

confusions and turpitude. The present must not be seen as a hopeless imbroglio

that only a radically different future might disentangle and redeem. Auerbach

implies, moreover, that such an erroneous view of the present stems from the

equally erroneous view that history is (still) made by great men or heroes. In the

modern world the nations have come of age as collective agents and no longer

need a national hero to lend them worth. Instead of a “heroic” history of great

individuals Auerbach insists on the importance of a collective Völkergeschichte,

even if its Momente have become inconspicuous and their authors anonymous.

Contra the tormented moderns (modernen Schmerzenreichen), Auerbach deems

the present to be as full of promise as any other time in history. To believe oth-

erwise, he insists, is to forfeit “ourselves” (uns selber). The self Auerbach is at

pains to preserve clearly is collective; he “solves” the problem of problematic

subjectivity with an idealization of anonymous community.^81

Auerbach’s assessment of his age as postheroic was a widely shared sen-

timent. The title of Karl Immermann’s voluminous Die Epigonen ( 1836 ), the

most important German novel of the mid- 1830 s, attests to a sense of living in the

shadow of the cultural and political giants of the preceding age. Yet Auerbach

welcomes this perceived historical situation as progress. He expresses his faith

in the Volk’s collective ability to steer history on a healthy course. Auerbach im-

plies that the modern subject can contribute to healing the historical rupture

and fragmentation that modernity has wrought precisely by avoiding excessive

self-reflection, which only exacerbates the crisis it strives to ameliorate.

Auerbach held up Ferdinand Freiligrath’s Gedichte ( 1838 ) as a laudable

model for appreciating the relationships among literature, history, and subjec-

tivity. Commending a turn in Freiligrath’s poetry from exotic fantasies of far-

away places (Ausländereien) to historical portraits (historischen Bildern), Auer-

bach writes:

In what has historically gone before, the purely human once manifested

itself in a particular form; the poetic understanding of the past affords the

possibility either to depict the contemporary moment [das Zeitgenossische],