Notes to Chapter 5 { 34 1sponding to the incommunicable trauma of World War I, yet he sees this as part of a broader
phenomenon whereby modern technologies of the word undermine the communicability of
immediate experience. This wider perspective makes Benjamin’s argument as relevant for
the 1840 s as for the 1920 s.
144. Auerbach’s “preface” to his Schwarzwälder Dorfgeschichten appeared belatedly,
after the first volume of collected village tales had already appeared in book form. It was
published in Europa (“An J. E. Braun vom Verfasser der Schwarzwälder Dorfgeschichten”)
as an open letter to Joseph Braun, a critic who, in early 1843 , had written a highly positive
review of four of Auerbach’s village tales that had appeared in journals but had not yet been
collected in book form (“Ein Phänomen in der neuesten Literatur”). Beginning with the
1857 edition, “Vorreden spart Nachreden” was included in all editions of the Schwarzwälder
Dorfgeschichten.
145. Auerbach, “Vorreden spart Nachreden,” 149.
146. Auerbach, Spinoza, viii.
147. Hess, Middlebrow Literature, 84.
148. Nitsa Ben-Ari, “ 1834 .”
149. Auerbach, SA 1.
150. Edward McInnes, “Realism, History and the Nation,” 45.
151. Ibid., 46 – 47.
152. Auerbach greatly revised his Spinoza novel in 1854 , and this version achieved con-
siderable success.
153. Auerbach, Briefe an Seinen Freund Jakob Auerbach, 47.
154. In a review in Europa of an 1838 edition of Brentano’s novella, Auerbach praises it
as a wholesome alternative to contemporary literature, stressing Gegensätze (contradictions)
and Zerrissenheiten (inner turmoil; review of “Die Geschichte vom braven Kasperl und dem
schönen Annerl,” 86 ). Auerbach encourages writers to emulate Brentano’s subtle humor,
which comes across “without a lot of coquettish narcissism [Selbstbespiegelung]... even at
the risk of being relegated to a lower sphere by those world humorists [Welthumoristen]”
(ibid.)—that is, by Heine and others like him.
155. Auerbach, “Deutsche Abende: Wer ist glücklich?,” 1 : 13.
156. Ibid., 1 : 14.
157. Ibid., 1 : 15.
158. Ibid., 1 : 26. Edmund’s Spinoza-informed dedication to the public cause mirrored
Auerbach’s own ethos at the time. In his letter to Jakob Auerbach of February 27 , 1842 , Au-
erbach—although he clings to dwindling hope of still finding a fulfilling love life—remarks:
“For many years I saw my highest calling in life, indeed the fulfillment of my existence, en-
tirely in a rich, full, youthful warm love life, which was supposed to be for me the highest
peak of all existence; I have now gained the knowledge that I must devote myself to a broader
life of duty, a life for the more universal [das Allgemeinere] without egoistical support [ohne
egoistische Rückwand]” (Briefe an Seinen Freund Jakob Auerbach, 46 ).
159. Auerbach, “Liebe Menschen,” 126. The refuge of the domestic sphere that Elisa-
betha and her mother represent is further thematized in a passage from Friedrich Schleier-
macher’s Predigten über den christlichen Hausstand that the good mother has bookmarked
and left by Rudolf ’s bed. The lengthy passage from Schleiermacher’s text that Rudolf reads
(quoted in “Liebe Menschen,” 140 – 41 ) deals with the possibilities of establishing a Christian