‚Realismusbegriff‘ in Auerbachs Mimesis als Symptom der Paradoxien eines liberalen Weltliteraturdiskurses

The article undertakes a reading of Auerbach’s Mimesis against the background of his remarks on world literature and world philology. These are first discussed with recourse to Goethe’s concept of world literature as elements of a liberal discourse on world literature, in order to then show how Auerbach works through certain shortcomings of this discourse in Mimesis. In the process, Auerbach’s concept of realism emerges as a way of inscribing a political dimension into philological activity that specifies the future-oriented tendency inherent in liberal world literature discourse.