作为一个出生并成长于普鲁士的犹太裔批评家和比较文学家,奥尔巴赫在其扛鼎巨著《摹仿论》中对19世纪德国文学尤其是歌德和席勒表达了深深不满。从1953年奥尔巴赫在《〈摹仿论〉附论》里的夫子自道,《摹仿论》第十七章《乐师米勒》,以及奥尔巴赫对欧洲文学的整体看法,可探究其个中原因。在奥尔巴赫看来,无论是《阴谋与爱情》还是《威廉·迈斯特》《亲和力》,所有这些作品都缺乏对现实的真正批判力量,而只是停留在幻想的、田园诗的或静止不变的状态之中。这不仅使歌德席勒与司汤达等人的现代现实主义形成鲜明对照,而且,这一满足于既成现实而无意于深刻变革的小市民气的精神底色,也实际上是造成1933年之后现代德国悲剧的最内在根由。

As a Jewish critic and comparative writer born and brought up in Prussia, Erich Auerbach (奥尔巴赫) expressed his deep dissatisfaction with the 19-century German literature, especially with Goethe (歌德) and Schiller (席勒), in his masterpiece Mimesis (《摹仿论》). In this paper, the author starts from Auerbach’s Epilegomena zu Mimesis (《〈摹仿论〉附论》) written in 1953 to explore the reasons for his dissatisfaction by closely reading Chapter 17 of Mimesis entitled Miller the Musician (《乐师米勒》), and combining it with Auerbach’s views on European literature as a whole. In Auerbach’s view, Kabale und Liebe (《阴谋与爱情》) by Schiller, Wilhelm Meister (《威廉·迈斯特》) by Goethe, and Wahlverwandtschaft (《亲和力》) by Goethe, all of these works lacked the power to truly criticize the reality and remained in a fantastical, idyllic, or static state. This put Goethe and Schiller in stark contrast to the modern realism of Stendhal (司汤达) and others. Also, this spiritual undertone of the temperament of the low-class unban residents, who were satisfied with the existing reality but not intended to make any profound changes, was in fact the most intrinsic cause for the tragedy of modern Germany after 1933.