Erich Auerbach's "Odysseus' Scar" from Mimesis
"Odysseus' Scar" is an amazing essay, but it is somewhat difficult to
read. The material below provides a nice introduction and selection from
the article by D. Wyrick (
http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/wyrick/debclass/Erich.htm ), but I
have included my own #11 to replace hers.
[Auerbach was one of those towering European intellectuals, with
encyclopedic knowledge of almost everything, who gave real meaning to the
word scholarship. A German Jew (b. 1892), Auerbach had a distinguished
academic career—studying and teaching law, art history, comparative
literature Romance languages, and Latin philology—until the mid-30s, when
the Nazis came to power. He spent the war years in Turkey, where—without
benefit of his library or research materials--he wrote Mimesis, a
study of Western culture and imagination that includes detailed
discussions of Homer, Dante, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Goethe,
Woolf , among others. He explained the difficulties this way: Mimesis
"was written during the war and at Istanbul, where the libraries are not
well equipped for European studies. International communications were
impeded; I had to dispense with almost all periodicals, with almost all
the more recent investigations, and in some cases with reliable critical
editions of my texts. . . . The lack of technical literature and
periodicals may also serve to explain that my book has no notes."
Evidently, Auerbach relied on his prodigious memory quite as much as the
Istanbul libraries.
The purpose of his book may be gleaned from the final paragraph of his
Epilogue (written for the first edition, published in Switzerland in
1946): "I hope that my study will reach its readers—both my friends of
former years, if they are still alive, as well as all the others for whom
it was intended. And may it contribute to bringing together again those
whose love for our western history has serenely persevered."
As you read this selection (from the book’s first chapter, "Odysseus’
Scar," which compares the Greek and the Hebrew ways of writing), think
about the circumstances under which Auerbach himself wrote—not only
personal exile but also the implosion of European civilization under the
weight of pre-war conquest, the horrors and devastations of WWII, and the
Holocaust.]
- Readers of the Odyssey will remember the well-prepared and
touching scene in book 19, when Odysseus has at last come home, the
scene in which the old housekeeper Euryclea, who had been his nurse,
recognizes him by a scar on his thigh. The stranger has won Penelope’s
good will; at his request she tells the housekeeper to wash his feet,
which, in all old stories, is the first duty of hospitality toward a
tired traveler. Euryclea busies herself fetching water and mixing cold
with hot, meanwhile speaking sadly of her absent master, who is probably
of the same age as the guest, and who, perhaps, like the guest, is even
now wandering somewhere, a strange; and she remarks how astonishingly
like him the guest looks. Meanwhile, Odysseus, remembering his scar,
moves back out of the light; he knows hat, despite his efforts to hide
his identity, Euryclea will now recognize him, but he wants at least to
keep Penelope in ignorance. No sooner has the old woman touched the scar
than, in her joyous surprise, she lets Odysseus’ foot drop into the
basin; the water spills over, she is about to cry out her joy; Odysseus
restrains her with whispered threats and endearments; she recovers
herself and conceals her emotion. Penelope, whose attention Athena’s
foresight had diverted from the incident, has observed nothing.
- All this is scrupulously externalized and narrated in leisurely
fashion. The two women express their feelings in copious direct
discourse. [. . .] There is also room and time for orderly, perfectly
well-articulated, uniformly illuminated descriptions of implements,
ministrations, and gestures; even in the dramatic moment of recognition,
Homer does not omit to tell the reader that it is with his right hand
that Odysseus takes the old woman by the throat to keep her from
speaking, at the same time that he draws her closer to him with his
left. Clearly outlined, brightly and uniformly illuminated, men and
things stand out in a realm where everything is visible; and not less
clear-—holly expressed, orderly even in their ardor—are the feelings and
thoughts of the persons involved.
- In my account of the incident I have so far passed over a whole series
of verses which interrupt it in the middle [. . . which] describes the
origin of the scar, a hunting accident which occurred in Odysseus’
boyhood [. . . Not until this incident is meticulously narrated does the
text] return to Penelope’s chamber, not until then, the digression
having run its course, does Euryclea, who had recognized the scar before
the digression began, let Odysseus’ foot fall back into the basin.
- The first thought of a modern reader—that this is a device to increase
suspense—is, if not wholly wrong, at least not the essential explanation
of this Homeric procedure. For the element of suspense is very slight in
the Homeric poems; nothing in their entire style is calculated to keep
the reader or hearer breathless. The digressions are not meant to keep
the reader in suspense, but rather to relax the tension. [. . .]
Homer—and to this we shall have to return later—knows no background.
What he narrates is for the time being the only present, and fills both
the stage and the reader’s mind completely. [. . .]
- [Auerbach discusses Goethe and Schiller’s impressions of Homer’s
style, particularly its "retarding" element. He analyzes—and
demonstrates with passages from Homer--other stylistic features, such as
the ‘Homeric epithet’ and syntactical subordination, that contribute to
this sense of retardation {leisurely delay}. The basic impulse of the
Homeric style, he concludes, is] to represent phenomena in a fully
externalized form, visible and palpable in all their parts, and
completely fixed in their spatial and temporal relations [ . . . ] The
Homeric style knows only a foreground [. . .]
- The genius of the Homeric style becomes even more apparent when it is
compared with an equally ancient and equally epic style from a different
world of forms. I shall attempt this comparison with the account of the
sacrifice of Isaac, a homogenous narrative produced by the so-called
Elohist. The King James version translates the opening as follows
(Genesis 22:1): "And it came to pass after these things, that God did
tempt Abraham, and said to him, Abraham! And he said, Behold, her I am."
Even this opening startles us when we come to it from Homer. Where are
the two speakers? We are not told. The reader, however, knows that they
are not normally to be found together in one place on earth, that one of
them, God, in order to speak to Abraham, must come from somewhere, must
enter the earthly realm from some unknown heights or depths. Whence does
he come, whence does he call to Abraham? We are not told. He does not
come, like Zeus or Poseidon, from the Aethiopians, where he has been
enjoying a sacrificial feast. Nor are we told anything of his reasons
for tempting Abraham so terribly. He has not, like Zeus, discussed them
in set speeches with other gods gathered in council; nor have the
deliberations in his own heart been presented to us; unexpected and
mysterious, he enters the scene from some unknown height or depth and
calls: Abraham! [. . .] The concept of God held by the Jews is less a
cause than a symptom of their manner of comprehending and representing
things.
- [Auerbach analyses this verse further, referring to the original
Hebrew to buttress his commentary.] After this opening God gives his
command, and the story itself begins: everyone knows it; it unrolls with
no episodes in a few independent sentences whose syntactical connection
is of the most rudimentary sort. [. . . Auerbach describes Abraham’s
journey as] a silent progress through the indeterminate and the
contingent, a holding of the breath, a process which has no present,
which is inserted, like a blank duration, between what has passed [God’s
call] and what lies ahead [the sacrifice. . . ]
- In the narrative itself, a third chief character appears: Isaac. While
God and Abraham, the serving-men, the ass, and the implements are simply
named, without mention of any qualities or any other sort of definition,
Isaac once receives an appositive; God says, "Take Isaac, thine only
son, whom thou lovest." But this is not a characterization of Isaac as a
person, apart from his relation to his father and apart from the story;
he may be handsome or ugly, intelligent or stupid, tall or short,
pleasant or unpleasant—we are not told. Only what we need to know about
him as a personage in the action, here and now, is illuminated, so that
it may become apparent how terrible Abraham’s temptation is, and that
God is fully aware of it. By this example of the contrary, we see the
significance of the descriptive adjectives and digressions of the
Homeric poems [. . . which] even when the most terrible things are
occurring, they prevent the establishment of an overwhelming suspense.
But here, in the story of Abraham’s sacrifice, the overwhelming suspense
is present[. . .]
- It would be difficult, then, to imagine styles more contrasted than
those of these two equally ancient and equally epic texts. On the one
hand, externalized, uniformly illuminated phenomena, at a definite time
and in a definite place, connected together without lacunae [gaps] in a
perpetual foreground; thoughts and feeling completely expressed; events
taking place in leisurely fashion and with very little of suspense. On
the other hand, the externalization of only so much of the phenomena as
is necessary for the purpose of the narrative, all else left in
obscurity; the decisive points of the narrative alone are emphasized,
what lies between is nonexistent; time and place are undefined and call
for interpretation; thoughts and feeling remain unexpressed, are only
suggested by the silence and the fragmentary speeches; the whole,
permeated with the most unrelieved suspense and directed toward a single
goal (and to that extent far more of a unity), remains mysterious and
"fraught with background."
- [Auerbach ties this ‘backgrounding’ to Biblical representations of
God, of whom only ‘something’ appears or is heard, leaving appearance
and often purpose mysterious. He compares this with Homeric
representations of gods and heroes, claiming that] the Homeric poems
conceal nothing, they contain no teaching and no secret second meaning.
Homer can be analyzed, as we have essayed to do here, but he cannot be
interpreted. [. . . Whatever philosophical ideas the poems contain]
reveal a calm acceptance of the basic facts of human existence, but with
no compulsion to brood over them, still less any passionate impulse
either to rebel against them or to embrace them in an ecstasy of
submission.
- (MGVH ) It is all very different in the Biblical stories. Their aim is
not to bewitch the senses, and if nevertheless they produce lively
sensory effects, it is only because the moral, religious, and
psychological phenomena which are their sole concern are made concrete
in the sensible matter of life. But their religious intent involves an
absolute claim to historical truth. The story of Abraham and Isaac is
not better established than the story of Odysseus, Penelope, and
Euryclea; both are legendary. But the Biblical narrator, the Elohist,
had to believe in the objective truth of the story of Abraham’s
sacrifice—the existence of the sacred ordinances of life rested upon the
truth of this and similar stories. He had to believe in it passionately;
or else (as many rationalistic interpreters believed and perhaps still
believe) he had to be a conscious liar—no harmless liar like Homer, who
lied to give pleasure, but a political liar with a definite end in view,
lying in the interest of a claim to absolute authority.
To me, the rationalistic interpretation seems psychologically absurd;
but even if we take it into consideration, the relation of the Elohist
to the truth of his story still remains a far more passionate and
definite one than is Homer’s relation. The Biblical narrator was
obliged to write exactly what his belief in the truth of the tradition
(or, from the rationalistic standpoint, his interest in the truth of
it) demanded of him—in either case, his freedom in creative or
representative imagination was severely limited; his activity was
perforce reduced to composing an effective version of the pious
tradition. What he produced, then, was not primarily oriented toward
“realism” (if he succeeded in being realistic, it was merely a means,
not an end); it was oriented toward truth. Woe to the man who did not
believe it! One can perfectly well entertain historical doubts on the
subject of the Trojan War or of Odysseus’ wanderings, and still, when
reading Homer, feel precisely the effects he sought to produce; but
without believing in Abraham’s sacrifice, it is impossible to put the
narrative of it to the use for which it was written. Indeed, we must
go even further. The Bible’s claim to truth is not only far more
urgent than Homer’s, it is tyrannical—it excludes all other claims.
The world of the Scripture stories is not satisfied with claiming to
be a historically true reality—it insists that it is the only real
world, is destined for autocracy. All other scenes, issues, and
ordinances have no right to appear independently of it, and it is
promised that all of them, the history of all mankind, will be given
their due place within its frame, will be subordinated to it. The
Scripture stories do not, like Homer’s, court our favor, they do not
flatter us that they may please us and enchant us—they seek to subject
us, and if we refuse to be subjected we are rebels.
...
If the text of the Biblical narrative, then, is so greatly in need of
interpretation on the basis of its own content, its claim to absolute
authority forces it still further in the same direction. Far from
seeking, like Homer, merely to make us forget our own reality for a
few hours, it seeks to overcome our reality: we are to fit our own
life into its world, feel ourselves to be elements in its structure of
universal history.
- The claim of the Old Testament stories to represent universal history,
their insistent relation—a relation constantly redefined by conflicts—to
a single and hidden God, who yet shows himself and who guides universal
history by promise and exaction, gives these stories an entirely
different perspective from any the Homeric poems can possess. As a
composition, the Old Testament is incomparably less unified than the
Homeric poems, it is more obviously pieced together—but the various
components all belong to one concept of universal history and its
interpretation. [. . .]
- With the more profound historicity and the more profound social
activity of the Old Testament text, there is connected yet another
important distinction of Homer: namely, that a different conception of
the elevated style and of the sublime is to be found here. Homer, of
course, is not afraid to let the realism of daily life enter into the
sublime and tragic; the episode of the scar is an example, we see how
the quietly depicted, domestic scene of the foot-washing is incorporated
into the pathetic and sublime action of Odysseus’ home-coming. From the
rule of the separation of styles which was later almost universally
accepted and which specified that the realistic depiction of daily life
was incompatible with the sublime and had a place only in comedy or,
carefully stylized, in idyl—from any such rule Home is still far
removed. And yet he is closer to it than is the Old Testament. For the
great and sublime events in the Homeric poems take place far more
exclusively and unmistakably among the members of a ruling class, and
these are far more untouched in their heroic elevation than are the Old
testament figures, who can fall much lower in dignity (consider, for
example, Adam, Noah, David, Job); and finally, domestic realism, the
representation of daily life, remains in Homer in the peaceful realm of
the idyllic, whereas, from the very first, in the Old Testament stories,
the sublime, tragic, and problematic take shape precisely in the
domestic and commonplace: scenes such as those between Cain and Abel,
between Noah and his sons, between Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, between
Rebekah, Jacob, and Esau, and so on, are inconceivable in the Homeric
style. The entirely different ways of developing conflicts are enough to
account for this. In the Old Testament stories the peace of daily life
in the house, in the fields, and among the flocks, is undermined by
jealousy over election and the promise of a blessing, and complications
arise which would be utterly incomprehensible to the Homeric heroes. The
latter must have palpable and clearly expressible reasons for their
conflicts and enmities, and these work themselves out in free battles;
whereas, with the former, the perpetually smoldering jealousy and the
connection between the domestic and the spiritual, between the paternal
blessing and the divine blessing, lead to daily life being permeated
with the stuff of conflict, often with poison. The sublime influence of
God here reaches so deeply into the everyday that the two realms of the
sublime and the everyday are not only actually unseparated but basically
inseparable.
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