Content
In the essay, Auerbach begins with a close reading of brief excerpts from Homer in which, upon Odysseus’ homecoming, his old nursemaid Euryclea recognizes the hero by the scar on his foot. Auerbach notes here the clarity and orderliness of Homer's verse, as well as the tidy comparative, causal, and temporal relationships articulated by Homer's precise syntactical constructions, all hallmarks of the rhetorical tradition. As an example, he points out how, with the careful insertion of a flashback "retarding element" (term coined by Goethe and Schiller) into the middle of the story, Homer creates a relaxing excursion to defer suspense. By keeping the focus always on the present narrative, the "procession of phenomena" Homer presents always remains illuminated in the foreground, even as the story itself jumps back and forth between times and locations.
In contrast, Auerbach's reading of Abraham’s sacrifice in the Book of Genesis reveals a style of realism that is "fraught with background" and full of mystery and omissions. Unlike Homer's style, in which everything is clarified, the Elohist leaves unsaid any detail that does not pertain to the story's purpose. Conversely, what is said is always loaded with meaning, creating an effect of accumulating suspense. Auerbach contrasts this with the rhetorical style of the Odyssey, one in which "even when the most terrible things are occurring...details prevent the reader from concentrating exclusively on a present crisis."
In the latter half of the essay, Auerbach switches to a point-by-point comparison of the two works:
The tyranny of truth: Truth has no bearing on the relevance of Homer's stories, because the stories are "realistic" enough to be self-sufficient in their own conception of reality. On the other hand, the Bible has everything to do with its perceived relation to truth. The "realism" represented by the Bible is the direct consequence of this adherence to the "tyranny" of truth. Looking at it from another point of view, the Odyssey is a story very limited in the scope because of the limitations imposed by rhetoric on the ways to represent reality, whereas the Bible's "tyrannical" claim on all truth from Creation to the Last Days, results, ironically, in an authentic representation of human experience. For this reason, Auerbach believes the traditional allegorical or "figurative" interpretations of the Bible lose all sense of the book's "earthy" portrayals. Ultimately, by the time Auerbach treats his chapter on Flaubert the work comes full circle. Like the Biblical writers whose faith in the so-called "tyrannical" truth of God produces an authentic expression of reality, Flaubert's "faith in the truth of language" (ch. 18) likewise represents "an entire human experience."
Representation of heroes: The Odyssey's heroes seem to change very little both inwardly and outwardly, even under duress, because they represent rhetorical "types." Like "Achilles' actions by his courage and his pride, and Odysseus' by his versatility and foresightedness," they can be always summed up with a few apt epithets. On the other hand, characters of the Bible like Jacob and Job are irrevocably changed by the trials they undergo.
History versus legend: The Odyssey is told like a legend - it is a little too convenient, too streamlined a story, and its characters are all "clearly outlined" men with "few and simple motives." In the Bible, reality is represented more like history - filled with ambiguity, confusion, and contradictory motives.
Read more about this topic: Odysseus' Scar (Auerbach)
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