Odysseus' Scar (Auerbach) - "Two Basic Types"

"Two Basic Types"

According to Auerbach, the Old Testament and the Odyssey are “in their opposition...basic types” of ancient epic literature. While the former can be various and arbitrary, multilayered in its characterization of people and events, the latter is the epitome of detailed, organized and logical storytelling informed by the rhetorical tradition.

Although he acknowledged that both works exercised an enormous influence over subsequent Western literature, Auerbach held that the true motivation behind the representations of reality in both the Bible and the Odyssey lay within and without aesthetic considerations. For Homer, it lay in the rhetorical tradition of the poet to "represent phenomena in a fully externalized form, visible and palpable in all their parts." For the Elohist writer, on the other hand, it was belief in a religion, and the desire - not rhetorical considerations like the Greek and Latin tradition of the "two styles" (high for noble histories and low for comedic portrayals of the lower classes) - to convey the truth of that reality. Furthermore, the two works were written for very different purposes; the Odyssey, as a piece of entertainment to "make us forget our own reality for a few hours," while the Bible, as religious doctrine, to "make us fit our own life into its world."