Abstract.
Homer’s Odyssey is an ancient work that remains relevant to modern academics studying the genres that arose from different ages. This essay attempts to question the absolute dichotomy that has been proposed to separate the epic of the past from the novel of the present. The essay will pay particular attention to how the authority of dominant narratives is undermined in the Odyssey. Although the Odyssey is undergirded by a divine and moral order, this is not an unquestionable totality. Differing and sometimes opposing perspectives are allowed to blossom, which is something said to be impossible in the epic world. Its partial subversion of the epic paradigm raises questions about how strictly the Odyssey adheres to the claims made by Auerbach, Bakhtin and Lukács in their theory of the epic, suggesting that the formal categories of epic and novel are less dichotomous than expected.
The Odyssey stands in a long line of epics in the oral tradition that contains a goldmine of mythology and culture. The characteristics of the epic have been studied by theorists who seek to distil their essence and comprehend their significance in the context of our evolving literature, up to the novel form of the modern age. Erich Auerbach argues that a condition of the epic form is a lack of perspective (12). However, in the Odyssey, the narrative through which the epic paradigm is produced is called into question. Homer’s work challenges the idea of an authoritative or singular narrative through its subtle inclusion of multiple narratives. The lack of a complete and unchallenged narrative forces the question of whether the Homeric world significantly deviates from the perfect paradigm of an epic, or whether these deviations remain ultimately contained within this paradigm. Either way, the overlapping ideas of theorists that study the epic will be challenged and explored in this analysis, which argues that though the proposed epic paradigm is visible in the Odyssey, the challenge to a singular narrative shows that Homer did not conform to leaving the epic form untouched from the “reverent point of view of a descendent" (Bakhtin 13), to create an epic past that is "without perspective" (Auerbach 12).
The challenge to there being a singular, monopolising narrative can be seen from how the authority of divine narration is challenged by Odysseus's compelling narration. The divine narrative asserts itself through Demodokos, "whom the muse cherished" and "brought to (his) mind a song" (8.78). Demodokos's version of the Iliad, which stems from divine origins, accentuates the glory of the gods, evident from their constant invocation: "Odysseus came like Ares" (8.540), and conquered once more "by Athena's power" (8.544). These formulaic terms, oft-repeated, establish the boundary of tradition the story is encased in. The gods are the immutable constant, perfusing through the actions and form of Odysseus, who is embedded within this paradigm. The gods' monopoly on the dispensation of knowledge of these heroic events to the poet makes them highly authoritative. Men merely receive divine inspiration, and are reverent of it. However, despite this display of the gods’ command over the narrative of events in Odysseus’s journey, Homer's epic undermines absolute conformity to a singular, divine narrative. Homer gave Odysseus the ability to upstage divine authority by weaving a story that is more sentimental and vivid with his own suffering and struggles, privileging the human experience and skills over tradition. When Odysseus mentions the gods, it is in the context of his recollection of his "rough adventure, weathered under Zeus'' (9.40). The gods are backgrounded against the focus on Odysseus's difficult journey. Rather than the wide, martial lens of the detached gods, Odysseus's "new grief" (9.65) maps his emotional state intimately and compellingly. In short, Homer privileges Odysseus's narrative over Demodokos's divine narration, which was comparatively less affective and extensive. This human narrative makes the epic of the Odyssey more humanistic than merely reverent.
However, Odysseus's narration is also challenged by the inclusion of other perspectives. This subtle but crucial provocation is evident from Odysseus's interaction with the Cyclopes. Though we are situated within Odysseus's narration of the story, there are enough details in the poem that prompt sympathy for the Cyclopes. For example, Odysseus scorns the Cyclopes for not being agricultural, “in ignorance leaving the fruitage of the earth in mystery” (9.112). He implies that they are uncivilised, going as far as to suggest the island should have been "annexed" by agricultural people (9.137), even before Polyphemus showed antagonism towards Odysseus. This aggression suggests Odysseus's bias, which is then challenged within the text. Though they are not agricultural, the Cyclopes’ lifestyle is not as savage as the Greeks suggest. Their pastoral lifestyle is accompanied by its own structure and technology. The cave is filled with "earthenware" (2.356), which connotes a certain level of art and craft. Moreover, the Cyclops' antagonistic cruelty to Odysseus's men is tempered by his tenderness to his ram, whom he pats and addresses as "Sweet cousin ram" (9.477). The way he addresses the ram individually, noting that it “never linger(s) so" (9.478), highlights the careful attention he gives his creatures. Polyphemus is also revealed to have remarkable poetic abilities when he notes the "sweet grass", and the ram's "stately way" in his speech (9.470), displaying an eye for detail and beauty that rivals the skill of the Greeks. In Polyphemus’s own narration, it is Odysseus who is the "carrion rogue" (9.474). Though the Cyclopes are not saints, they are not the one-dimensional antagonists Odysseus understands them as. The poem, and the Cyclopes' own words, offer a genuine counterargument against Odysseus's Hellenocentric¹ worldview. Unlike Auerbach's assertion that epics lack perspective (Auerbach 12), the Odyssey does contain differing viewpoints, and they can oppose each other. Just as the authority of the divine narrative is undermined, so too is Odysseus's narrative authority cast into question. The epic is thus no longer obscured by an unquestionably dominant point-of-view.
A more glaring and obvious challenge to Odysseus’ narration can be found in Euryclea’s response to his anger. When Odysseus threatens so violently to “kill [Euryclea], nurse or not, when the time comes - when the time comes to kill the other women" (19.522-23), Euryclea merely responds with calm and deference. She calls them "mad words", asserting her loyalty that "you know my blood, my bones are yours, no one could whip this out of me" (19.527-528). The firmness and sincerity of her declaration foregrounds how disproportionately Odysseus has acted in comparison, especially towards a woman who has so tenderly and loyally tended to him and his family. In discrediting Odysseus's menacing paranoia, Euryclea’s clear-headedness highlights the limitations of Odysseus' narrative authority. Once again, the story can be followed and sympathised from two angles - one from the war-weary Odysseus desperate to regain his home at all cost, and another from the gentle Euryclea. From the different sentiments and convictions that arise between gods and mortals, Greek man and giant, and master and servant, the Odyssey highlights how the different positions occupied by its characters do lend to different views and depths of understanding towards each other’s perspectives.
In fact, the very premise of the Odyssey as a tale of heroic homecoming makes its challenge to this rigid definition of epics as being without perspective inevitable. Mikhail Bakhtin's and Georg Lukács's theory of the epic adopts a broad and slightly vague definition that inferably treats the Iliad and the Odyssey as constitutive of the same epic tradition. Both works belong to what Lukács termed the "Greek mind", which resided in a "homogeneous world" (32) that made existential clashes in perspectives and beliefs impossible. Lukács thus believed that both works of Homer belonged to the epic form that contained an unquestionable totality. Bakhtin's assertion that in the Greek classical period, "all genres in 'high' literature harmoniously reinforce each other to a significant extent” (4), lies within a similar assurance that Homer's works belong to the same epic tradition. However, rather than wholly reinforcing each other, the Iliad and the Odyssey do contradict each other in significant ways. We see this most obviously in their differing outlook on heroism. In the Iliad, heroism was limited to martial glory, and many sought to die a glorious death. In the Odyssey, however, the concept of nostos heroism emerges as a novel proposal, as Achilles denounces the idea of being glorified in death. When Odysseus suggests that "his power is royal among the dead men's shades (11.540), Achilles bitterly rejects this "smooth talk of death" (11.542), believing it better to be a "farm hand…than lord it over all the exhausted dead" (11.544). The glory promised and heightened in the Iliad is made hollow in the Odyssey, revealing an inconsistency within the sacred traditions and stories between the epics. This important contradiction that diminishes the significance of a hero’s death damages the idea of a world that is assuredly complete in meaning, and we witness this in Achilles’ despair and discontentment. Different attitudes about glory and heroism arise, creating a consequential rift which undermines the homogeneity and totality of the epic promised by Lukács and Bakhtin.
The multiple perspectives contained within the epic and the breakaway from the perfect presence of totality brings the Odyssey closer to the form of the novel. Bakhtin and Lukács viewed the novel as opposite to the epic form, residing in an age where the "extensive totality of life is no longer directly given" (Lukács 56). Unlike the monologic² epic, the novel contains a cultural and creative consciousness that lives in an "actively polyglot³ world" (Bakhtin 12). The polyglossia⁴ that exist in the age of the novel produces and validates the existence of varied perspectives, for difference, multiplicity and co-existence are inherent in this constant interaction between languages. The Odyssey, with its varied judgements, thus edges towards the form of a novel, rather than fully fitting into the epic paradigm.
In short, the undermining of an absolute narrative authority, be it of divine origin or from a celebrated hero like Odysseus, challenges Bakhtin and Auerbach's idea of the epic as a form without "perspective" (Auerbach 12). Though subtle and not wholly subversive, alternate voices arise to wrestle with the dominant narrative voices in the Odyssey, creating a degree of indeterminacy that can sometimes compromise the untouchable totality and homogeneity said to pervade the world of the epic. Nonetheless, the traditional authority of the divine, which upholds the wall of the epic, is questioned but ultimately not shaken off. Yet Homer’s work also cannot be said to fit fully within the epic paradigm. While it belongs to a vastly different world than ours, the Odyssey is also closer to the modern novel than Auerbach and Bakhtin had imagined it to be.
¹ Hellenocentrism describes a worldview centred on the Greeks and Greek civilization.
² Monologic, from the word 'monologue’, means to come from a single voice. Epics can be described as monologic because they express one authoritative point-of-view.
³ Containing several languages
⁴ Polyglossia refers to the coexistence of multiple languages in one society.
Works Cited
Arnold, Matthew. “Hebraism and Hellenism.” Culture and Anarchy. The Macmillan Company, 1925.
Auerbach, Erich. “Odysseus’ Scar.” Mimesis, The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Princeton UP, 1953
Bakhtin, Mikhail. “Epic and Novel.” The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. University of Texas Press, 1981
Homer. The Odyssey. Translated by Robert Fitzgerald. Vintage Books, 1990.
Lukács, Georg. The Theory of the Novel. Translated by Anna Bostock. MIT Press, 1971.