"[It] would have been all the easier [if] the entire story of the scar had been presented as a recollection which awakens in Odysseus’ mind at this particular moment. It would have been perfectly easy to do; the story of the scar had only to be inserted two verses earlier, at the first mention of the word scar, where the motifs “Odysseus” and “recollection” were already at hand. But any such subjectivistic‐perspectivistic procedure, creating a foreground and background, resulting in the present lying open to the depths of the past, is entirely foreign to the Homeric style; the Homeric style knows only a foreground, only a uniformly illuminated, uniformly objective present."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p. 7
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Erich_Auerbach
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Erich Auerbach
Erich Auerbach (9 November 1892 – 13 October 1957) was a philologist and comparative scholar and critic of literature.
9 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Erich Auerbach →
Related Quotes
"The excursus upon the origin of Odysseus’ scar is not basically different from the many passages in which a newly int…"
"Many reviewers have ascribed to the book, in praise or blame, tendencies that were far removed from me: that the meth…"
""Epilegomena to Mimesis", trans. Jan Ziolkowski, in Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, 50t…"
"The digressions [in Homer] are not meant to keep the reader in suspense ... An episode that will increase sus…"
"The genius of the Homeric style becomes even more apparent when it is compared with an equally ancient and equally ep…"
"In the Old Testament stories, … the sublime influence of God here reaches so deeply into the everyday that the two re…"
"A scene like Peter's denial fits into no antique genre. It is too serious for comedy, too contemporary and everyday f…"
"[The Passion story] completely destroys the aesthetics of the separation of styles; it engenders a new elevated style…"
"Abbreviations are the wheels of language, the wings of Mercury. And though we might be dragged along without them, it…"
"Imitar equivale a moverse i fatigarse en el wagón de un ferrocarril: nos imajinamos realizar mucho i no hacemos más q…"