The Role of Comparison in Homeric Thought

Abstract

The Role ofComparison in Homeric Thought IEFFREY C. ROBINSON One of the most persistent prejudices dominating many readings of the Iliad since the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is that the story of Achilleus stands as the clear and unquestionable foreground of the work, a central focus from which everything else recedes into merely supportive relationships. But the Iliad is much more than the story of Achilleus; it is more accurately seen as a portrayal of history and an interpretation of it. Achilleus participates in that larger structure and in Homer's epic inquiry into the nature of his universe. It is largely through comparison-thinking that Homer's extended vision becomes apparent, that he presents a glimpse of a world which at once counters, expands, and interprets 1 the imprisoning world of war. The 350 similes of the Iliad constitute a major sub-set of comparisonthinking . After analyzing the similes themselves and the simile-like structure of larger sections of the Iliad, this study will recast the old myth of "Homer," that unself-conscious poet of nature, and will meditate on the drama of imagination in the Iliad, a drama which exhibits the struggle of interpretation against the intractable reality of the received, traditional story. Jeffrey C. Robinson (Assistant Professor of English at the University of Colorado) is presently completing a study of the literary relationship of Dorothy and William Wordsworth. 1 The idea that comparison-thinking, or, more specifically, the simile, plays a central role in early Greek thought is explored by Uvo Hölscher in "Paradox, Simile, and Gnomic Utterance in Heraclitus," in The Pre-Socratics, ed. Alexander P. D. Mourelatos (New York: Anchor, 1974), pp. 229-33. "Simile is the means of hinting at a state of affairs that lies hidden" (p. 234). Also in Bruno Snell, The Discovery of the Mind (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), pp. 191-226: "Homer's similes . . . undoubtedly contribute to the creation of deep feeling, but their principal function is more direct. They constitute his only mechanism of describing the essence or the intensity of an event" (pp. 199-200). ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW181 Most scholars agree that the similes constitute a relatively late addition to the main narrative strains of the Iliad and that the narrative itself stems from earlier versions. It seems possible, then, that the comparisonthinking which governs other parts of the poem might be relatively late also, although such a hypothesis cannot be proven. But it is fairly certain that the simile-poet is responding to traditionally-received battle narratives. In this reading he is not simply an embellisher of these narratives but an interpreter, bringing his more modern consciousness to bear upon the old stories, and the similes are at least one form of the language of interpretation. A true interpreter cannot effect a significant change in the perspective of an event, or in this case a tale, if he does not encounter the resistance emanating from the tale itself. W. J. Bate's and Harold Bloom's recent theories of poetic influence in postEnlightenment literature describe the poet adhering to, being inspired by, a great poet of the past while at the same time being intimidated and overwhelmed by him. Interpretation, or re-vision, the act of the poet with respect to his precursor, becomes a self-conscious struggle. Poetry itself represents this struggle either explicitly or implicitly in its handling of what for the poet is the crucial poetic material of the precursor. May we suppose that the Homeric poet is at once inspired by the pre-Homeric narratives to build his statement upon them and at the same time chastened by the awesome presence and inevitability of that great precursor poetry? Is there any evidence of struggle to free himself from the tyranny of the tradition? The representation of the simile-world in the similes persistently, and victoriously, opposes the vision of war and inevitable doom in the narrative. Yet there are evidences that this victory is not so complete, that the similes and other elements of the poem appear to fulfill rather than to oppose the tendency of the narrative itself; in other words, that the drama of consciousness in the...