Edwards, 'Blood and Iron: Stories and Storytelling in Homer's Odyssey', Bryn Mawr Classical Review 9508
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmcr/bmcr-9508-edwards-blood
@@@@95.9.15, Olson, Blood and Iron
S. Douglas Olson, Blood and Iron: Stories and Storytelling in
Homer's Odyssey. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995. Pp. x, 260.
$71.50. ISBN 90-04-10251-5.
Reviewed by Mark W. Edwards -- Los Altos, CA
medwards@leland.stanford.edu
Olson's rather lurid title is apparently derived from his
epigraphs, Hesiod's description of the race of iron ("Would that
I were not among this fifth race of men, | But had died before or
been born later "--this, rather oddly, follows the dedication),
and a quotation from Randall Jarrell, "Men wash their hands in
blood as best they can." However, the Preface explains that the
volume is intended both for scholars interested in specific,
traditional Homeric questions, and for a "more deliberative and
contemplative" audience, which will appreciate the author's wider
concern with storytelling as a response to our unsatisfactory
human condition, storytelling as "imagining how things once were
and thus by implication how they might someday be again" (ix).
Essentially, the volume is a very useful and refreshingly
original treatment of the most significant points at issue in
contemporary study of the Odyssey, which sometimes
(especially in the last three chapters) seems to lose sight of
its ostensible unifying feature. This does not much matter, as
the development of the poem's plot and Olson's personal views
provide unity enough.
The first chapter is a thorough study of KLE/OS, not simply
as "fame", as usual, but also as reputation, rumor, story-telling
and gossip. Olson documents all the judgments and chatter that go
on in Ithaca, on the mainland, and in Scheria, as well as more
formal story-telling, pointing out the sharp division along
gender lines--a man should be said to be a good counselor and
fighter, a woman chaste, intelligent and skillful at handicrafts.
This is new and valuable, though I am sometimes a little uneasy
at the assumed equivalence of KLE/OS and FA/TIS. The following
chapter (an adapted version of the author's article in
TAPA 120 [1990] 57-71) picks up the theme of the songs
Agamemnon's shade says will be sung about the virtuous Penelope
and his own loathsome wife, and treats in exemplary fashion how
the details of the Agamemnon/Orestes story are compared to the
circumstances of Odysseus and Telemachus, stressing the way this
is done by different narrators to suit the poet's purpose at the
moment.
The third chapter examines how the character of Odysseus is
depicted in the tale of his wanderings, as told by himself, and
whether the poet presents some development in his character. Here
Olson sets out his approach with great clarity. In Scheria,
Odysseus "establishes his identity in a very deliberate way,
first by carefully controlling the stories by means of which he
is introduced to his new hosts and then by offering them what
turns out to be a highly tendentious account of his adventures
since the fall of Troy .The poet himself, meanwhile, uses the
tales of the Wanderings to answer long-standing questions about
the character of his hero's return and to make a series of more
general points about how men act in groups and how they must be
governed as a consequence. On all its various levels, therefore,
KLE/OS here is once again not only and perhaps not even
principally a reflection of the world, but instead an active
intervention in it and an attempt to reach beyond its incoherent
and confusing surface to the truth which allegedly lurks within"
(43). Expounding this is a big undertaking, but Olson shows
himself aware of the problems, first explaining that Odysseus'
tale "cannot be read as a simple documentary source for his past,
and any 'development' which took place in him over the course of
it would have to be understood as in the first instance a product
of his own intentions as a narrator" (44). Olson goes on to show
how Odysseus "puts a strong and consistent spin on the narrative"
(48), implicitly denying any responsibility for the deaths of his
men and constantly stressing his own cleverness. He concludes:
"The Wanderings thus describe a series of political rather than
personal developments, as Odysseus' relationship with his men
slowly deteriorates and they bring about their own ruin" (61). In
the last two pages of the chapter Olson links these social
lessons to the political situation in Ithaca and "the danger of
ignoring a legitimate leader's authority the need for obedience
to one's natural social superiors even when one is not sure what
they are up to or why" (63). "Homer's story insists
that traditional aristocratic leaders are (or at least once were)
intensely devoted to the welfare of their subordinates .Common
men, on the other hand, routinely make what prove in the end to
be the wrong decisions" (64). Not all will entirely agree with
this view, but it is thought-provoking and well-argued.
Chapter 4, "Telemachos and the KLE/OS of Odysseus," is the
first of three chapters in which Olson says he will shift his
focus to "Homer's own narrative technique and to the dilemma
routinely confronted by his Achaians, which is a state of exile
from an allegedly ideal and utterly lost past which
simultaneously represents a perfect and seemingly unattainable
future" (ix). He begins by denying any development in Telemachus
in Odyssey 1-4; Telemachus thinks his world is imperfect
and apparently pointless, but he is wrong, because in fact the
gods often intervene in his favor and his father eventually
returns. Telemachus already shows a good knowledge of proper
behavior when he entertains Athena, and Olson gives a good close
analysis of his feelings and Athena's motivations in the dialogue
between them. This includes a study of her notoriously chaotic
advice at Od. 1.269-302, which Olson acutely analyses
(following a method used by Peradotto to explain Teiresias'
prophecy at Od. 11.100-137) as a logic-tree in which each
set of alternatives either results in success (the expulsion of
the suitors) or leads to a further pair of alternatives, each of
which is heralded by a new personal address by Athena (Od.
1. 271, 279, 294). This is the best explanation I have seen, and
the parallel with the structure of Teiresias' prophecy is very
plausible.
Following this, "a remarkable change comes over Telemachos
he abruptly puts Penelope in her place , asserting his personal
authority over the situation . A few lines later he speaks
sharply to the suitors as well and Antinoos notes specifically
that this does not seem to be the passive little boy they have
all grown used to. Something has clearly come over Telemachos"
(74-75). Olson also admits that "The resentment [Telemachus]
feels against [the suitors] is thus something relatively new
and has to do with his arrival at manhood" (75). However,
"Although Telemachos speaks out boldly for the first time against
the Suitors in Book i he does not undergo any fundamental
personal growth or development there, for he has already changed
sometime shortly before the story begins" (75). Olson has fairly
stated the "changes" in the youth, and I do not see why he
refuses to call them a "development." He continues with a good
analysis of Telemachus' confused feelings about his missing
father, asserting that during his meetings with Nestor and
Menelaus "his personal resources still seem quite limited, his
dependence on Athena is obvious and he never becomes anyone other
than who he has been from the first" (81). Some readers, however,
have felt that Homer makes him go conspicuously from shyness to a
fair measure of self-confidence during these encounters with
legendary figures (of which Olson gives a good account). If,
then, Telemachus does not gain a measure of maturity from his
exciting journey, what does he get out of it? KLE/OS,
i.e., a good reputation, says Olson, and people at Pylos and
Sparta will be talking about him. One must admit that this is a
very Greek idea, much commoner in ancient literature than that of
character-development, and it is good to have the argument for it
presented.
Olson now pauses in his chronological progress to catch up on
another theme, treating (in Chapter 5) an old and much-debated
problem in the Odyssey, the poet's handling of
contemporaneous events as consecutive, and the resulting delay in
Zeus' despatch of Hermes to Calypso (while we accompany
Telemachus on his journey) and extension of Telemachus' stay in
Sparta (while Odysseus makes his way back home from Calypso's
island). Olson first reviews the well-known theories of
Zielinski, Delebecque and Krischer (in the chronological chart on
p.95 the second entry for Day 37, that for Odysseus, has gotten
into the wrong column). He uses the recognized acknowledgment of
a chronological difficulty in Od. 14-15, where one more
night passes for Telemachus than for Odysseus, to dismiss
Delebecque's whole 40-day chronology and the apparent careful
correlation of the narratives of Telemachus and Odysseus,
adopting the alternative view that Telemachus goes to bed in
Sparta (Od. 4) on Day 6 after his departure and is
awakened by Athena the very next morning (Od. 15), the
poet ignoring the month spent bringing Odysseus home. As others
have pointed out, there are problems with this chronology too,
which Olson attempts to dispose of with moderate success; his
argument culminates in something of a tour-de-force in
which he points out, with a proper tentativeness, that if we
ignore the undescribed passages of time which Odysseus spends in
his raft-building, sailing, and shipwreck, we are left with 10
days' journeying with him, exactly matching the length of
Telemachus' trip. In a sense these chronological problems are
unreal, as they would only be noticed (if at all) by an auditor
listening to the poem uninterruptedly from beginning to end, an
eventuality which may not have been too significant to the poet,
but Olson's examples of other instances where the poet seems to
have conceived of actions as simultaneous but for the purposes of
the narrative has converted them into a consecutive storyline are
of considerable interest.
Next Olson studies Odysseus' faithful slave Eumaeus, giving a
sensible account of his nature, situation, and relationship with
his disguised master, naturally stressing a good deal the stories
he and Odysseus exchange. "Eumaios' stories thus raise a series
of complex and apparently interconnected issues and concerns,
including abandonment or rejection by the mistress/mother, the
problem of servile loyalty (or disloyalty) and its consequences
for a house, the emergence and control of sexuality and
particularly female sexuality, and the lure and treachery of the
past" (136), thus preparing for the appearance of the same issues
in Odysseus' palace. Chapter 7 then covers in detail, and very
well, a usually neglected area, the plans of Athena for Odysseus'
activities in Ithaca, including the much-debated question of what
Penelope knew and when she knew it. For Olson (who shows a
welcome awareness that she is a fictional character), Penelope
suspects nothing, and her rejection of her disguised husband's
interpretation of her dream is reasonable; her sudden decision to
remarry is to help ensure her son's survival (157). His views may
be unfashionable--"Up through the end of Book xvii, therefore,
Penelope plays an essentially secondary and largely undeveloped
role in the Odyssey" (150)--but this is a useful addition
to the ongoing debate (Olson had not had a chance to see N.
Felson-Rubin's Regarding Penelope).
The final three chapters examine the nature, meaning and
results of Odysseus' return under three significant aspects: as
father and husband, as king, and "as god" (the last category is a
little too neat, and in these chapters the story-telling elements
and the emphasis on KLE/OS drop out of sight). The first of these
begins with an account of the tempestuous marriage of Zeus and
Hera in the Iliad, and Olson reinforces this picture of
the violent paterfamilias opposed by the cleverness of his
wife with the recurring cycles of violence and treachery in
Hesiod's Theogony and the husband-wife conflicts appearing
in Semonides and later literature. The reader is wondering what
this 14-page study of male dominance and wife-abuse in Greek
divine and human families has to do with the Odyssey,
until it appears that "the wide-spread image of the absent but
potentially vengeful father and his threatening and powerful wife
has profoundly shaped Homer's story of Odysseus" (175). Olson
holds that traditional father-son conflict has been suppressed by
the poet in the case of Laertes, but signs of future tension are
evident between Odysseus and Telemachus. Olson does not, however,
deal here with details of the relationship (past and prospective)
between Odysseus and Penelope, and this is the least successful
chapter in his volume.
In "The Return of the King" Olson gives a good account of the
complexities of the political structures represented on Scheria
and Ithaca, finding them substantially the same. A powerful man,
"whose position has a strong hereditary component" (188), is
surrounded by others who serve as companions, counselors and
judges, while the people can summon their leaders to speak before
them and have a certain amount of political power through their
talk and gossip. He criticizes Finkelberg's views on Penelope's
role and those of I. Morris on the connection between the society
depicted in a song and that in which it is performed. He perhaps
underestimates the problems of royal succession on Ithaca and
Penelope's part in it.
In the final chapter Olson takes on the vexed question of the
theodicy of the poem. Beginning with an elaborate criticism of
the views of Fenik, Friedrich and others, Olson denies the
validity of the "double theodicy" idea (that Zeus' initial
assertion that men bring their trouble on themselves by their own
transgressions is inconsistent with the vengeful punishments
insisted upon by Poseidon and Helius), and holds that in fact
"Homer's stories show over and over again how human beings bring
troubles upon themselves by means of their own thoughtless
actions, precisely as Zeus says in the prologue" (213). In fact,
Olson reaches the same conclusion here as Segal in his recent
article (AJP 113, 1992), from a quite different viewpoint,
and though occasionally he overplays his hand a little ("Were
Zeus making a public response to mortal complaints or even aware
of speaking the prologue to a Homeric epic, verbal maneuvering of
this sort would perhaps be appropriate. As it is, however, he is
thinking aloud in the privacy of his own home " [214]) his
treatment is valuable and his arguments will have to be taken
into consideration by those who will inevitably review the
question again.
There are two Appendixes. In the first Olson defends (I think
correctly) the view of Finkelberg, that it has not been proved
that KLE/OS A)/FQITON is a survival of a very old IE formula,
against the attempted refutation of her article by A. Edwards.
The second discusses the book-divisions of the Odyssey,
with the purpose of demonstrating that they are of no use for
appreciating the meaning of the poem. The first section of this
examines each book-division in turn (as Taplin has recently done
for the Iliad), stressing the indications of an attempt to
give independence to certain key episodes (the Wanderings, and
especially the Underworld; the reunions of Odysseus with Eumaeus
in book 14, with Telemachus in book 16, and with Penelope in book
23; the contest with the bow in book 21), and often finding a
break which seems just as good as the present book-division, or
even preferable, within about 50 verses of the present one.
(Olson correctly assumes, but does not explicitly say, that the
present book-divisions fall at points indistinguishable from
ordinary scene-changes.) He does not pay much attention to
phraseology, but notes the questions raised by a book-division
falling between ME\N and DE/ or AU)TA/R, and by a natural break
which occurs in the middle of a line (e.g. before AU)TA\R A)QH/NH
| , Od. 6.2). A short second section discusses the
purposes of the "Divider," suggesting he was concerned to create
Books which would stand independently, probably for the purposes
of the book trade; what was left over of the poem was converted
into other Books or appended to whatever was nearby. The idea is
very possible, but Olson does not here develop it thoroughly (by,
for instance, considering what we know of the book trade,
starting from Van Sickle's fine article in Arethusa 13
[1980], and of the relative popularity of different episodes of
the poem).
Sometimes I would not agree with Olson's understanding or
interpretation of certain passages (one obvious example: I don't
think the imaginary speaker at Od. 275-285 quite implies
that Nausicaa has "had sex with the anonymous stranger" [22]),
but I noted no errors of fact or misunderstandings of the text.
He shows an excellent knowledge of the text and the bibliography,
and his views are often original and always worthy of
consideration. The volume is good reading, and will profit anyone
interested in the major issues of the poem.
There is an excellent Bibliography and an index
locorum, but unfortunately no index.