‘Let Demodocus rest his ringing lyre now!’

Abstract

Could the experience of Ulysses, the hero of the Odyssey, tell us something about ourselves? This essay attempts to outline a brief answer to this question by focusing on the eighth book, the structure of which is based on a carefully structured network of interruptions. During the banquet hosted by King Alcinous on the Island of Phaeacia in honour of Odysseus, who has not yet revealed his identity to anyone, the blind poet Demodocus, inspired by the Muse, makes two appearances, singing about episodes from the Trojan War. Both times, Alcinous notices that Odysseus tries to hide his tears and stops the recital. The caesuras caused by the songs of the bard modulate the affections of the hero who, attending like the Benjaminian relaxed audience to the scenes of his life, ends up revealing his identity. At the very core of the interruptions there is a repeated gesture of lamentation, and the repetition will end up making a difference. Weeping turns into revelation, the revelation into transfiguration. The structural interruptions of the eighth book of the Odyssey ultimately reveal what it means to be embedded in a world of human and non-human powers and the difficulties in negotiating our individual agency within such a world. But the book also defines interruptions as occasions for making meaning in creative and reflective ways.

Notes

1 Not surprisingly, Benjamin’s phrase that will serve as a refrain in our article occurs in the middle of a reflection on the labour of the historian. Although it may seem that we are taking the phrase with some freedom, without taking into account the dialectic between the oppressed and the ruling class that underpins Benjamin’s perspective, we hope to demonstrate the value of this point of view in understanding Odysseus’ transformation.

2 O theos autos esti o legon (‘god himself is the speaker’) is the expression that Socrates employed in Plato’s Ion when referring to the process of enchantment and the profound unity between Muses, poets and rhapsodes. For two interesting analyses of this dialogue, see Nancy (1990) and Cavarero (2005).

3 For reasons of brevity, we cannot develop this point here. For an interesting and recent analysis of Hölderlin’s theory, see Billings (2014).

4 We use the term ritornello or refrain in tune with the concept developed by Deleuze and Guattari (1987), especially for its potentiality to fold diverse blocks of space-time and, therefore, for its capacities of territorialization, deterritorialization and reterritorialization.

5 See Carson (2012).

6 Walter Benjamin developed this concept in ‘What is epic theatre?’. See Benjamin (2007b [1969]).

7 The concept of sympathy is undergoing a very interesting revision in recent times. In our view, three of the most interesting examples from different disciplines are in Spuybroek (2011), Bennett (2016) and Holmes (2019).

8 Once again, the expression to ‘rub his eyes’ in front of the images is a direct influence of Walter Benjamin (1999: 464).