THE
SCAR OF ULYSSES
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how the quietly depicted, domestic scene of the foot-washing is in–
corporated into the pathetic and sublime action of Ulysses' home–
coming. From the rule of the separation of styles which became al–
most generally accepted later on and which specified that the
realistic depiction of daily life was incompatible with the sublime
and had a place only in comedy or, carefully stylized, in idyl-from
any such rule Homer is still far removed. And yet he is closer to it than '
is the Old Testament. For the great and sublime events in the Hom–
eric poems take place far more exclusively and unmistakably among
the members of a ruling class; and these are far more untouched in
their heroic elevation than are the Old Testament figures, who can
fall much lower in dignity (consider, for example, Adam, Noah,
David, Job) ; and finally, domestic realism, the representation of daily
life, remains in Homer in the peaceful realm of the idyllic, whereas,
from the very first, in the Old Testament stories, the sublime, tragic,
and problematic take shape precisely in the domestic and common–
place: scenes such as those between Cain and Abel, between Noah
and his sons, between Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, between Rebekah,
Jacob, and Esau, and so on, are inconceivable in the Homeric
style. The reason for this is to be found in the entirely different ways
of developing conflicts. In the Old Testament stories the peace of
daily life in the house, in the fields, and among the flocks, is under–
mined by jealousy over election and the promise of a blessing, and
complications arise which would be utterly incomprehensible to the
Homeric heroes. The latter must have palpable and clearly expres–
sible reasons for their conflicts and enmities, and these work them–
selves out in free battles; whereas, with the former, the perpetually
smouldering jealousy and the connection between the domestic and
the spiritual, between the paternal blessing and the divine blessing,
lead to daily life being permeated with the stuff of conflict, often
with poison. The sublime influence of God here reaches so deeply
into the commonplace that the two realms of the sublime and the
commonplace are actually not only unseparated but basically in–
separable.
We have compared these two texts, and, with them, the two
kinds of style they embody, in order to reach a starting point for an
investigation into the literary representation of reality in European
