“Odyssey” ‘Song of Sicily’… Poet’s Images = Sicilian Reality
“Odyssey” ‘Song of Sicily’… Poet’s Images = Sicilian Reality
(April 29, 2013)
A previous article (“Step Aside Homer…” link in Related Articles box) introduced the meticulously documented factual based conclusions of two eminent classical scholars, who demonstrated that the metaphoric locations described in the “Odyssey” were not the product of the poet’s imagination. Rather, imaginary places like ‘Scheria’, for example, were in fact real locations in western Sicily circa 1,000 B.C. (e.g. Trapani)…. Also, the author of the poem was not Homer, rather a Sicilian, possibly a Sicilian girl. While issues such as the authorship and locations of places in the “Odyssey” may be thought of as an esoteric debate among the small population of Classical scholars, it would be a mistake for southern-Italian Americans to dismiss it as such. What the works of Samuel Butler and L.G. Pocock demonstrate – again – is that the southern-Italian American people are an ancient people. Our history and culture did not begin at Ellis Island and has nothing to do with the Renaissance. Our cultural history reaches back near 3,000 years and encompasses the whole Mediterranean world. Accordingly, instead of Dante and Manzoni, southern-Italian American students should be reading the Odyssey, but not as an immortal poetic literary work. Rather, the Odyssey should be studied in the historiographic context laid out by Butler and Pocock; i.e. as a remnant document from the past describing the primordial history and culture of southern-Italian Americana’s Patria Meridionale – for what courses the veins of southern-Italian Americans is Mediterranean…ancient Mediterranean. Indeed, one wonders, was Ellis Island a Siren’s beautiful song luring southern Italians away from their Patria Meridionale, only to destroy their culture on the rocks of materialistic pluralism? The works of Butler and Pocock give pause!
Historiography: How do we know what we think we know about the past?
In 1898 two University of Paris historians/teachers Charles Langlois and Siegnobos wrote a textbook Introduction to the Study of History for the purpose of instructing their students about the concepts, methods and techniques historians use to ascertain knowledge of past societies. They wrote:
“We propose to examine the conditions and the method to indicate the character…of historical knowledge” (p. 2)
Essentially, the text was a description of the historiographic methodology that prevailed during the eighteenth and nineteenth century and continued to a lesser degree into the first part of the twentieth. Specifically, that methodology was known as the Critical Method; critical understood as interpretation of a document. Much of what we know about ancient, medieval and early modern Mediterranean and European history is the product of that methodology. Langlois and Siegnobos wrote:
“In order to draw legitimate inferences from a document to the fact from which it is the trace, numerous precautions are requisite…there must be a critical examination of the document, an interpretation… (p.18 emp.+)
Samuel Butler’s book The Authoress of the Odyssey, researched and written in the 1890’s, is a perfect example of the Critical Method process. Presented with the document Odyssey, the historian submitted it to critical examination (an interpretation) in order to make valid logical inferences about the facts (reality) of historic Sicily.
The factual descriptions of first millennium B.C. Sicily posited in Butler’s book and later L. G. Pocock’s The Sicilian Origin of the Odyssey are logical inferences based on analysis of the remnant document from that time; i.e. the Odyssey.
Who wrote the document?
One of the primary investigations an historian must undertake when critiquing a document is the“Critical Investigation of Authorship”. The Paris teachers wrote:
“The most precise indication of authorship are never sufficient by themselves. They only afford a presumption, strong or weak…False indication of authorship exist…verification is therefore necessary.” (L&S p. 89 emp.+)
Thus, the “precise indication” of the “authorship” of the Odyssey has for almost three thousand years been a Greek man named Homer who also wrote the Iliad. However, consistent with Critical Methodology, the historian is not allowed the luxury of simply believing, just because others say so: “verification is therefore necessary!”
As was noted in the previous article on the Odyssey, both Samuel Butler and L.G. Pocock argued that the author of the poem was not Homer; Butler thought a Sicilian girl, Pocock a “seaman”. Issues surrounding the poem’s author will be discussed at length in a subsequent article on this blog.
Documents and Realities of the Past
Apart from the authorship, ultimately the historian’s quest is a description of past factual realities, which can be inferred from the document. That is: the reality that can be inferred from what the author wrote?
In short, the historian does not simply read the document and then report to the public what the document says. The document must be critiqued (interpreted). Langlois and Siegnobos write:
“It is possible the author may have used some expressions in an oblique sense; there are several kinds of cases where this occurs: allegory and symbolism, jests and hoaxes, allusion and implication, even the ordinary figure of speech, metaphor, hyperbole, litotes.
Thus the art of recognizing and determining hidden meanings in texts has always occupied a large space in the theory of hermeneutics (Greek for interpretative criticism) of classical authors. (p.151-152 emp.+)
Thus, classical scholars Butler and Pocock argue that the poetic images in the Odyssey are “oblique expressions”, whose “hidden meanings” are descriptions of underlying reality. Pocock refers to “fictions connected with realities”. He writes:
“The poet’s fictions are good and legitimate in that they are based on, or connected with, realities. They are not mere ‘poetical imaginings…(p. 103 emp.+)
Thus for example, “the poet” (i.e. the writer of the Odyssey) created the “fictional” city of Scheria, which “connects with” the “reality” of Trapani.The seemingly “mere poetical imagining” of Scheria is a symbol for the reality of the actual Sicilian city of Trapani.
The technique Butler and Pocock used to determine if the fictional place names and locations in the Odyssey were “mere poetical imaginings”, or in fact representations of “real” places and locations was topographical.
This is to say, they matched the topographical characteristics of a places described in poem with actual physical places in Sicily and its environs.
The process of this technique is best illustrated by the way they determined the city of “Scheria” described in the poem physically (topographically) matched the location of today’s Trapani.
Scheria a ‘metaphor’ of historical Trapani
Following is a schematic (illustrative outline) of the Butler’s and Pocock’s method/technique. Essentially it consists of matching descriptions of Scheria in the poem with actual physical characteristics of the city of Trapani. Butler writes:
“When I reached Book xiii. 159-164, in which passage Neptune turns the Phæacian ship into a rock at the entrance of the Scherian harbour, I felt sure that an actual feature was being drawn from…(p. 158 emp.+)
Note: as such, this is a report of Butler’s ‘subjective feeling’ about the description of Scheria harbor in the poem and there being an actual physical harbor that matched the poem’s description someplace in the Mediterranean. However, Butler is not content with his feelings; rather, he does research seeking evidence that will substantiate his feelings.
In the parlance of science he has a hypothesis that the poetic description of Scheria can be matched to a real Mediterranean city.
He proceeds to find evidence (research) that will support his hypothesis (test the hypothesis so to speak). First, he made a list of characteristics of Scheria in the poem. For example, the following:
1. The town must be placed on a point of land jutting out as a land's end into the sea between two harbours, or bays in which ships could ride;
- connected with the mainland by a narrow neck of land,
- a half sunken formidable rock at the entrance of one of the harbours.
2. There must be no river running into either harbor
3. There must be a river near a road running from the peninsula to a sheltered inlet
4. There must be two caves, which ought to be found at no great distance from the head of the sheltered inlet
5. There must be a notable mountain at no great distance from the town (p. 159-163 )
Next he must engage in topographical research of Mediterranean areas to find such a location with those characteristics. Having listed those characteristics of Scheria in the poem, then he set out to find an actual location that matched those characteristics. He writes:
“Armed with the list of points I had to find… I went down to the map room of the British Museum intending to search the Mediterranean from the Troad to Gibraltar if necessary
“I found the combination I wanted for Scheria lying right under Mt. Eryx. The land's end jutting into the sea—the two harbours one on either side of it—the narrow entrance between two marshes—the high mountain hard by—the rock at the entrance of one of the harbours—the absence of any river [and, a river on the road from the town]—will be found in the map here given, which Messrs. Walker & Boutall have made for me from the Italian Government survey, and from our own Admiralty chart. (p.163 emp.+)
Below is a picture of the Map of Trapani Butler found in the British Museum. I have on layed notes indicating the places on the map that correspond to the five characteristics of Scheria Butler listed above.
Note the similarities between the description of Scheria in the Odyssey and the map of Trapani. Clearly, such a perfect correspondence between the poem and the map (i.e. between “poetic images” and “reality”) cannot be construed as coincidence. Surely, this constitutes significant evidence that Butler’s hypothesis that the poet’s description of Scheria matches an actual city.
However, these five correspondences are a very small fraction of the evidence that Butler and Pocock bring to bear supporting their theory that locations in the Odyssey correspond to actual historic places in Sicily and the western Mediterranean. There is much more evidence for matching Scheria with Trapani. Then they match Ithaca with Trapani, and on and on using the topographical technique of matching place descriptions in the poem with physical locations in Sicily and the western Mediterranean.
Pocock’s book is one hundred two pages long; written in bulleted format (i.e. no rambling narratives), with each bullet section discussing a correspondence between a “poetic image” and geographic reality.
Conclusion
The above is meant only to illustrate Butler’s and Pocock’s empirical methodology and demonstrate that their conclusions are not subjective value judgments. The preponderance of the evidence that they document overwhelmingly supports the conclusion, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the Odyssey as a whole constitutes a real description of Sicily and the western Mediterranean. For those who disagree, the burden on proof is on them. This is to say, they must demonstrate that the factual statements posited by Butler and Pocock are false and/or their logical inferences are fallacious.
……
Terroni Pedagogical Implication
Consistent with the cultural hegemony that northern Italy holds in the American university system, Butler & Pocock’s books have been ignored. Pocock’s book was published in 1957 in New Zealand and again in Italy, bilingually with an Italian translation, in 1986.
If it should ever come to pass that a South of Rome Studies Program were to be developed in an American university, Pocock’s book would serve as an excellent instructional tool in a History of Sicily course (‘History of Sicily’ course – the phrase sounds almost silly it’s so far removed from current instructional reality. See Related Articles #2).
In that context, the Odyssey would not be read as poetry per se, as it would be in a literature course. Rather, as a history book whereby students would come to know the ancient primordial origins of southern-Italian American history and culture.
Also, perhaps more importantly, the students would learn the methods of critical historiography, preparing them for their own South of Rome research. Research that would break the hegemonic dominance northern Italy has over Terroni-Americana.
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