SOURCE: "Odysseus' Scar," in Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, translated by Willard R. Trask, Princeton University Press, 1953, pp. 3-23.
Auerbach was a German-born American philologist and critic. He is best known for his Mimesis: Dargestellte Wirklichkeit in der Abendländischen Literature (1946; Mimesis, The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, 1953), a landmark study in which the critic explores the interpretation of reality through literary representation. In the following excerpt from that work, Auerbach compares the discourse, perspective, detail, and historical development of the Odyssey with that of several Old Testament stories.
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