I am currently reading The Aeneid. It is a beautiful and tragic story, but good stories are tragic. Reading The Aeneid has reminded me of the narratological difference between classical stories and modern stories. For example, there is a bit of a difference between The Aeneid and Nausea. A litany of differences and similarities could probably be compiled, though I am not interested in compiling such a list. However, I am interested in the fact that The Aeneid is far less focused on providing the audience with every jot of Dido’s phenomenology. Instead, the motions of her heart are intimately entwined with wishes of the gods and fate; there is a microcosm and a macrocosm, and the microcosm must conform to the macrocosm. And in Nausea Roquentin is not concerned about the gods. He wishes only to divulge his personal nightmare. In Nausea there is only an inconsequential individual; there is only a microcosm. With these thoughts in mind, I wonder how the Odyssey and Ulysses would match up. I suspect it would epitomize what I’m talking about.
I used to think that modern novels were sophisticated for their keen psychological insight, and in some cases I still think that. However, reading The Aeneid reminds me that the vast majority of modern stories are but footnotes. That said I do not wish to set modern stories over and against classical stories or vice versa, though I do have affinities for modern stories. I am mostly interested in the fact that story telling has changed. Also, I am interested in how we got from point A to point B, and I really don’t think that it was a straight line.
In Shakespeare there appears to be both a microcosm and a macrocosm. The heavens reflect Hamlet’s heart, as do his poignant soliloquies. There is a macrocosm and a microcosm, but the macrocosm serves as a mere reflection of the microcosm – for example, the heavens function merely as an indicator of Hamlet’s turmoil; the macrocosm is not to be reflected by the microcosm. There appears to be a reversal in roles.
It might then be asked, did the Enlightenment strip us of the gods and fate? Did the Enlightenment strip us of the macrocosm? I don’t know precisely, but I do think it is interesting that by the nineteenth century the macrocosm seems to have been put aside as inconsequential. What truly matters then is the autonomous “I,” a move that had been fermenting for hundreds of years and finally came to fruition.
In some of my favorite novels, the macrocosm is peeking through, but their stories are not of cosmic proportions. If Alyosha doesn’t find Dmitri, then Dmitri may be in trouble but the kingdom won’t be lost and the world won’t end. The Brothers Karamazov is not an epic, but rather ironically a large element of the story is a sort of debate about there being a macrocosm of which the microcosm is to be a reflection.
And then as if to throw a wrench into things, we have stories that have remained such as The Lord of the Rings. There is Frodo, and there is the struggle between good and evil that is sweeping middle earth. There is a microcosm and a macrocosm, and they are reflective of each other. However, even this is more similar to Hamlet, for Frodo is not seeking to reflect a personified macrocosm.
In light of these crumbs, it might also be noted that we often tell the truth with stories. And as our way of telling stories has changed, it appears that the way we tell the truth has changed. It would be rather nice to say that truth is truth, but alas we think and speak truth; truth does not reside in an unchanging vacuum; it passes along various and ever-changing contours of human experience, from generation to generation. We once spoke of the gods and our wills being reflective of their wishes, and now we speak of individuals as if they are gods.
