Fiction and Self-Knowledge: Daniel Mendelsohn, An Odyssey. A Father, a Son and an Epic

Abstract

This study analyses Daniel Mendelsohn’s recent work An Odyssey. A Father, a Son and an Epic through the connection between its two main levels: autofiction, which deals with the father–son psychoanalytic relationship, and the metatext of the Odyssey read as a narrative of searching the depths of human relationships. The distribution of the factual material according to this connection illustrates the function of literature to act like a mirror for our confusing and incomprehensible experiences. The pragmatic theory of the narrative formulated by Paul Ricœur in Temps et récit, according to which fiction becomes a mediator of self-knowledge, is invoked in relation to how the text handles the evolution of the father–son relationship.

Keywords

• rewriting
• autofiction
• metatext
• identity
• self-knowledge
• refigure