I wrote that some say that Dumézil was a genius. The implicature of course
was that some don't!
In a message dated 8/7/2015 12:39:38 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx reminds us that Dumézil is well known for mentoring
many
French scholars. Michel Foucault, for instance, benefitted from his
patronage when Dumézil arranged for him to teach temporarily in Uppsala early
on in
his career.
McEvoy commmends that Uppsala "was not far enough". Not for Uppsalians, I
expect. I expect Uppsala is 'just as far as it needs be', for them. Foucault
taught Uppsalians to think -- Foucault's obituary read. It doesn't even
say "some"!
McEvoy goes on to discuss a correlation of the theory by "Dumie [as his
friends called Dumézi]" with a theory of music. The correlation, McEvoy
explains, was done "by Prof. Ihavea T. Inear", and the correlation correlates
the theory by Dumézil (whom some think a genius) with, to echo McEvoy, "a
theory of music - so, correspondingly, we have martial music, sacred music and
economic music. (Leading contemporary exponents of economic music include
Simon Cowell.)."
Indeed. And note that there may be hybrids: martial economic music, for
example, or sacred martial. The possibilities should be endless but they
ain't!
McEvoy concludes: "Among the central criticisms, of Dumie's application of
this tri-partite division to pre-modern societies, is that it is bleeding
obvious that societies were divided this way and no one previously failed
to spot it except [Dumézil]."
Apparently, Dumézil's mother failed to spot it, too -- or 'either', as
Geary prefers.
Dumézil's father was a classicist. His mother wasn't.
Dumézil first became interested in ancient languages at a young age—it has
been said that he could read the Aeneid in Latin at the age of nine (but
his mother would complain that his pronunciation lacked 'gravitas' — and, by
the end of his life, is said to have spoken many languages fluently -- and
"some of them not so fluently," as his obituary read.
His Chinese is described as "broken".
During Dumézil's time in secondary school, he was also influenced by Michel
Bréal, a leading philologist who was the grandfather of one of his
classmates, Tom.
"When Tom introduced me to his grandfather, I was surprised that he was
Michel Bréal -- but this was years after."
By the time Dumézil entered the École Normale Supérieure he was already on
the road to studying the classics.
Dumézil's studies were delayed, "alas", his mother said, by World War I --
or "The Great War", as his mother called it -- when he was drafted and
served as an artillery officer.
"I thought," his mother said, "this would teach him like the Aeneid had,
and I was right."
After the Geart War Dumézil (implicature: who was not killed) resumed his
studies in the classics, and was particularly influenced by Antoine Meillet,
a genius to some.
Dumézil aggregated (as the French say) in Classics and received his
doctorate after writing a thesis comparing the common origins of the Greek
ambrosia and a similarly named Indian drink Amrita which was said to make its
imbiber immortal.
In his scientifically-oriented thesis (cfr. Popper) Dumézil proves in
Appendix II that Amrita does NOT make its imbiber immortal -- "despite the
myths". His use of 'urban myth' fascinated his examiners (One of them imbibed a
dose of Amrita that Dumézil had had it brought from India).
The dissertation was, admittedly, controversial because some of the
examiners, such as Henri Hubert, thought that Dumézil took liberty with some of
the facts -- what Popper would call 'observation statements') in order to
generate a more beautiful interpretation.
This would come to be a common criticism of Dumézil's work, but he laid the
blame on Keats ("Beauty is truth, truth beauty" -- in French).
After Dumézil's death his followers started to call themselves (or
theirselves) Dumézilians, even if Foucault used the sobriquet (as they say in
French, the final 't' is mute) to refer to his self while Dumézil was still
alive, and Foucault in Uppsala.
Cheers,
Speranza
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