Dumezil in Greece

8/3/2019 Dumezil in Greece

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Dumézil in Greece : from Frazer to Vernant. A study in comparative

mythology and the anthropology of Ancient Greece.

Pierre Sauzeau, CERCAM,University Paul-Valéry Montpellier III

I am not sure that a Hellenist is best suited to elucidate the relationship between Dumézil

and Durkheimian sociology. However, it is still necessary to present, and perhaps even

defend, Georges Dumézil, a famous but misunderstood scholar. His work defends itself

on its own, on one condition: that people read it.

I am unable here to relate in detail the intellectual accomplishment of the founder of

the new comparative mythology, which Dumézil established at the crossroads of three

social sciences that developed brilliantly in France during the twentieth century,

sociology, historical linguistics, and the scientific study of myth. Independent of the

various intellectual schools, and therefore in an awkward position, Dumézil remained

relatively marginalized in the university system. On the fringes of both linguistics and

sociology, he was forced to repel the polemical attacks of a number of aggressive

specialists, Indianists, Iranologists, and staunch Latinists : the work of a comparativist,

erudite as he may be, lies vulnerable to the reproaches and criticisms of scholars who

concentrate on a narrower field of study.

Dumézil, a crypto-Nazi ?

There is another matter that must be taken into account. During the 1980s, the Italian

historian A. Momigliano reproached Dumézil for harbouring a youthful sympathy for the

Action Française led by Charles Maurras. According to Momigliano, some of Dumézil’s

writings express « chiare tracce di simpatia per la cultura nazista ». In reality however,Dumézil was never a complete adherent of the Action Française, which « prohibited any

belief in Captain Dreyfus’ innocence. » He became a free mason in 1936, which suggests

a rupture with the extreme right ; and under the occupation, he was for this reason

dismissed from teaching by the collaborating Vichy government. Nevertheless, the

slander was repeated and amplified by C. Ginzburg, among others, and obstinately



continues to circulate. This slander insults the memory of a great scholar whose ideas we

may not entirely share, but who certainly deserves our respect. Above all, it is a

defamation that attempts to limit the diffusion of Dumézil’s work, and is therefore

harmful to scientific research.

In reality, he always presented himself as right wing and a lover of order, and when in

the 1930s he wrote newspaper articles under a pen name in order to make ends meet

financially, he sometimes did express some sympathy for Italian fascism. This shocks us

today, and I am hardly pleased by the fact myself ; but we cannot be hagiographers. The

politically conservative Dumézil must be placed in his historical context between the two

World Wars : at this time the Action Française greatly influenced many young

intellectuals, as well as people like the future Marshal Leclerc. The future General de

Gaulle was also tempted by monarchist ideas, and was considered a supporter of Maurras, while still frequenting left-wing political circles. Where on the ideological and

political spectrum should we place Winston Churchill during the 1930s ? German

militarism horrified him – he saw its roots in a characteristic shift of Indo-European

ideological structure in favour of an extremely negative warrior function – and he never

once expressed a favourable attitude toward racism. He always displayed a rationalism

comparable to that of Montesquieu, and a fundamental attachment to freedom of thought.

Rational, attached to freedom of thought, in no way racist, hostile to German

militarism… the accusation of Nazi sympathy is untenable, as should have been

sufficiently proved by the support he received from so many Jewish friends and

colleagues, most of whom were particularly lucid about the dangers of Nazism and the

extreme right (Sylvain Lévi, Marc Bloch, Jean Marx, Marcel Mauss, and later Cl. Lévi-

Strauss etc.) É. Benveniste, his long-time opponent for very different reasons, supported

him after the war. Dumézil recognized as his mentor the left-wing Marcel Granet ; in

1940 – note the date – Mitra-Varuna was dedicated « to my mentors, Marcel Mauss and

Marcel Granet » - a Jew and a Communist – and he describes Sylvain Lévi as a « great

benevolent mind» - surprising behaviour, we must admit, from one of Hitler’s

sympathizers. He was admired by the militant socialist Louis Gernet, and, towards the

end of his life, by Michel Foucault ; these names are worth at least as much as those of

his friends with extremist ideas or compromising pasts (Pierre Gaxotte, Maurras’



secretary and the editor-in-chief of Candide, the extreme right-wing newspaper, or

Mircea Eliade, who I will come back to briefly in a moment), friends for whom Dumézil

is reproached as if those just mentioned counted for nothing.

Hostile rumours and culpable negligence

But rumours are more tenacious than the complex truths of human history. These

rumours have been transmitted by attacks that purport to be scientific, but are unfounded

in reality, hasty and clumsy in spite of their serious appearance, and often in bad faith.

This begins with a culpable negligence. One is surprised to read the following, written by

the great British scholar G. S. Kirk : « The claims for Indian influence on Greek myth

must rest either on a number of isolated thematic similarities […] or on a special theory

that has been energetically advanced by the French scholar Georges Dumézil…I am notconvinced that Dumézil has proved his case. » Apparently, the Cambridge scholar is

confusing two radically different concepts here : Indo-European heritage and Indian

influence on Greece.

Belier’s book, which claims to evaluate the scientific coherence of Dumézil’s work,

concludes with a negative assessment that is completely predictable, given his general

close-mindedness and the ill-suited nature of his critique (Belier « reconstructs » the

theory of a scholar who refuses to be considered as a theoretician) – not to speak of Belier’s ignorance and errors. Another attack comes from archaeology. Colin Renfrew, in

a successful study whose thesis seems to me hardly credible, contests the possibility of a

stratified society in accordance with trifunctionality at the supposed dates of the Indo-

European dispersion. He is clearly ignorant of the Dumézilian conception of ideology,

which I will come back to later.

The anti-Dumézilian offensive ad hominem is all the more unbearable because it

concerns such a great scholar who was so scrupulous and so critical of himself. Even

more grave is the attempt to disqualify his methods and his discoveries in the name of his

alleged intellectual compromises. It is certainly interesting for a historian of ideas to

search for the deep roots of a scientific theory, but this presupposes a careful and

attentive relationship between the historiographer and the work being considered, which



must be carefully replaced in its contexts : the larger socio-historical context, and the

narrower intellectual and university milieu (the École Normale Supérieure, the Latin

Quarter of the 1930’s) ; and this process presupposes above all a deep and scrupulous

methodological reflection. B. Lincoln is quite sure of himself ; he believes that Dumézil

taught at the Sorbonne, which casts serious doubt on his information ; he also proposes to

explain the discovery (or the invention) of the three functions as an influence of fascist

Italy. He is ignorant, or forgets, that this discovery, founded on incontestable Indo-Iranian

data, was shared, and even disputed, by É. Benveniste, who has never been thought of as

pro-Nazi. Lincoln fails to consider another hypothesis, that the structures of fascist Italy,

like those of the Soviet state, might be a resurgent form of the trifunctional system, a

system which was never a personal ideal for Dumézil – he said and repeated as much :

« Personally, I would have no desire whatsoever to live in the Indo-European civilizationof which I have but a glimpse, no more than in those civilizations which preceded it since

the time when men stopped living in caves…»

The case of Mircea Éliade (1907-1986), who was B. Lincoln’s mentor, is different,

and definitely grave. His fascist and anti-Semitic commitment before and during the war

seems to me proven, no matter what his supporters may say, and, what is more serious

from our point of view, clear traces of this can be read in his work long afterwards.

Daniel Dubuisson and more recently Michael Löwy have shown the deep complicity

which links Éliade’s mysticism to his engagement in the Iron Guard.

What is written in his defence explains the context, but does not erase his active

complicity and, more importantly, the doubt surrounding the content of his work. One

can always reproach Dumézil for supporting Eliade in 1945, for considering that he had

been unjustly slandered and for writing prefaces for him. In any case, Dumézil’s attitude

is not an isolated one : in France, many other scholars hardly suspected of Nazi

sympathies, notably H. Ch. Puech and Lucien Febvre, helped Éliade. M. Éliade was later

recruited in the United States, honoured as the « maître de Chicago », and his works

edited, translated, and read by millions, including myself and, I should think, some of

you ; but less, to be sure, for his method or conclusions than for the rich informative

content of his work.



In any case, the problem posed by Dumézil is very different, if indeed he poses a

problem at all. Even if we admit that it is possible, a posteriori, to reproach him for

certain embarrassing friendships – among so many others that do him honour -, neither

his ideas, his political behaviour, nor his scientific practices justify in any way the

rejection of his work and the achievements of his method.

*

• *

Dumézil conducted extremely original research, he was «a school all by himself”; but

it would be erroneous to imagine him as a « savant maudit ». In simple terms, he was

obliged, in order to found his new comparative mythology, to combat the cliquish

mentality of specialists enclosed in their own domains ; he himself distrusted schools of thought, words ending in –ism like « structuralism », and simplistic or excessive

disciples. However, this great researcher is profoundly linked to the history of twentieth

century French thought. If his work continues that of European and French research of

the 1900s and draws upon French sociology and linguistics, it in turn opens onto the

liveliest research of 1960-2000. From Frazer to Vernant, by way of Durkheim and Lévi-

Strauss.

Given the scope of this subject and the limits of my own competence, I willconcentrate my talk on the rich and changing relationship of Dumézil with Greece : as

though it were a vantage point that might help us better understand the path he took in his

exploration of Indo-European thought.

*

* *

Indo-European comparative mythology

Indo-European comparative mythology was born of the progress made in the

comparative grammar of Indo-European languages. It flourished in the nineteenth

century, and it suffices here to mention the name of the Sanskrit philologist Max Müller



(1823-1900), who taught at Oxford, and for whom myth was « a malady of language » :

primitive man evolves from the idea « sun is hot » to the concept of a Sun god who

brings heat and combats Rain etc. The glory of this naturalist comparativism, based on

primitivism, had been tarnished even before Dumézil’s birth, but its excesses harmed the

very principles* of comparative mythology. We should note that the French linguist M.

Bréal (1832-1915), who participated in the diffusion of this venture, was among

Dumézil’s mentors. Dumézil, however, was never tempted to follow this outdated

comparativism, although he did retain the principal of conducting his comparisons in a

cultural and linguistic context that was, if not completely homogeneous, than at least

relatively confined. We must stress the importance of linguistic comparison as a model

and support for mythological comparison.

The « first » Dumézil and Frazer’s influence

However, beyond being the effect of intellectual influence, comparison was a

personal vocation for Dumézil. His first studies were already comparativist, and centred

on Greek mythology and the Aegean world. They are marked by the influence of two

great scholars of that era : W. Mannhardt and his agrarian mythology, peopled by the

Vegetationgeister , and, most importantly, J.-G. Frazer, whose anthropological perspective

was universal, but centred particularly upon Rome (The Golden Bough, the definitive

edition of which dates from 1911-1915) and also upon Greece, its cults and mythology

(think for example of his editions and commentaries of Apollodorus’ Library and

Pausanias’ Description of Greece).

This first period of Dumézil’s career was marked by works that he later rejected

violently : The Feast of Immortality. A Study of Indo-European Comparative Mythology

(his principal dissertation, 1924) ; The Problem of the Centaurs (1929), or Ouranos-

Varuna (1934).

It is well worth the trouble to leaf through The Feast of Immortality, or at least to read

the Introduction. In it one can see a thought process at work, still immature but which has

already chosen certain definite perspectives. I propose to examine in further detail a brief

work entitled The Crime of the Lemnian Women, also dating from 1924, which was a



complementary dissertation, and which Dumézil later rejected along with the rest of his

earlier essays.

The subject is the story of the Lemnian women, those wives abandoned by their

husbands who massacre all the male inhabitants of their island, save King Thoas whom

they expel by sea. The women then remarry with the Argonauts who happen to be

passing that way, en route to Colchis and the Golden Fleece. The legend, which Dumézil

rightly compares to the legend of the Danaides, is explained as the etiological myth of a

fire renewing ritual, which Philostratus reports at Lemnos, and which is supposed to be

universally attested.

The « first » Dumézil resolutely adheres to the perspective of the Cambridge school,

for which « the myth is the plot of the drômenon », i.e. the myth relates what the rite

dramatizes. Little by little, he distances himself from this schematic and unilateral theory,and makes of the myth and the rite two manifestations of the « ideology ». But at that

time, the Frazerian vestiges are still present : a hasty and unbounded comparativism, and

the primary importance attached to the « agrarian rite ».

However, one must be careful not to reject this little book with the same severity as

its author. Much later, W. Burkert based his own analysis of myth upon this work, and G.

Kirk himself approved his analyses. The young Dumézil was perfecting certain tools and

elaborating certain methods that he would deepen later on. He argued brilliantly against

the historical interpretation of legends. He was able to read and make use of A. Van

Gennep’s founding theory on rites of passage, as well as criticise Bachofen and Morgan’s

theories on matriarchy, basing his arguments on Durkheim’s article, « The prohibition of

incest and its origins », 1896-1897.

Durkheim and sociology

The most valuable contribution during the 1930’s came without a doubt from

sociology ; but it was a problematic contribution, which must be carefully considered.

There were some personal disagreements and a rejection by the sociologists

(particularly Hubert) who could hardly be expected to appreciate the excesses of a

follower of J.-G. Frazer, and despite his own mistrust which he expressed later, Dumézil

was deeply influenced by the fundamental approach of É. Durkheim (who was born in



1858, and died in 1917, when Dumézil was still a very young man) ; but he was not

strictly speaking a Durkheimian. He who had always considered that facts counted most

of all, reproached the father of sociology for a certain dogmatism – that « mortal sin »- ,

for his « prefabricated methods» and for having « published The Rules of the

Sociological Method before having completed the work».

In reality, as early as the 1930s Dumézil renounced Frazer’s model, though he

retained a certain affection for The Golden Bough

, that « incomparable repertory of facts » the rest of his life. He put sociology in the

commanding position, ahead of linguistics, and accepted in practice the presuppositions

of Durkheim and Mauss.

Society, inasmuch as it is a unanimous whole, produces concepts.

« if […] categories are essentially group representations, they convey above all the stateof the group : they depend on the manner in which the group is constituted. »

« Religion is an exceedingly social thing. Religious representations are group

representations which express group realities…»

« If the totality of things is conceived as a « système un* » then society itself is conceived

in the same way. »

Dumézil becomes fundamentally a « sociologist ». One could say that Dumézil’s

objective had always been to introduce scientific rationalism and the experimentalmethod (in other words comparativism, when correctly understood) into the study of

mythology, which must be treated as a « thing », that is to say, from the outside, as with

an unknown reality : this is Durkheim’s founding point of view. The analysis may seem

« too » rational, when in 1975 he doubts that the horse sacrifice in Ireland could have a

signification of fertility since the mare is killed immediately after the sexual union.

However, Dumézil’s own alliance with the spirit of Durkeimian sociology does not

erase the fact that this period of the 1930s belonged to Durkheim’s intellectual heirs.

Dumézil reproached them for multiplying pre-established rules and a priori definitions,

instead of « respecting what is concrete, the ever-changing substance of the study ». In

fact he was influenced above all by M. Mauss, whom, like so many others, he appreciated

for his open-mindedness, his rejection of boundaries and the universality of his

knowledge, his preference for seemingly futile details, as well as a certain



methodological pragmatism. For Dumézil, as for Mauss, the best method was the one that

sheds light upon the most fruitful facts.

He was influenced still further by the sociologist-sinologist M. Granet (1884-1940),

whose « intuitive and disciplined intelligence » he admired. I believe the qualities he

resumes here are his own. He always considered M. Granet to be his mentor from a

methodological point of view.

His relationship with the sociology derived from Durkheim and Mauss evolved, as

did the body of his thoughts and methods, which were constantly « in construction. » He

retained the fundamental idea that society, language and myth are conceived from a

common model. But it is, for the Dumézil of this period as for Durkheim, society itself

that conditions and produces the rest.

The discovery of trifunctionality

From 1938, Dumézil considered trifunctionality to be his principal discovery.

According to an authentic social model of three classes, corresponding to the superior

castes historically attested in India – Brahmans, Ksatrya, Vaisya – the prehistoric Indo-

European peoples were considered to have developed an ideological system that was

hierarchical and trifunctional. Priests, warriors, producers. These three classes were also

considered to have existed at the opposite end of the Indo-European world, in the threeRoman tribes, the Ramnes, Luceres, and Titienses.

The discovery of symbolic autonomy

For the « second » Dumézil, the « sociologist » of 1938, trifunctionality was an actual

prehistoric social system, of which the castes of India were the evolved and enduring

witness, the real evidence that served as a point of reference for a theological and

ideological system which was the reflection of the caste system.

Dumézil needed to make a major conceptual effort to go beyond the « specular »

sociological theory which was too confining for his field of research. He sums up the

third stage of his thought process in the following way :

« Social division, strictly speaking, is only one application among many others […] of

what I have proposed to call […] the structure of three functions : beyond the priests, the



warriors and the producers, and more essential than they, are the hierarchical functions of

magical and legal sovereignty, of physical and primarily warrior strength, of tranquil and

fertile abundance… »

It had now become a question of a « liberation », although it had not been as brutal or

complete as Dumézil himself later presented it. Also, É. Benveniste had even more

trouble getting rid of the reference to the reality of the castes of India, and even imagines,

in his Vocabulary of Indo-European institutions (published in 1969), that the « [tripartite]

division [of society] goes back in any case to Indo-Iranian history, perhaps even to Indo-

European society ». Moreover, the very term Indo-European institution poses a problem.

We must understand it in Durkheim’s own terms: “We can, effectively, call ‘institution’

all the beliefs and all the modes of conduct instituted by the group; sociology can

therefore be defined as the science of institutions, their genesis and their way of functioning.”

From this Dumezilian « liberation » may be born a more « sound » conception of

symbolism’s relative autonomy, the complexity of its relationship to society, and finally a

way of thinking, or at least a praxis, that is structuralist. Dumézil, as I said earlier, is

perhaps most of all, if not a « linguist », at least a philologist, a follower of Meillet, for

whom historical linguistics is a branch of sociology. He is above all the expert in a score

of ancient or modern languages - even if he distrusts, and rightfully so, analyses that are

essentially founded on etymology – the excess of etymology had rendered gangrenous the

comparativism of the nineteenth century.

In this sense, as a philologist he is far removed from Durkheim, who on the whole

forgets about language. It would be wrong however to think that Durkheim was ignorant

of the importance of « collective representations » and symbolic thought ; I offer as proof

the article co-authored by Durkheim and Mauss entitled « On a few primitive forms of

classification » (1903), which heralds structuralism in several places. Only

«the explanation by means of group representations puts Durkheimian sociology in

contradiction with itself… » In general, M. Mauss continued the heritage from his uncle

Durkheim in his own way, with a great deal of flexibility as well as a certain degree of

confusion. He regretted that sociology had neglected linguistics, and shared with Dumézil



a philologist’s training, the influence of the great Sanskrit scholar Sylvain Lévi and the

Sinologist M. Granet, and a profound interest in ancient and archaic societies.

One is not surprised to find Mauss on a path parallel to that of Dumézil, approving his

method and « comparison within geographical provinces. » A comparison that must be

based upon « a prior presumption of comparability », and preferably carried out in the

linguistic sphere. For both men, detailed philological study is a privileged praxis (like

displaying infinity in a peacock’s feather). On the whole, the study of language and

mythology leads them to recognize a certain autonomy of representation. Mauss writes in

1933 : « the progress achieved by Granet is to put mythology and ‘representation’ in all

of this… » This post-Durkheimian process explains the encounters that will take place

later between Dumézil and the other heirs of sociology : I will come back to this point

later.On the other hand, this influence did not completely invade Dumézil’s theoretical

perspective. For example, the distinction between sacred and profane was a decisive one

for Durkheim : « The division of the world into two domains, one comprising all things

sacred, the other all things profane, such is the distinctive trait of religious thought ». This

distinction plays a progressively less important part in Mauss’ work, and Dumézil rarely

makes use of it. Unless we admit that functional tripartition is an extension of the binary

classification sacred/profane, which seems questionable to me ; since the opposition

would in that case be F1 / F2-F3, whereas the texts always stress the opposition F1-F2 /

F3. At the end of his life, he had begun to think that an underlying characteristic of Indo-

European heritage predisposed it to sociological analysis: Whereas the Indo-Europeans

elaborated a religion of sociologists, the West-Semitic peoples thought of their gods as

moral powers.

The problem of Greece

The discovery of trifunctional ideology is founded on the comparison of Indo-Iranian

evidence (Veda, Mahâbhârata, Ossetic legends) and Roman information (institutions,

rituals, literary myths, pseudo-history), to which are added the Germanic, and particularly

Scandinavian, data. These are the three pillars of the Dumézilian edifice. Other linguistic

domains are less utilised or even completely put aside. The Celts are sometimes



considered, the Slavs much less so : Dumézil thought that Slavic sources, though

certainly from a rich heritage, were too tenuous to allow for an ideological

reconstruction. The Middle Ages only enter into the comparison thanks to authors like J.

Grisward, G. Duby and others. There are multiple reasons for this « negligence ». They

stem from the biography of the scholar and from the history of the disciplines in question.

The most curious phenomenon remains nevertheless the long maintained exclusion of

Greece.

« It took me more than fifteen years to admit the unpleasant but sure fact that in spite

of the abundance of documents of every sort, and as if it were the price to pay for its

illustrious miracle, Greece contributed only meagrely to resolve or to pose my

problems. »

The idea was effectively paradoxical and disconcerting. If ideological heritage is tiedto the kinship between languages, it is surprising that Greek, a privileged witness of this

heritage (that is to say as regards historical grammar), should be unusable on an

ideological level. This was a mistake, as the next part of my talk will prove, but a mistake

that « conservative » Hellenists still use as an argument against Dumézilian studies. It

was a great mistake in any case, and I see three explanations for it :

1) Personal, perhaps even private reasons : the failure of his first research, which

was focused to a great extent on Greek mythology. The great period of thediscovery and analysis of trifunctionality begins with the rejection of this earlier

work.

2) Dumézil always expressed a deep love for Greek culture. He would have liked to

live « without hesitation at the time of Pericles, or rather during the years which

followed.» He retained the image – the mirage – of the « illustrious miracle » of

Greece, a mirage that would be destroyed by L. Gernet and J.-P. Vernant in

particular. This illusory concept rested upon the idea that Greek civilisation had

the greatest part of its roots in Mediterranean and « oriental » culture. A

distancing of Greece, and discoveries like the deciphering of Linear B, question

this ready-made idea. But Dumézil retreats before the question, as if it were too

mysterious and sacred : « I feel like I am a witness to sacrilege when I see people



who believe they can explain this Greek mutation ; it affects such profound things

within us. It seems to me to be unique in history.”

3) The very nature of Greek culture, its intellectual and political dynamism, tends to

discourage heritage analysis. As early as 1924, Dumézil wrote in his dissertation :

« As for the Greek evidence, the richness of which seduced researchers at first, we

quickly realized that its utilisation was difficult. Greece is not a country, but an

infinitely divided world. » Thirty years later, he evoked the question in more

detail without changing his fundamental opinion: « The Greeks, whose language

retained so many archaisms […] present on the contrary, in their religion, fewer

survivals, and survivals that are more limited than those of other related peoples.

The price to pay for the Greek miracle, I have often said : in this corner of the

world, the spirit of criticism and creativity went to work early, transforming eventhe things it conserved… »

He begins to think that certain philosophers or poets may have conserved

trifunctionality in the form of isolated survivals, but that it had disappeared from Greek

ideology in general. In reality, Dumézil has some trouble considering Ancient Greek

culture as a « thing » in the Durkheimian sense, because he is too close to it culturally.

What is more, he had been influenced by Renan and Maurras ( Anthinea), for whom

Greece represented the founding symbol of western civilisation.

We should note that in this, like in so many other areas, Dumézil evolved : he often

comes back to clear-cut positions, for which he has been reproached numerous times. The

decisive discovery is that of the trifunctional nature of the Judgement of Paris, which he

noticed in 1954. From this discovery, Dumézil focused once again upon Greece, for

example the implications of the Judgement of Paris for a trifunctional reading of the

Trojan legend, the sins of Herakles, “Apollon sonore” or the triple Hecate.

He told D. Éribon that he was « keeping Greece in reserve. » Other more urgent and

promising dossiers were occupying my time, and the overuse of the Greek reference had

so often led me astray before 1938 that I was too cautious afterwards. I am glad that those

younger than I are making use of it.” Indeed, a number of continuators have accumulated

discoveries that are often clear and convincing : from that time onwards, Greece, with its

political and artistic creativity, its flourishing mythology, its epic and lyric poetry, its



theatre, its history and philosophy, constitutes a privileged field of study for new

comparative mythology.

I am unable to cite here all of the « Greek » discoveries which we owe to G. Dumézil

himself and above all to his continuators (for we must not say disciples!). I will content

myself with a few examples. Dumézil evokes five times the ideal city described in Books

III and IV of Plato’s Republic (see also book IX 580 c-583 a). One example is

particularly interesting, that of G. Nagy, because he based his own research on the

Homeric epic upon two methods that he has shown to be complementary : on the one

hand, Dumézil’s method, and on the other, the « oral poetry » associated with M. Parry

and A. Lord.

** *

The anthropology of Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece, far from constituting an exception, ultimately proves to be a treasure

trove of documentation for exploring Indo-European ideology. But stepping away for a

moment from a strictly Dumézilian viewpoint, we must note that the domain of Greece

had been cultivated from a sociological standpoint by several French scholars, such as

Gustave Glotz, and in particular Louis Gernet, who we know was later the mentor of J.-P.Vernant, and more indirectly of P. Vidal-Naquet and of a whole « school » of specialists

(generally French or Francophone) of Greek Antiquity, a school moreover deeply

influenced – for better or for worse – by the structuralism of Cl. Lévi-Strauss. Yet it

happens that these two branches, whether or not they stem directly from the French

sociological tradition, met and intersected with one another. Let us see how.

L. Gernet (1882-1962) was a Hellenist in a class all his own, who was marginalised in

his post at the University of Algiers and who remained completely unknown until 1948

(when he became a professor at the École pratique des Hautes Études) : if Durkheim’s

followers were accused of colonising university posts, this was far from Gernet’s and

Dumézil’s case. All his life, Gernet remained a determined, militant socialist. A specialist

in Greek law and social history, he combined the skills of a historian, a philologist, and a

sociologist. This was hardly something that pleased the Hellenists of the Sorbonne… His



dissertation, The Development of Legal and Moral Thought in Greece : A Semantic

Study), defended in 1917, was not well received at the time, but has relevance for today’s

reader. In it he attempted to unite Durkheim’s theory and Meillet’s semantic historical

analysis.

We still read, to great profit, his Génie grec dans la religion and above all The

Anthropology of Ancient Greece, a posthumous collection of his articles. He worked

alongside M. Bloch in the Annales, and found enrichment in the theoretical renewal of

M. Granet and M. Mauss. The importance accorded to language as a social reality doing

battle with history, inherited from Meillet, and his encounter with the historical

psychology of Ignace Meyerson (1888-1983), distance him from the strict Durkheimian

viewpoint. Meyerson’s work shows that « man is, inside himself, the scene of history»

and deals a blow to the « rigidity » of the founder of sociology, a stage which Gernetconsidered in 1954 to be definitively over.

The problems of « ideology » and the functioning of heritage

It is important for our subject to indicate three critical notes from the Année

sociologique dedicated by L. Gernet to G. Dumézil’s work, notes that can be read in Les

Grecs sans miracle (The Greeks without the miracle). These notes are always full of

praise. Most interesting are the questions that Gernet poses. « Ideologies are above all

human realities. But they are not, to be sure, the only ones ; they do not, in and of

themselves, possess the secret of their intelligence or of their significance ; with what

institutions, with what social practices are they in relation ? » Elsewhere he questions

once again the concept of ideology : « Does not the difficulty that we experience when

trying to discern the governing idea stem from the fact that the term ‘ideology’ is

equivocal, or rather that it imposes upon us the idea of an intellectual system that is

superior and prior to social structures ? »

In other words, Gernet remains more Durkheimian than Dumézil, who himself defines

ideology in relation to society in this way : « I call ‘ideology’ the inventory of guiding

ideas which command the reflection and the conduct of a society and which, of course,

do not imply a particular organisation of the brain. »



I am not certain that his questions can today be met with clear answers. But they do open

on some problematic perspectives that Dumézil proposes to science without giving ready-

made responses. If it is illusory to describe a real prehistoric Indo-European society, does

trifunctional ideology float in the minds of the speakers of Indo-European languages

without an anchor in social reality ? Dumézil’s final point sounds like a jibe at Lévi-

Strauss. The latter claimed, in his reception speech, that trifunctional ideology « only

survived the centuries and even the millenia as an empty structure…» It is true that for

Lévi-Strauss « the symbols are more real than what they symbolise, the signifier precedes

and determines the signified. » Dumézil was tempted to throw the question over to the

philosophers, calling it « a philosophical question to which my work does not

contribute». He prudently refused to envisage the hypothesis, to his mind

« metaphysical » of a cultural unconscious ; but he remained completely aware of the problem, which he considered insolvable.

« It is clear », he wrote in 1948, « that it is futile to explain the thematic analogies of

Caucasian and Scandinavian legends by the resemblance of social structures : the

agreement, the reasons for the agreement remain mysterious. »

Later, he preferred to envisage the problem from a historical point of view.

« The principal problem […] is to know to what degree ideology and the expressions of

ideology evolve when the society that professes it evolves, materially and intellectually. I

have met with surprising cases in which tripartite ideology subsists while the society has

been analysing itself and functioning in a completely different way for a long period of

time. » He proposes an evolutionary concept of the structure : « One must suppose that it

was linked to permanent necessities […]. But, at the same time, in order to survive this

way, it had to adapt itself constantly to the geographical or historical conditions of the

moment… »

J.-P. Vernant

The greatest follower of L. Gernet is J.-P. Vernant (-2006), who left us recently. He was a

great scholar, a great Resistance fighter, a writer, and a great speaker, who completely

renovated Greek studies with his pedagogical genius. He knew and read M. Mauss, but

did not consider himself his direct follower, claiming on the contrary the legacy of M.



Granet (as did Dumézil), and more importantly the legacies of L. Gernet, of I. Meyerson

and his psychological history.

An indirect heir of Durkheimian sociology, but influenced by Marxism, J.-P. Vernant

cannot of course be considered a « disciple » of G. Dumézil, but he admired him ; in the

conclusion of a long report on Archaic Roman religion, he writes the following : « An

epistemological break occurred with the work of G. Dumézil on comparative Indo-

European religion. Today, it is as a result of and in relation to him that the current of

research in the history of religion is created, whatever the domain of application.”

Moreover, he did not hesitate in 1960 to propose a trifunctional analysis of Hesiod’s

Myth of the Races, an analysis which G. Dumézil readily supported, all the more so

because he had suggested an equivalent interpretation as early as 1941. But Vernant does

not content himself to locate trifunctional structure in myth : he interprets theimplementation of this structure in a poem that is « rigorously elaborated and

innovative », that « transforms the tripartite structure itself, depreciating warrior

activity. » One must realize that, although Vernant uses the concept of trifunctionality for

his analysis of the Myth of the Races, it is not in order to rediscover a structure of thought

originating from « ultra-history », but to analyse its evolution in a time and space more or

less precisely determined (early Archaic Greece). This time we have a real society to sink

our teeth into, as little known as it may be. I must add that this use of Dumézil’s

discovery is not in opposition to the ideas of its founder - quite on the contrary, it

continues his work and fulfils one of his dearest wishes, that his comparative analyses be

of use to specialized historical and philological studies.

Vidal-Naquet and the structuralism of Lévi-Strauss

My professor, the historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet (who was born in 1930 and died in

2006, a few months before his friend J.-P. Vernant, was engaged in his century, a militant

for the cause of civic liberty and an opponent of negationist historical revision. Although

to my knowledge he never published work directly inspired by Dumézil, he had a great

admiration for him ; at the age of eighteen, he had already « delightfully devoured »

several of his books ; and much later he supported B. Sergent and enthusiastically

encouraged me to work without exclusion both in his footsteps and in those of



Dumezilian comparativism. For his part, and in the company of J.-P. Vernant, he

introduced Cl. Lévi-Strauss’ structuralism into the Greek domain : I will take this

opportunity to say a few words about Dumézil’s complex relationship with Lévi-Strauss,

as well as the concepts of « structure » and « structuralism ».

The celebrated anthropologist Cl. Lévi-Strauss (born in 1908), who was originally a

philosopher, was also the offspring of the sociological school and a follower of M.

Mauss. He was an anthropologist « illuminated » by structural linguistics. Greek

mythology occupies only a secondary position in his work, which is essentially devoted

to Amerindian societies and mythology. He bestowed a new meaning upon the concept of

structure and was responsible for its wide diffusion. Structuralism became in France a

pervasive intellectual model, accompanied by excesses and in return a certain discredit

that was regrettable because it led to a methodological regression. This is certainly notthe case of P. Vidal-Naquet, who demonstrated for example the inverted symbolism of

the young ephebe in Ancient Greece, the « chasseur noir » (« the black hunter »).

In any case, this trend annoyed Dumézil, who had an austere and scrupulous

conception of science and distrusted brilliant theories and philosophical concepts,

considering himself to be a resolute historian, in the service of fact. This is why he

refused to be qualified as a « structuralist » and even regretted having used the word

« structure » instead of « system » - two terms that he considered, after reflection, as

synonyms. This did not prevent Cl. Lévi-Strauss from receiving him at the Académie

Française – returning the favour to Dumézil who had helped him to enter first the École

de hautes Études, and later the Collège de France. In reality he was indeed a structuralist,

and perhaps even a less ambitious precursor of structuralism.

Was Dumézil a structuralist ?

As early as 1924, Dumézil cited the following phrase of A. Van Gennep : « It is not

the comparison of themes considered independently that will supply the key to all the

problems raised by the study of so-called popular literature, but only the comparison of

certain well-defined combinations ». The structuralist principle was clearly expressed by

Van Gennep, a too often ignored precursor of structuralism who was clearly

acknowledged by Dumézil in his first published work. « A religion is a system », he



wrote in 1941, and in 1949 he also stated that « as primitive as he may be, man, as long

as he thinks, thinks in systems. » But the Dumézilian concept of a system does not

correspond to Durkheim’s, « for whom a system is a sum total, composed of elementary

parts. »

In Dumézil’s work, « the notion of the system presents itself as a specific entity that

is consequently different from the sum of its parts. The functional and organic solidarity

of the elements is united with a logical framework. » Very early on, he established

« structuralism » as a method of work, and to begin with the necessity of comparing not

isolated elements, but whole groups. « The gods are only clearly defined in relation to

one another, and what dominates them and explains them all, is the plan as a whole of

which they are, even the greatest of them, only parts… »

Fundamentally, without denying the historical and contextual dimension of thetexts, the synchronic explanation prevails over the diachronic explanation, often

hypothetical, which his opponents obstinately propose. But the Dumézilian method, in its

reference to the notion of «heritage », can come into conflict with the « absolute »

synchronic analysis, with its insistence upon breaks ; for example, in the case of Greece,

Pierre Vidal-Naquet minimised, no doubt excessively, the continuity between the

Mycenaeans and Archaic Greece. Certain religious continuities are assured on a

« theological » plane at least.Dumézil’s goal is to discover, case by case, through the most subtle philological

study possible of a given text, and through the comparison of parallel texts belonging to

an Indo-European culture (or cultures), the organising structure. Yet « the invariable

discovered by this method is the rule of transformation, which allows a passage from one

group to another, and such a rule can only be applied to relationships, not to elements… »

It would be wrong to imagine that trifunctionality constitutes the sole discovery of G.

Dumézil, whose contribution cannot be reduced to a rigid, apparently simplistic formula.

Quite on the contrary, he established subtle rules of oppositions, transformations, and

shifts – which those who continue his work have some trouble following. For example :

« The aspects of a function tend to oppose one another as do the two other functions. »

An idea that we can formalise this way :



F 1 Varuna F 2

–––––––– = –––

F 1 Mitra F 3

Consider how Lévi-Strauss honours him before the Académie Française : « The

process you have undertaken […] is of interest to the social sciences as a whole. With the

idea of transformation, which you were the first among us to use, you have given them

their most valuable tool… »

In fact, Dumézil recognized his place in the structuralist conception of things : « We

[Lévi-Strauss, Foucault and I] have one thing in common. We attach a great deal of

importance to the plan in intellectual matters. » But his structuralism occupies a placeapart. It is resolutely historical, whereas the goal of numerous structuralists « is to

establish the structures definitively upon timeless foundations, such as logico-mathematic

systems. » For Lévi-Strauss, the goal of structural study is nothing less than the universal

functioning of the human mind. Dumézil loudly and clearly proclaims the modest

character of his own research, which is limited to those peoples who participate in the

Indo-European heritage : according to him, his conclusions cannot be transferred

elsewhere.

*

* *

*

The specialists have a hard time admitting the principle of comparison, and, more

generally, the crossing of disciplinary boundaries - this to the point of stubbornness in the

case of F. Chamoux (also recently deceased), who once declared to P. Vidal-Naquet :

« Our brains must not work in the same way. Everything that is important to you is hot

air to me. Gernet is hot air. Dumézil is hot air. Lévi-Strauss is hot air. » As we can see,

the mental rigidity of the positivist specialist lumps together everything that is in any way

related to the sociology descended from Durkheim and to the problems of representation.

These days the situation has evolved somewhat. But Dumézilian comparativism remains



marginal in the university system, despite the energy of the researchers and the results

they have obtained. M. Detienne’s comparativist project has not, in my opinion, been

undertaken with sufficient modesty in the face of the evidence, or with the controlled

creativity and obstinate seriousness that were characteristic of Dumézilian research.

Dumézil always refused disciples and the role of leader of a school, but he never

ceased encouraging researchers to continue his work, with only purely methodological

scruples, in keeping with the empirical method following the principles of Descartes. The

way he opened up is not sufficiently travelled. There remains, however, much work to do

in order to delve deeper into his research, broaden his discoveries, and combine his

methods with those of others.

We can distinguish, among the continuators who have taken Dumézil at his word, and

who are interested in the inexhaustible domain of Greece- those who conduct their research strictly in the wake of Dumézil – of whom the

most important today is doubtless B. Sergent, who has undertaken, in particular,

a parallel study of theological and epic traditions in the Greek and Celtic

worlds ;

- and others who are attempting to broaden the « theory », or rather pose a

number of problems that Dumézil left unresolved. To take but one example,

how do we explain the importance of Apollo in Greek religion, his hardlydisputable relationship with Rudra, who does not fit into the trifunctional

system ? Whence arises the hypothesis of a fourth function to complete the

trifunctional system…

But that is another story.

Documents

Dumezil in Greece