The Blind Bookkeeper (or Why Homer Must Be Blind) / Le comptable aveugle (l'Incontournable ccit d'Homre)

Rich with literary awards and honours, Alberto Manguel extends his literary genius to address and complete a thoughtfully crafted extrapolation on a paper left unfinished by Northrop Frye in 1943. The result is a succinct yet densely multilayered examination of how various readings of Homer throughout the annals of history cast light upon the human tendency towards war rather than peace and asks what roles writing and reading play to bring the world into better equilibrium. Central to this lecture is the concept of re-binding, a word drawn from the Latin roots for the word religion, which Manguel posits is the essential definition of poetry. Homer's writings, the point of origin of all written verse, are also the first written instance of the binding of imagined, written, and read realities. The semantics of Homer's name and the literal and figurative ramifications of his blindness are investigated as Manguel builds the scaffold for unveiling our own blindness through our desire to read Homer in our own image. We are left to examine our own assumptions. Combl de prix littraires et d'honneurs, Alberto Manguel prte son gnie littraire l'tude et au parachvement d'une extrapolation songe que Northrop Frye avait laisse en plan en 1943. Il en rsulte une analyse succincte mais en replis serrs des multiples lectures d'Homre lgues par les sicles, qui rvle comment ces interprtations clairent la propension humaine la guerre plutt qu' la paix, ce qui le mne s'interroger sur le rle que jouent l'criture et la lecture quand il s'agit de crer un monde plus quilibr. La notion de re-lier, un mot dont les racines latines sont les mmes que le mot religion, est au coeur de cette confrence, et Manguel en fait la dfinition essentielle de la posie. Les crits d'Homre, point d'origine de toute la posie crite, fournissent aussi la premire occurrence d'un lien entre les ralits imagines, crites et lues. La valeur smantique du nom d'Homre et les rpercussions concrtes et figures de sa ccit font partie des lments que Manguel scrute pour fonder son vocation de notre aveuglement nous quand nous insistons pour lire Homre notre propre image. Nous n'avons plus qu' remettre nos hypothses.