Georges Dumézil

Georges Dumézil (4 March 1898, Paris – 11 October 1986) was a French comparative philologist best known for his analysis of sovereignty and power in Proto-Indo-European religion and society. He is considered one of the major contributors to mythography, in particular for his formulation of the trifunctional hypothesis of social class in ancient societies.

Life and work

Book signed by Georges Dumézil and offered to Maurice Halbwachs.
Maurice Halbwachs Collection of Human and Social Sciences Library Paris Descartes-CNRS

Dumézil's father was a classicist and so he 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. During his time in secondary school, he was also influenced by Michel Bréal, a leading French philologist who was the grandfather of one of his classmates. By the time he entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1916, then, he was already on the road to studying linguistics and the classics.

Dumézil's studies were delayed by World War I, when he was drafted and served as an artillery officer. After the war he resumed his studies, where he was particularly influenced by Antoine Meillet. He aggregated in 1919 in Classics and then received his doctorate in 1924 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. The dissertation was controversial because some of the examiners, such as Henri Hubert, thought that Dumézil took liberty with the facts in order to generate a more beautiful interpretation (this would come to be a common criticism of Dumézil's work).

Feeling that he had little place in the French academy, Dumézil moved to Turkey in 1925 to teach at the University of Istanbul, created as part of Atatürk's attempt to create a modern, secular nation. As a result he learned Turkish and developed an interest in the Ubykh language and travelled widely in Russia, Turkey, and the Caucasus. As a result, he became one of the premier experts of Caucasian languages to work in French. He compared the Etruscan language with the Caucasian languages. In 1931 he took another position, this one in Uppsala, Sweden, which allowed him to hone his skills in the Germanic stocks of Indo-European.

In 1929 Dumézil published Flamen-Brahman, the first full statement of his trifunctional hypothesis; the idea was repeated in Mitra-Varuna, perhaps his most accessible work.

Dumézil's influence rose in the mid-1930s. In 1935 he left Uppsala to take up a chair of Comparative Religion of Indo-European Peoples at the prestigious École Pratique des Hautes Études. He was named a professor at the Collège de France in 1949, and was finally elected to the Académie Française in 1978 thanks to the patronage of his colleague and fellow student of myth, Claude Lévi-Strauss. In 1984 he was awarded the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca.

Dumézil is also well known for mentoring many younger 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.

Many themes of Dumézil's work have continued influence in ancient religious studies: for example, his impulse to comparative study, and his basic insight that polytheistic gods must be studied not simply by themselves, but in the pairs and ensembles in which their worshippers grouped them.

Criticism

Aside from Dumézil's scholarly writings, his personal opinions received some criticism. Bruce Lincoln especially has leveled accusations of fascism against Dumézil.^[1] Scholars like Arnaldo Momigliano, Carlo Ginzburg and Lincoln^[2] have argued that Dumézil was in favor of a traditional hierarchical order in Europe, that his Indo-European dualism and tripartite ideology may be also related to Italian and French fascist ideas, and that he was in favor of French fascism (but not of German Nazism).^[3] Lincoln also wrote that writers like Alain de Benoist, Jean Haudry, or Roger Pearson have frequently cited Dumézil's work "in support of their positions — their fondness for hierarchy and authority, for example, their antipathy toward egalitarianism and the ideals of the Enlightenment, or their triumphal view of "Indo-Europeans" as superior to all other peoples".^[4]

In the 1930s Dumézil supported the monarchist "Action française" and held Benito Mussolini in high regard.^[5] Dumézil's relations with De Benoist and Haudry were ambiguous,^[6] but among his "closest colleagues" were Otto Höfler (who was in the SS-Ahnenerbe), Jan de Vries (a Nazi collaborator) and Stig Wikander (who had an ambiguous relation to Nazism).^[7] However, Dumézil's scholarly writings contain neither claims of superiority of the Indo-European people or culture, nor any political statement connected to fascism. Moreover, Dumézil, in response to a text written by Momigliano indicating that Dumézil might have been keen on Nazi ideology, wrote "fascist and nazi conceptions of a hierarchical society have never been part of my intuition nor of my conduct".^[8]

Such criticism of Dumézil has been emphatically disputed by Didier Eribon in his 1992 book Faut-il brûler Dumézil? Mythologie, science et politique.^[9][10]

Works

• Le Festin d'immortalité - Étude de mythologie comparée indo-européenne, sa Mémoire (écrit)|thèse reçue en 1924, published in Annales du Musée Guimet
• Le Crime des Lemniennes - Rites et Légendes du monde égéen, 1924, sa thèse complémentaire
• Le Problème des Centaures - Étude de mythologie comparée indo-européenne , 1929, published in Annales du Musée Guimet
• Ouranos-Varuna - Essai de mythologie comparée indo-européenne, 1932, publié aux éditions Maisonneuve
• Légendes sur les Nartes, suivies de cinq notes mythologiques, 1930, publié par l'Institut d’études slaves
• Flamen-Brahman, 1935

Toute la bibliographie qui vient d'être énumérée constitue les balbutiements de la mythologie comparée, et a ensuite été reconnue erronée par Dumézil.

• Mythes et dieux des Germains - Essai d'interprétation comparative (1939), Presses Universitaires de France
• Mitra-Varuna - Essai sur deux représentations indo-européennes de la Souveraineté, où il analyse la dualité de la fonction souveraine indo-européenne, en comparant des couples de dieux représentant cette fonction (Mitra et Varuna, Thor et Odin, Dius Fidius et Jupiter (mythologie)|Jupiter Summanus), paru en 1940 aux Presses universitaires de France
• Jupiter Mars Quirinus, composé de :
  • Essai sur la conception indo-européenne de la société et sur les origines de Rome, 1941
  • Naissance de Rome, 1944
  • Naissance d'archanges-Essai sur la formation de la religion zoroastrienne, 1945
  • Explication de textes indiens et latins, 1948 tous publiés aux éditions Gallimard
• Les Mythes romains, composé de quatre volumes :
  • Horace et les Curiaces, 1942
  • Servius Tullius|Servius et la Fortune - Essai sur la fonction sociale de louange et de blâme et sur les éléments indo-européens du cens romain, 1943
  • Tarpeia - Cinq essais de philologie comparée indo-européenne, 1947, tous publiés aux éditions Gallimard
• Loki, 1948, publié aux GP Maisonneuve
• L'Héritage indo-européen à Rome, 1949, publié par Gallimard
• Le Troisième Souverain - Essai sur le dieu indo-iranien Aryaman et sur la formation de l'histoire mythique de l'Irlande , 1949, publié aux GP Maisonneuve
• Les Dieux indo-européens, 1952, Presses Universitaires de France
• Rituels indo-européens à Rome, 1954, publié par Klincksieck
• Déesses latines et mythes védiques , 1956, publié aux éditions Latomus
• Aspects de la fonction guerrière chez les Indo-Européens, 1956
• Contes et légendes des Oubykhs, 1957, publié par l'Institut d'Ethnologie
• Contes lazes, 1957, publié par l'Institut d'Ethnologie
• L’Idéologie tripartite des Indo-Européens, 1958, publié aux éditions Latomus
• Études oubykhs, 1959, publié aux éditions Maisonneuve
• Les Dieux des Germains, essai sur la formation de la religion scandinave, 1959, Presses Universitaires de France
• Documents anatoliens sur les langues et les traditions du Caucase , 1960–1967, publié aux éditions Maisonneuve
• Le Livre des héros, légendes ossètes sur les Nartes, 1965, publié aux éditions Gallimard
• La Religion romaine archaïque, avec un appendice sur la religion des Étrusques , 1966, publié aux éditions Payot
• Mythe et Épopée, son œuvre majeure :
  • L’Idéologie des trois fonctions dans les épopées des peuples indo-européens 1968
  • Types épiques indo-européens : un héros, un sorcier, un roi 1971
  • Histoires romaines, 1973, tous publiés aux éditions Gallimard
• Idées romaines, 1969, publié aux éditions Gallimard
• Heur et Malheur du guerrier, aspects de la fonction guerrière chez les Indo-Européens, 1969, Presses Universitaires de France
• Du mythe au roman, la Saga de Hadingus et autres essais, 1970, Presses Universitaires de France
• Fêtes romaines d’été et d’automne, suivi de Dix Questions romaines , 1975, publié aux éditions Gallimard
• Le Verbe oubykh, études descriptives et comparatives, 1975, publié par l'Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres
• Les Dieux souverains des Indo-Européens , 1977, publié aux éditions Gallimard
• Romans de Scythie et d’alentour , 1978, publié aux éditions Payot
• Mariages indo-européens, suivi de Quinze Questions romaines, 1979, publié aux éditions Payot
• Apollon sonore et autres essais, 1982, publié aux éditions Gallimard
• La Courtisane et les Seigneurs colorés, et autres essais - 25 esquisses de mythologie, 1983, publié aux éditions Gallimard.
• Le Moyne noir en gris dedans Varenne - Sotie Nostradamus|nostradamique, 1984, publié aux éditions Gallimard
• L’Oubli de l’homme et l’honneur des dieux, 1985, publié aux éditions Gallimard
• Entretiens avec Didier Eribon, éditions Gallimard, coll. Folio, 1987
• Le Roman des jumeaux - Esquisses de mythologie, édition posthume par Joël Grisward, 1995, publié aux éditions Gallimard.

Notes

1. ^ Lincoln, Bruce (1991). Death, War, and Sacrifice: Studies in Ideology and Practice. University of Chicago Press. pp. 231–243. ISBN 978-0226482002. 
2. ^ Lincoln 1999
3. ^ Arvidsson 2006:2, 241 ff., 306
4. ^ Lincoln 1999 :137
5. ^ Arvidsson 2006:3
6. ^ Lincoln 1999 :123
7. ^ Lincoln 1999:125-26
8. ^ Dumézil, Esquissses de Mythologie, pp. 821-827, Paris,2003
9. ^ Georges Dumézil Summary
10. ^ Faut-il brûler Dumézil ?

References

• Arvidsson, Stefan. Aryan Idols. The Indo-European Mythology as Science and Ideology. University of Chicago Press. 2006. ISBN 0226028607
• Lincoln, Bruce. Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship. 2000.
• Littleton, C. S. The New Comparative Mythology. 3rd ed. Berkeley 1982.
• Puhvel, Jaan. Comparative Mythology. Baltimore 1987.

Further reading

• Littleton, C. Scott. The New Comparative Mythology: An Anthropological Assessment of the Theories of Georges Dumézil. University of California Press, 1966. Third 1982 edition ISBN 978-0520041035.

• Haugen, Einar "The Mythical Structure of the Ancient Scandinavians: Some Thoughts on Reading Dumézil" in Introduction to Structuralism, edited by Michael Lane, Basic Books, 1970, ISBN 0456095089.

External links

• Overview of Dumézil's career (French)
• Academie Française biography of Dumézil (French)

Cultural offices
Preceded by Jacques Chastenet	Seat 40 Académie française 1978-1986	Succeeded by Pierre-Jean Rémy