Remembering Someone Else's Past: The Social Psychology of Odysseus’ Fake Autobiographies (Od. 14 and 19)

This article discusses some social and psychological aspects involved in two of Odysseus’ lying tales (Od. 14.192–359 and 19.165–248). If one understands remembering as reconstructing the past, this reconstructive element leaves room for forgery and deception. Telling credible lies involves many of the same cognitive structures used in the sharing of authentic personal memories. Odysseus’ fake autobiographical stories in the guise of a Cretan beggar offer an interesting case study of this overlap between reconstructed memories and credible lies. Drawing on recent studies on autobiographical memory and on parallel examples in our contemporary world, the aim of this paper is to analyse some narrative and psychological features of Odysseus’ fake memories, as well as the social functions that they fulfil in the fiction of the poem. It will be shown that, speaking with Eumaios, Odysseus builds his story using a conventional structure common to ‘truthful’ autobiographies in the fictional world of the epics, while with Penelope his autobiographical memories are co-narrated during the dialogue, guided by the emotions mutually aroused between narrator and narratee.