Cyrus' Paradise

Thanks very much for your insightful comments, Norman. To answer your questions, first, I think you are absolutely right that one of the things that sets Xenophon apart from the tradition here is his removal of some of the more conventional trappings of a control level in the Cyrus narrative. This is precisely what is so intriguing about that decision: the change must have some significance for the way he wants to tell the story, and that means understanding it can help us understand what it is that he “invents” when he creates this unparalleled literary form, as well as what his legacy is when later authors decide to follow in his path (but notably reinsert more of the conventional markers of an overt control level).

Second, the purpose of a control level (in Nick Lowe‘s model) is, at a minimum, to justify within the story universe the closural elements in the narrative. One of the universals of narrative is that it is “closed” in a way that the reality it is a mimesis of isn’t (though the degree of closure varies). So, for example, the rage of Achilles must dissipate, Odysseus must return home, and so on, and these tales must come to a (relatively) predictable end. How do we know that Odysseus isn’t going to die halfway through the Odyssey in a freak accident, and that the rest of the poem will not be about one of his companions bringing news of his death to Penelope so that she can remarry? Because that is not how the narrative works (among other things, we get to watch a council of the gods where they concoct an alternate plan, and we get Teiresias’ prophecy, and so on). There is a certain amount of flexibility in any narrative, certainly, but there are important boundaries within which that flexibility must be restrained. Justification of these boundaries (many of which do not exist in reality) is sometimes necessary, or they risk seeming too facile, which then makes them seem to depend on little more than the whim of the author.

Modern taste prefers either to naturalize these boundaries (making them the natural result of some powerful but still human conspiracy, or the product of “science,” or something similar) or else to leave them generically implicit (we know the mystery will be solved at the end of a detective novel, for example). In many ancient narratives, however, these boundaries are given explicit authors, who may even function as characters: how do we know Odysseus will make it home in the end? Because Athena is his patroness, and she is a powerful goddess. Either way, though, the control level is always there in some respect, because narratives must be closed (not just temporally, either: only a select set of characters are important, e.g., and that, too, must have a reason; there are other important forms of narrative closure…) and that fact has to make sense within the world of the narrative itself as well as within our world. An author can rely on the reader to fill in the gaps, or simply to ignore the artificiality of it all, but there is always a reason, even when implied or ignored, for the finiteness of what is supposed to be a mimesis of an infinite reality.

Turning back to the Cyropaedia, then, another way of expressing Xenophon’s elimination of the explicit narration of the control level in Cyrus’ story is to say that he changes our focus, or the narrative perspective, on the cause-and-effect that justifies the limits placed on his tale. The gods are definitely not eliminated altogether from the story universe; they just take a back seat to Cyrus himself. I don’t know yet why this is, and won’t know for sure until I complete my research. At this point, though, my working theory is that Xenophon, by changing the story in this way, has essentially invented the character-focused novel that has become our dominant literary form today. In his closure of the Cyrus-plot, Cyrus still becomes ruler of a vast empire because the gods love him (a number of signs, including his final dream, bear this out), but the gods love him because of his character, not the other way around: thus the closure of the narrative has its arch-motivation in Cyrus’ character rather than the forces of destiny or divine will, and that makes all the difference. By trying to tell the story that way Xenophon has invented an incredibly powerful narrative technique that opens up the possibility for extended prose “realistic” fiction (though we still have a long way to go before that potential is fully realized), because as the world becomes increasingly secularized the gods in the back seat can quietly slip away, and no one notices much…

Congratulations, David, on selecting a most interesting topic and best wishes for sticking to this “marathon” plan. I have a few initial questions/suggestions and will look forward to engaging with you a the granular level down the road.
First, is it possible that Xenophon has actually stripped many “levels of control” from the other Cyrus narratives? In many instances I can think of (Herodotus Histories, the Cyrus Cylinder, the Old Testament) Cyrus is the instrument of some divinity, whose will is sometimes made manifest by dreams and oracles. As you note, there is not much of this in Xenophon’s Cyrus. And his path does not seem to be guided very much by family lineage (i.e., inherited traits, as in the case of Xenophon’s Agesilaus), though his lineage seems to have some effect on his followers (Cyropaedia 4.1.24, Cyropaedia 7.2.24). Nor does Xenophon’s Cyrus suffer under the weight of a father’s legacy (as is the case of Xerxes in Herodotus’ Histories). Moreover, Xenophon’s Cyrus does not even seem to have that much of a plan for establishing an empire (I’m imagining that a carefully thought out and long-held plan might count as “control level”); he just seems to go wherever there are opportunities to win honor and help his friends and he winds up the king of a vast empire (for some counterexamples to my claim about not planning for/wanting an empire, cf. Cyropaedia 1.4.5, Cyropaedia 4.5.14, Cyropaedia 7.5.76). So, I’m wondering if Xenophon has removed a lot of these possible levels of control (I count at least four: lineage, legacy, divine agency, elaborate planning) because he imagines his work is a story wrapped around an exhortation to good leadership, which may be accomplished, as he says, “with knowledge” (Cyropaedia 1.1.3). What I mean is you might not want the familiar levels of control if you’re trying to invite your audience to be like Cyrus. Would it make sense to look for other levels of control like paideia or Cyrus’ own phusis?
Finally, why are levels of control necessary for a narrative? Do they make it more interesting, more intelligible/memorable? Is it possible that one of the reasons people have found the Cyropaedia “dull” is that it doesn’t have a very strong “level of control” that is inscribing itself on the reader’s mind?