Summary
Twelfth-century monk from Saxony whose passage on learning to leave one’s homeland behind Edward Said quotes at the close of Culture and Imperialism, through Erich Auerbach, as a model for transcending imperial, national or provincial limits (Culture and Imperialism, PDF p.362-363 / printed p.335-336).
Details
- Hugo, quoted by Said: the person who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; “he to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign place.” (PDF p.362 / printed p.335; wording checked against the original, the copy garbling the opening clause’s punctuation)
- Said stresses that Hugo twice makes clear that the “strong” or “perfect” person achieves independence and detachment by working through attachments, not by rejecting them; exile is predicated on the existence of, love for, and a real bond with one’s native place (PDF p.363 / printed p.336).
- The book’s Notes cite Hugo of St. Victor, Didascalicon, trans. Jerome Taylor (Columbia University Press, 1961), p.101 (PDF p.388 / printed p.361, note 66).