Genre Formation in Popular Music1 In the first chapter of his classic study Mimesis. The Representation of Reality in Western

Literature Erich Auerbach outlines several essential aspects of representation with his comparative analysis of the stories of Odysseus ’ homecoming in book 19 of the Odys-sey and Abraham’s offering in the Old Testament (Genesis 22:1). Auerbach takes those texts as examples of two basic styles with “determining influence upon the representa-tion of reality in European literature.”2 His analysis touches upon a number of per-spectives and invites us to not only read the rest of the book but also engage ourselves in questions of cultural representation. The scene where Odysseus comes home and hides his identity from Penelope is out-lined by Homer with detailed information on the characters, events, and locations. Homer unfolds further background with the long passage on the origin of Odysseus ’ scar be-fore concluding the scene. All events are displayed in the foreground and uniformly illuminated with a definite time and place. The Homeric style, Auerbach says, “leave[s] nothing which it mentions half in darkness and unexternalized.”3 In contrast, the chro-nicle of Abraham’s offering tends to give us only the details necessary to establish a narrative. Its uncertainties and ambiguities challenge interpreters. In the opening scene