Odysseus World

What world would that be?

Odyssey versus Iliad

Both epic poems are Olympian in perspective
They reflect different stages of the Hellenic
Dark Ages
Iliad = the warrior; invasion; the sublime;
human-as-Divine; immanence
Odyssey = the seafarer; migration; the
monstrous; human versus the Divine;
transcendence

Odysseus versus Achilles

Achilles: glory defies death

Odysseus: survival finds place
Two different versions of immortality
In the Iliad place is not enough; in the
Odyssey place is all that matters!
place dislocation place: nostos and
belonging

Odysseus traits

Resourceful
Cunning
Resilient
Self-centered
Self-aware
Questi(oni)ng
The Hellenic individual par excellence!

War is never over!

The Iliad goes on in the Odyssey: the collective
becomes individual; the external becomes
internal
Ilium or Troy expands and becomes the whole
Mediterranean
War turns into adventure; adventure into
journey; journey into quest; quest into yearning
Loss and repossession

Is Odysseus world real?

The Ancients could and did identify all places
in the Odyssey with known place within the
Mediterranean
Something fuzzy about all those places; all of
them are remembered, recalled, related;
never presented in hic and nunc experience
They are memories, which means they are
experientially related to; places that
regardless of their reality stand out as places
of the mind

Odysseus: one more shaman!

Nekyia: the Underworld
The most important rhapsody in the Odyssey
The old immortality is not enough; a new
immortality is needed
The journey is spiritual and hierophanic

Odysseus and Poseidon

Friends or enemies?
Teiresias prophecy: the people that dont
know the oar
The monstrosity of the Divine the
monstrosity of the human
But all this for what? For going back or for
going forward?

Ithaca isnt out there!

The day of returning
The place of returning is different but the
same!
You always have to belong; you always need
your place; you cannot escape it!
But you can live it out; make it into
something make yourself into something
Ithaca will always be there even if it not out
there!