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1

The Most Archaic Ocean: Beyond the Bosphorus and the Strait of Sicily

100%

Cerri G.

Peitho. Examina Antiqua

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2013

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vol. 4

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issue 1

13-22

EN

From immemorial time, many Tyrrhenian places of ancient Sicily and Italy were identified (also by the local people) with the main stages of the return of Ulysses (Cyclopes, Aeolus, Circe, etc.). Some Hellenistic critics (for example Aristarchus and Polybius) assumed that it was from the various ancient and pre-Homeric myths that Homer drew inspiration, in the same way that he did with the myth of the Trojan War, which certainly occurred before him. Thus, the voyage of Ulysses, after his losing the course because of the storm at Cape Malea, had to be located in those sites. But how can one explain the fact that Homer places the voyage from Circe to the Hades over the Ocean? Is it only a pseudogeographic poetic touch, aimed to magnify the exploit? Crates of Mallus did not think so: in his opinion, only some of the numerous adventures had taken place in the Tyrrhenian Sea, whereas Homer had purposefully placed some other exactly on the Atlantic Ocean, beyond the Pillars of Hercules (the ancient name given to the Straits of Gibraltar). Whichever of the two models one chooses, the route of Ulysses seems to be completely unlikely, both from the point of view of objective reality and from the point of view of poetic imagination (if one desires to retain at least some plausibility). It appears to be a senseless coming and going that takes the shape of some sort of a labyrinth. Furthermore, the navigation times suggested by the text do not accord at all (even approximately) with the distances among the real sites. For this reason, Eratosthenes held that, from Cape Malea onwards, Ulysses switched from the real world to that of fantasy, or better still to the world of some narrative fable that does not heed geography at all. The modern critics are inclined to agree with him and this thesis is nowadays the most popular one. Yet, a very serious objection can be raised here: the myth and the epos (since the most archaic era), are strictly linked to the geography and the topography as well – they are radically refractory to a narrative fable that totally contradicts the then realities of time and space. Why should Ulysses plunge from Cape Malea onwards straight into the Neverland kingdom? If we combine Odyssey’s data with those we can reconstruct for the earliest form of the Argonautic saga (taking also into account the chronology of the Greek western colonization), then we get the solution that neither the ancient nor the modern critics have guessed correctly: up to around the middle of the 8th century B.C., the Greeks thought the Ocean to flow just after the Sicily Channel, essentially coinciding with the so-called Tyrrhenian Sea, still completely unknown at that time. This new perspective can well justify the objective disorder of Ulysses’ route. Above all, it also bears a deeper poetic sense: the Hero had the chance to know and to experience not only some far and exotic countries in general terms (as it can happen to any off-course sailor), but he also met the very boundaries of the surfacing lands and the rushing waters which encircle the terrestrial disc, bordering the external cosmic abyss. Ulysses came back home alive. He was able to tell the stories about the lands where no human being could ever sail. This borderline that geographically is clearly located marks at the same time the insurmountable chasm between the physical and the meta-physical world.

IT

From immemorial time, many Tyrrhenian places of ancient Sicily and Italy were identified (also by the local people) with the main stages of the return of Ulysses (Cyclopes, Aeolus, Circe, etc.). Some Hellenistic critics (for example Aristarchus and Polybius) assumed that it was from the various ancient and pre-Homeric myths that Homer drew inspiration, in the same way that he did with the myth of the Trojan War, which certainly occurred before him. Thus, the voyage of Ulysses, after his losing the course because of the storm at Cape Malea, had to be located in those sites. But how can one explain the fact that Homer places the voyage from Circe to the Hades over the Ocean? Is it only a pseudogeographic poetic touch, aimed to magnify the exploit? Crates of Mallus did not think so: in his opinion, only some of the numerous adventures had taken place in the Tyrrhenian Sea, whereas Homer had purposefully placed some other exactly on the Atlantic Ocean, beyond the Pillars of Hercules (the ancient name given to the Straits of Gibraltar). Whichever of the two models one chooses, the route of Ulysses seems to be completely unlikely, both from the point of view of objective reality and from the point of view of poetic imagination (if one desires to retain at least some plausibility). It appears to be a senseless coming and going that takes the shape of some sort of a labyrinth. Furthermore, the navigation times suggested by the text do not accord at all (even approximately) with the distances among the real sites. For this reason, Eratosthenes held that, from Cape Malea onwards, Ulysses switched from the real world to that of fantasy, or better still to the world of some narrative fable that does not heed geography at all. The modern critics are inclined to agree with him and this thesis is nowadays the most popular one. Yet, a very serious objection can be raised here: the myth and the epos (since the most archaic era), are strictly linked to the geography and the topography as well – they are radically refractory to a narrative fable that totally contradicts the then realities of time and space. Why should Ulysses plunge from Cape Malea onwards straight into the Neverland kingdom? If we combine Odyssey’s data with those we can reconstruct for the earliest form of the Argonautic saga (taking also into account the chronology of the Greek western colonization), then we get the solution that neither the ancient nor the modern critics have guessed correctly: up to around the middle of the 8th century B.C., the Greeks thought the Ocean to flow just after the Sicily Channel, essentially coinciding with the so-called Tyrrhenian Sea, still completely unknown at that time. This new perspective can well justify the objective disorder of Ulysses’ route. Above all, it also bears a deeper poetic sense: the Hero had the chance to know and to experience not only some far and exotic countries in general terms (as it can happen to any off-course sailor), but he also met the very boundaries of the surfacing lands and the rushing waters which encircle the terrestrial disc, bordering the external cosmic abyss. Ulysses came back home alive. He was able to tell the stories about the lands where no human being could ever sail. This borderline that geographically is clearly located marks at the same time the insurmountable chasm between the physical and the meta-physical world.

2

Nouveau témoignage sur l’Origine orphico-pythagoricienne de la métaphore d’Ulysse comme symbole de l’âme (A propos du récent ouvrage de Madeleine Scopello)

100%

Pouderon B.

Vox Patrum

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2006

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vol. 49

549-560

EN

BRAK

3

Biblioteka Blooma

84%

Paszek J.

Prace Filologiczne. Literaturoznawstwo

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2018

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issue 8(11) cz.2

157-166

EN

Leopold Bloom’s library contains works of various categories: religious (The Hidden Life of Christ, Philosophy of the Talmud, “an ancient hagadah book”), historical (The Secret History of the Court of Charles II, Lockhart’s Life of Napoleon, Hozier’s History of the Russo-Turkish War), astronomic (A Handbook of Astronomy, The Story of the Heavens by Sir Robert Ball), geographic (Ellis’s Three Trips to Madagascar, Voyages in China by “Viator”, In the Track of the Sun), geometric (Short but yet Plain Elements of Geometry written in French by F. Ignat. Pardies), literary (Shakespeare’s Works, Denis Florence McCarthy’s Poetical Works, When We Were Boys by William O’Brien, The Stark-Munro Letters by A. Conan Doyle, Soll und Haben by Gustav Freytag), philosophical (Thoughts from Spinoza), as well as practical guides and calendars. Most of these works and professional publications are occasionally referred to, as leitmotifs, in the epic of Dublin, yet, most frequently Joyce chooses to quote the romance book he made up, namely, Sweets of Sin! Richard M. Kain claims that there are a few thousands of leitmotifs persevering in Ulisses, which is the unquestionable essence of this encyclopaedic novel.

4

Ulisse all’Isola di Circe (Brussels 1650): Operatic Transformation of Classical Tradition and Dissolution of Stoic Problems

84%

Urbański P.

Werkwinkel

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2015

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vol. 10

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issue 2

115-130

EN

The present article is a close reading of the libretto of the first opera (drama musicale) staged in the Netherlands, in Brussels in 1650. The main point of interest is Ascanio Amalteo’s transformation or even breakaway from the classical tradition (esp. Homer and Ovid) to create a work with its own message, quite distant from classical texts but, paradoxically, approaching moral and psychological categories in Neo-Stoic mode. Perhaps it is not by chance that a parallel piece, Calderon’s second play on Circe (after the fiesta entitled El mayor encanto, amor, 1635), i.e. the auto sacramentale entitled Los encantos de la culpa (ca. 1650), is also a significant transformation of the motive done in the spirit of the Counter-Reformation. Both plays are the last allegorical interpretations of Circe myth and for the next two-hundred years the last important literary works about Ulysses.

5

Speculative sons of Ulysses and the inhuman “worlds without people”

67%

Váša O.

Filosofický časopis (Philosophical Journal)

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2023

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vol. 71

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issue Special_issue_1

112-140

EN

The paper focuses on the repeated and systematic references to the figure of Ulysses in the work of Quentin Meillassoux, Ray Brassier, Eugene Thacker, and Reza Negarestani. These are not random occurrences; Ulysses represents a key figure in the mutually interconnected visions and reflections related to the idea of a “world without people” that binds the named authors implicitly and explicitly to the originally Dantean imagery. Through a detailed exposition of the Ulyssean positions of the philosophers in question, the essay demonstrates twofold: first, that the “nihilistic branch” of speculative realism can be read as a specific inversion of the Dantean agenda, and second, that in light of the arguments of “transcendental nihilism” and the logical radicalization of the Ulyssean figure, Dante’s Divine Comedy can be read as an anachronistic speculative project.

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1 Filosofický časopis (Philosophical Journal)

1 Peitho. Examina Antiqua

1 Prace Filologiczne. Literaturoznawstwo

1 Vox Patrum

1 Werkwinkel

1 Cerri G.

1 Paszek J.

1 Pouderon B.

1 Urbański P.

1 Váša O.

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The Most Archaic Ocean: Beyond the Bosphorus and the Strait of Sicily

Nouveau témoignage sur l’Origine orphico-pythagoricienne de la métaphore d’Ulysse comme symbole de l’âme (A propos du récent ouvrage de Madeleine Scopello)

Biblioteka Blooma

Ulisse all’Isola di Circe (Brussels 1650): Operatic Transformation of Classical Tradition and Dissolution of Stoic Problems

Speculative sons of Ulysses and the inhuman “worlds without people”