Poems on Odysseus
The communication and the collective
allusions are great tool in literature and more so in poetry. what wonder it must be that writers need more than the subject they are writing about to drive the lessons home and in their entirety. we all have felt something similar to this in our own life – that insatiating, irksome feeling of so many things left unsaid, miscommunicated, under-expressed, etc. this def calls for an invention of a great writing tools: metaphor, simile, allusions, even short punches of sentences. Or even god – what is god after all but our seeking something greater, further from our own limitations?
allusions, in particular, are really interesting to me because they build upon our collective consciousness. we refer to, and in doing so preserve, our collective past while alluding to historical events, individuals, or myths. especially good poems bridge the gap of the time and space while alluding to events of distant times. this brings our ancestoral endeavors and lives next to us, making us realize how we are walking the same threads centuries later.
in the time in which i am writing about allusions, the usual suspect is Odysseyus. Nolan’s movie brought the ancient hero and his heroic journey home again in the mainstream. while the film has received mixed reviews, one of the best critique i have read about the movie itself is how nolan has instilled guilt in Odysseus – more often than not such heroes are tyrant, remorseless, and narcissists. by instilling a sense of guilt, Nolan might indeed have weakened the complexity of the character and steered away from reality! nonetheless, i watched the movie and enjoyed it, and it catapulted my attention to poems that must have been written about or inspired by Odysseus. i have read some since then and will collect them here for my reference.
odysseus - some poems
“Odysseus” by W.S. Mervin 1
…
The knowledge of all that he betrayed
Grew till it was the same whether he stayed
Or went. Therefore he went. And what wonder
If sometimes he could not remember
Which was the one who wished on his departure
Perils that he could never sail through,
And which, improbable, remote, and true,
Was the one he kept sailing home to?
“Ithaka” by c.p. cavafy 2
…
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
…
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
“Ulysses” by alfred l. tennyson3
…
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
…
well, in the middle of my search, i found an extensive (which it never can be) list on this topic in emily wilson’s website.4 now my only duty is to read them.