Odysseus Reborn: Parallelism between Odysseus and The Postmodern Man

Abdullah Parwaiz

doi:10.24113/ijellh.v8i12.10856

Abstract

The mythical character of Odysseus has been a recurring figure since his first introductions, in the Great Greek writer, Homer's works around 700 BCE, in the, 'Illiad', and, 'Odyssey'. He has been invoked over the ages to suit the means of the said eras, trans-morphing the character of the Classical Greek Hero to meet the desired ends of the poets, authors and periods. The aim of the paper is to deconstruct the works where he has been mentioned and thus in turn construct the character itself. This will be done through the famous works he has been mentioned in, such as Virgil's 'Aeneid', Dante's 'Inferno', Horkheimer and Adorno's 'Dialectic of the Enlightenment'. In doing so, the paper shall establish the grounds for Odysseus to come out as a character that suits all ages for a good reason. Furthermore, a Psychoanalytical analysis and study shall establish his relevance and stand in the Postmodern age that we live in, which shall aim to decentralise popular notions, moving away from the modernist experimentation towards the postmodern appreciation of the classical character as one, who at the true core had been formed with such intricacy that writers have been forced to adapt him in their works, time and again.

Highlights

The Classical Greek HeroOdysseus Odysseus is the protagonist and Greek hero of the renowned epic written around 700
I called back with another burst of anger, 'Cyclops— if any man on the face of the earth should ask you who blinded you, shamed you so—say Odysseus, raider of cities, he gouged out your eye, Laertes' son who makes his home in Ithaca!' (Homer 560) But as they are leaving the island, Odysseus shouts back saying, that if anyone ever asks, tell them that it was Odysseus who stabbed your eye
This portion of the paper shall shift the narrative from defaming the name of Odysseus, that had been done over the course of 2,000 years, to one where the age-old question of Enlightenment comes to a halt at the end of the Modern era, with a book that tried to invoke Ulysses as a Modernist symbol of Enlightenment, debunking the many ideas that went on over the course of two centuries

Summary

The Classical Greek Hero

Odysseus Odysseus is the protagonist and Greek hero of the renowned epic written around 700. I called back with another burst of anger, 'Cyclops— if any man on the face of the earth should ask you who blinded you, shamed you so—say Odysseus, raider of cities, he gouged out your eye, Laertes' son who makes his home in Ithaca!' (Homer 560) But as they are leaving the island, Odysseus shouts back saying, that if anyone ever asks, tell them that it was Odysseus who stabbed your eye This in turn angers the God Poseidon (father of Polyphemus), and this act of foolishness costs him years of suffering, hindering his travels back home. Odysseus and Ulysses are both one yet different at the same time- two sides of the same coin or two different coins meant to serve different purposes

Odysseus and Christianity

The Modern Ulysses

The Postmodern Odysseus