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Title
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The Homelessness of Odysseus/ Polska Sztuka Ludowa - Konteksty 2014 Special Issue
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Description
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Polska Sztuka Ludowa - Konteksty 2014 Special Issue s.187-192
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Creator
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Michera, Wojciech
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Date
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2014
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Format
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application/pdf
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Identifier
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oai:cyfrowaetnografia.pl:6090
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Language
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ang
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Publisher
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Instytut Sztuki PAN
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Relation
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oai:cyfrowaetnografia.pl:publication:6518
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Rights
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Licencja PIA
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Subject
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anthropology of memory
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pamięć - aspekt antropologiczny
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Type
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czas.
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Text
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I
n the word: "home” (Polish: dom), belonging to
the joint ancient Indo-European cultural substrate
(hence the Greek: domos and doma, the Latin: domus, the Sanskrit: dam, etc.), linguists discover source
meanings associated with predominantly two activities
- the technical “building” and the social or existential
"dwelling” . As Beata Spieralska wrote in "Konteksty”:
The “home” appears as distinguished space constructed
by man, in which he is “at home”, and which guarantees
a feeling of security for him and his family.1 Naturally,
however, one can be ”at home” (Latin adverb: domi
or domum) only when this existential situation is con
trasted with the dangerous alienness of that, which is
"outside” (Latin: locativus - foris, behind the door), or
in the “Cracovian” variant: na polu (in the field, peregre - outside the house or town, composed of: per
and ager - field). I would be inclined to say, there
fore, that “home” (dom), comprehended as a cultural
category, is a linguistic tool that produces this dicho
tomous conceptual structure. Is the thus established
relation between ”home” and that, which the latter
is not (domi/foris), to possess the form of a simple op
position comprising a lucid, symmetric, and polarised
configuration? Or is the application of a more subtle
delimitation required here?
Since at the conference we speak about the home
as a “path of existence” and thus stress its dynamic
aspect I propose to reflect, even if only briefly, on a
text absolutely paradigmatic for this theme, namely,
Homer’s The Odyssey. I shall try to demonstrate (con
cisely, and thus intentionally resigning from, for ex
ample, evoking copious literature on the subject as
well as the whole subsequent Ulysses tradition, which
developed in European literature and art from Euripi
des to Wyspiański or Joyce) that in this narration it is
possible to come across traces of paradoxical topogra
phy or, to use a term coined by Derrida, la cartographie
impossible that renders the relation between ”home”
and ”the distant” an interesting problem. I am not
concerned merely with the fact that Odysseus reached
magical lands and floating islands by navigating along
courses that cannot be easily delineated on an or
dinary map and that can be always contrasted with
the familiar and spatially stable Ithaca. What I find
the most interesting in this story is a component that
renders problematic this durable and solid beginning
and end of the journey, its arche and telos.
First, however, briefly about that, which appears
to be obvious in Homer’s The Odyssey - it is without
doubt a treatise about the home. This is not, however,
a home in which one resides but one for which one
longs and to which one returns. In it we are dealing
with a structure whose dynamic recalls an archer’s
bow: distance resembles the taut bowstring, while re
siding prior to the journey and after its end denotes
stability and solace. This is why it can be said about
WOJCIECH MICHERA
The Homelessness of
Odysseus
Odysseus: His most genuine past is his origin, His fun
damental emotion is nostalgia, adventure is magnifi
cent, and risk is desired as the salt of life but only when
there exists a return. 2 He is undoubtedly an archetype
voyager but, at the same time, a person succumbing
to the nostalgic force of home gravity; as homo viator
or peregrinator Odysseus remains within the range of a
stabilising force that comprises the source of his sub
jective identity.
According to this interpretation, therefore, the
home "enroots” man although, let us note, this ex
pression denotes as if a technical assumption of the
plant metaphor. This seems to be said quite literally
by the key moment in The Odyssey, namely, the "great
sign” that confirms Odysseus’ identity in the eyes of
Penelope. Recall the scene: Odysseus returns home,
but since twenty years had passed his faithfully wait
ing wife wishes to be sure that it is really he - subject
ing him to a trial she asks to remove the marital bed
from their bedroom. In response, Odysseus tells a story
known only to the couple: A great secret [mega sema,
great sign] went into its making, and it was my work and
mine alone. A long-leafed olive tree, strong and vigorous,
and thick as a pillar, grew in the courtyard. I built my room
of solid stone around it, finished it off with a fine roof,
and added tight-fitting timber doors. I trimmed the trunk
from the roots up, after cutting off all the long-leaved olive
branches, smoothed it off skillfully and well, and trued it to
the line: that was my bedpost. I drilled holes with the auger,
and with this for its beginning fitted all the smooth timbers
of my bed until it was complete. I inlaid it with ivory, silver
and gold, and stretched shining purple straps of ox-hide
across. That was its secret [sema]... (XXIII, 188-202).
The scene could be interpreted in numerous
ways. Its contents resemble a fairy-tale puzzle, whose
solution is decisive for the further fate or life of the
protagonist (as is known, Odysseus is adept at solv
ing all sorts of puzzles), or the literary trace of a ritual
that by “rendering topical” this foundation event ul
timately completes and sanctions Odysseus’ "return”
(nostos) - not only to Ithaca, comprehended spatially
187
Wojciech Michera • THE HOMELESSNESS OF ODYSSEUS
as the designation of the journey, but also to the logi
cal “beginning” of his (home) existence, his arche.
The olive tree proof - wrote Stanislaw Rosiek, refer
ring to Jean Starobinski - enabled Odysseus to com
bine the beginning and end of journey and existence. By
repeating in the story a deed that once made it possible to
create the marital bedroom he confirmed his t r u e i d e
n t i t y. 3
In this interpretation, apparently, Odysseus be
comes increasingly himself the closer he finds himself
to Ithaca; his identity becomes the most stable, i.e. as
if enrooted in the marital bed, that core of his home;
it is here, in the embrace of Penelope, that he soothes
the pain of excessive estrangement. If we recall that
it is in this bed resembling a tree of life that Telemachus was conceived then the story told to Penelope
will render Odysseus similar to that exemplary man
who manages to plant a tree, build a home, and sire
a son.
And yet ... Homer’s story contains something
more or “different” than would follow from the model
of “home gravity”, some sort of a disturbing, decen
tralising force that cannot be disposed of with the
words: “secret” or “symbol” . Its symptom is probably
the fact that this archetypical man, a model for each
of us, does not actually plant a tree but cuts it down.
The primary, “castration” gesture as if s u s p e n ds
and questions the totalising force of its (quasi-ritual)
repetition in a story that is supposed to complete the
circle of the journey and bind its two ends; a repetition
that with the assistance of the sign (‘’great sign”) - re
sembling a signature or a seal - is to confirm or restore
Odysseus’ subjective identity formed by long-term ab
sence. If one were to place one’s trust in Plato then the
spirit of Odysseus attained peace not after returning to
Ithaca but after death, in the next embodiment: from
memory of its former toils having flung away ambition,
went about for a long time in quest of the life of an ordi
nary citizen who minded his own business. 4
Two (at least) circumstances in particular incline
us to doubt this open interpretation of The Odyssey or,
more exactly, to enhance the text by including those
doubts. True, they will not produce some sort of a dif
ferent conclusion, but they weaken and “deconstruct”
the first, envisaged as the only possible one.
Cyclicness
An intriguing commentary to Homer’s epic is to
be found in Jules Verne’s Voyage au centre de la Terre.5
Although it contains only a single mention of The Od
yssey, the latter without doubt remains its key context.
As we probably all well remember, the protagonists of
this unusual ”Ulysses-type” book set off on their jour
ney from the home of Professor Lidenbrock in Ham
burg, to which they return at the end - this “old home”
is possibly a subtle allusion to the home of Odysseus:
it stood firm, thanks to an old elm which buttressed it in
front. A further route leads the narrator and remaining
protagonists to Iceland, a land not rich enough to pos
sess clocks, 6 where following the steps of the sixteenthcentury alchemist Arne Saknussemm they enter the
Sneffels crater to submerge in a subterranean abyss.
This is a journey to the “sources of time”: in the huge
Cyclopean cave they encounter antediluvian monsters
and at its very bottom - their ancestor: a hairy giant
watching over a herd of mastodons. Then suddenly
they make their way to the surface thanks to the erup
tion of another volcano.
”Dove noi siamo?” [...]. "Come si chiama questa iso
la?" - one of the travellers asks a child they encoun
tered.
“Stromboli”, replied the rickety little shepherd [...].
Stromboli! What effect on the imagination did these few
words produce! We were in the centre of the Mediterra
nean, amidst the eastern archipelago of mythological mem
ory, in the ancient Strongylos, where Aeolus kept the wind
and the tempest chained up. 7
The Jules Verne interpretation distinguishing a
certain fragment of The Odyssey and perceiving in it
a separate whole confirms an intuition that accompa
nied me from the first time I read The Odyssey and be
fore I even associated it with the novel by the French
author. Here is a model of the whole itinerary of Odys
seus (Apologos, The Odyssey, Songs IX-XII):
The diagram features special symmetry: among the
15 locations reached by the traveller (including Ilion
and Ithaca), the central, eighth one is the furthest
stage of the journey, the dark land of the Kimmerians,
where Odysseus performed the nekyia rite enabling
him to meet souls leaving Erebos. This geometric con
struction (its symmetrical character is enhanced by
1 5 .Ithaca
1. Troy (Ilion)
2. Cicones (Ismarus)
14. Phaeacians (Scherie)
3. Lotus-eaters
13. Calypso (Ogygia)
12. Thrinacia
4. Cyclops
5. Aeolus
11. Scylla and Charybdis
6. Lajstrygoni (Telepyla)
10. Sirens
9. Circe (Aia)
7. Circe (Aia)
8. Kim erians (Hades)
188
Wojciech Michera • THE HOMELESSNESS OF ODYSSEUS
two stays with Circe) delineates the intersection of life
and death with the precision of a measuring rod.
Here is a sub-cycle that constitutes a summary of
the whole, together with its central katabasis, i.e. de
scent into the cave of Polyphemus. This is a unique
via brevis, a narratively cohesive miniature (which
philological commentaries appear not to notice) of
the adventures of Odysseus - preserving and even ac
centuating their initiation logic, so well recreated in
the Verne novel.
(proximity of Ithaca ^ storms, dangerous winds
proximity o f Ithaca ^ storms, dangerous winds
1. L o tu s- e a te r s
3 . A e o lu s
2. C y c lo p s
This fragment of The Odyssey ends with two sud
den tempests. The first precedes arrival in the land of
the Lotus-eaters: But Zeus, the Cloud-Gatherer, stirred
the north wind against our ships, in a blinding tempest, hid
ing the land and sea alike in cloud, while darkness swept
from the sky. Headlong the ships were driven [...] Now
I w o u l d h a v e r e a c h e d h o m e s a f e l y, but as I
was rounding Cape Malea, the north wind and waves and
the ocean currents beat me away, off course, past Cythera.
(IX, 67-81).
The mentioned Cape Malea, the most south-easter
ly of the Balkan Peninsula, resembling a finger pointing
at nearby Crete and separated from Kytera by a mere
strait, has been always regarded by the Greeks as excep
tionally dangerous for sailors. In The Odyssey this is the
spot where other commanders returning from Troy Menelaus (III, 287) and Agamemnon (V, 514-17) - be
gan their errant wanderings across unfamiliar regions;
earlier (in the chronology of the world of the myths),
this was also the fate of the Argonauts returning from
Colchis. Researchers agree that, as Alfred Hauberk
claims, after the storm off Cape Malea (IX, 80-81) Odys
seus has crossed a fundamental boundary, normally closed
to mortals, which separates the real and the unreal worlds;
[...] It is in these circumstances a quite pointless undertak
ing, and one based on completely false premises, to try to
plot on a map the route taken by Odysseus.8 The same
opinion was shared by, e.g. Kazimierz Kumaniecki (In
asmuch as heretofore journeys by Odysseus took place in
the real world ¡...I from the moment of the storm we find
ourselves in a world of fantasy)9 or J. V. Luce (On a map
one can follow only the beginning of Odysseus’ journey.
(...) Leaving behind Cape Malea and Kytera he sailed
on the wide open sea towards the south-west of Crete.
From this point it is impossible to mark on a map the
further course of his wandering. Kytera is the last lo
cation in his travels, which can identified to the final
return to Ithaca).10
The place and circumstances in which Odysseus
left the world of mortals do not give rise to doubts,
but those of his return remain unclear. When did he
189
manage to extricate himself from the netherworld?
Naturally, with the assistance of the Phaeacians
he “ultimately” landed on the shores of Ithaca. It is
worth recalling, however, that earlier Odysseus almost
reached his target. First, before he was caught in a
tempest, and then when he left the Aeolian Island and
sailed successfully thanks to conducive winds (the god
of winds trapped the menacing ones in a sack): We
glimpsed our native land. We came in so close we could
see the men who tend the beacon fires (X, 29). Then, al
though this was an improbable circumstance, Odyseus
fell asleep and his companions, as we know, untied the
bag. All the winds rushed out— storms seized them, swept
them out to sea, in tears, away from their own native land.
This is the reason why (as Homer summed up Odys
seus’ subsequent recollections; XXIII, 315) it was n o
t y e t his destiny to reach his dear native land. Instead,
storm winds once more caught him. It is worth recalling,
however, that at the very onset of The Odyssey the
goddess Athena describes Odysseus’ sad but sweet ser
vitute under Calypso: But Odysseus yearns to see even
the s m o k e r i si n g f r o m h i s n a t i v e l a n d and
longs for death.
The scene with the sack is one of the most dis
turbing images in The Odyssey. I cannot think about
it without recalling a scene from my childhood when
as a young boy I watched a popular Italian TV series:
L ’Odissea (director: Franco Rossi), which in a highly
intriguing fashion showed the moment when Odys
seus’ companions untied the sack full of wind offered
by Aeolus. The authors suggested that Odysseus was
only pretending to be asleep but actually was aware of
what his crew was doing; nonetheless, he tried not to
create an obstacle, pretending that this was his inten
tion. (Just as interestingly, it was this particular scene
in the several parts-long series that made the greatest
impression on me - so intense that even today I can
recollect it vividly). True, Erich Auerbach claimed:
This “real” world into which we are lured, exists for itself,
contains nothing but itself; the Homeric poems conceal
nothing 11, but there appears the moment when in a
uniform and brightly lit narration, ostensibly limited
exclusively to the foreground (as Auerbach envis
aged it), there emerges a dark surprising fissure - an
u n derstatem ents unexpected in the case of Homer.
The astonishing fiasco of the attempt at returning
to Ithaca forced the protagonist to make a new effort
- once again he must allow himself to be captured by
the storm. This is not the end, however, and even the
successful return to Ithaca will not be u l t i m a t e , in
accordance with the prediction made by Tiresias (XI,
120 sqq.) Odysseus once again departs. In this manner,
his story as a whole takes on a c y c l i c a l character,
making it possible to propose a different interpretation
of the status of the place that is the beginning and end
of the journey, i.a. Ithaca, the birthplace. The activity
Wojciech Michera • THE HOMELESSNESS OF ODYSSEUS
pursued by Odysseus and conceived as an archetype
of a person returning home gains automatism typical
for the cyclical quality, but also futility in the mean
ing mentioned by Aristotle, who, recall, claimed that
automatikos is etymologically affiliated with maten, ’’to
no avail”.12
Identity
Now, return to the “olive tree proof’. What does
this “great sign’ denote if it is to be really treated as
such, i.e. in semiotic categories. In other words, who
should be regarded as its signifié? Obviously, the an
swer must be sought in traditional symbolic, in mytho
logical imagery known from the works of Eliade and
Jung or even the “poetics of reverie” by Bachelard
(tree, root, fount, home, centre, cosmogony, etc.). A t
the same time, the “great sign’ fulfils certain narration
functions and is supposed to render credible the dec
laration made by Odysseus - it is a gesture with whose
help he casts off his numerous costumes (including the
fictitious identity of a Cretan, who in an earlier conver
sation with Penelope he pretended to be). Apparently,
this is the place of transition from the order of seduc
tive and deceitful fiction, and persuasive rhetoric (an
order of soft and mellifluous words)13 to an order of
finally regained truth (this is, as we learn, “an infallible
sign”). The story about the marital bed, however, also
inclines the married couple to immediately lie down
on it so as to satisfy their urge for love: the "subjective
centre” is thus inevitably connected with desire.
First and foremost, however, I would like to draw
attention to the fact that this centre of the home
sphere (Greek: kentron - sting, blade, from: kentein, to
prick; Latin: punctum) is connected directly with that,
which is most distant. In the same way as during the
nekyia rite in the distant land of the Kimmerians (via
longa) where Odysseus met the person closest to him,
i.e. his deceased mother, so the cut down olive tree that root of his identity - brings to mind the wooden
stake, which he used to blind Polyphemus (via brevis):
There lay beside a sheep-pen a great club of the Cyclops,
a staff of green olive-wood, which he had cut to carry with
him when dry; and as we looked at it we thought it as large
as is the mast of a black ship of twenty oars [...] I bade
my comrades cast lots among them, which of them should
have the hardihood with me to lift the stake and grind it
into his eye when sweet sleep should come upon him (IX,
319-333).
The similarity of the toppled olive tree designat
ing the centre of Odysseus’ homestead and the cut
down olive tree twisted in the manner of a screw and
burning out the round, central eye of Cyclops (kyklops
= kyklos, wheel + ops, sight), is the reason why the
scene in the Cyclopean cave introduces a b s e n c
e (or rather the p r e s e n c e of absence) in the
very centre, in the foundation of domestic space. It
also becomes a model for Odysseus’ problematic sub
jectivity or, more exactly, it defines it as such. The
anonymity that he announces to Polyphemus is more
than a transitory state characteristic for certain ini
tiation rite situations. Is it really anonymity? Perhaps
Alkinoos, the king of the Phaecians, was right when
he said to Odysseus: For there is no one of all mankind
who is nameless (VIII, 552). Odysseus encountering
Polyphemos is not simply anonymous, because ano
nymity is his name:
Cyclops, thou askest me of my glorious name, and
I will tell it thee; and do thou give me a stranger’s gift,
even as thou didst promise. Noman [Outis] is my name,
Noman do they call me-my mother and my father, and all
my comrades as well.
He is, therefore, not anonymous but cryptonymous,
or pseudonymos. This is, however, a false name, more
of a pseudonym that only ostensibly conceals (actu
ally betrays) his true identity based, after all, on “false
hood”, the principle of pseudonymy. This is also what
the contents of the assumed name tell us. True, Jerzy
Andrzejewski wrote about Odysseus: No man, and thus
just like all others, 14 but this does not have to be the
case of being average and ordinary, and even more so
“without character”, “without qualities” (ohne Eigen
schaften). The Greek Outis is composed of a negative
particle (out) and the pronoun: “someone” (tis). The
same pronoun - both in such expressions as: “this is
someone”, “to be someone” - means both in Polish
and Greek admiration and recognition, and is a social
distinction, emphasis on subjective distinctiveness. Its
negation, as a consequence, defines the “villain”, a
man without value, without m e a n i n g, who, we tend
to say, does not r e p r e s e n t anything and is a “zero“
both in the ethical sense (as in the insult: “you’re a
zero”) and semiotically, enabling a paraphrase of the
lofty formula: “ And his name shall be. ..”; in this case
- ”it shall be zero”. Man-nobody, the Odyssean outis,
fulfils a logical function similar to the “zero” in arith
metic, which as such does not express value and is a
condition for changing the value of all other numbers
(cf. the English: cypher - number, code, zero; not by
accident one of the protagonists in the film Matrix is
called Cypher). 15 Outis thus means the absence of de
fined, stabilised subjectivity (cf. the Latin: nemo, ”no
one”, a word created by merging non and homo; we
all remember that this is the “true pseudonym” one of
Verne’s protagonists), which suffers from the lack of
a source and calls for incessant supplementation, an
ever provisory suture (to use the commendable Lacanian term) of barely possible and at all times transitory
meaning, ever dependent upon a certain “system of
difference”. But there is something more: it comprises
that possibility, the potential of meanings, i.e. a condi
tion for all “representation”, representation as such, in
other words, still not stabilised by some sort of “refer-
190
Wojciech Michera • THE HOMELESSNESS OF ODYSSEUS
ence” (Barthes called this conceit: signifiance, English:
significance). 16
It is not a coincidence that already in the first hex
ameter of The Odyssey Homer described Odysseus as
polutropos, which could be translated as: worldly, cun
ning, highly enterprising, but also as: endowed with an
unusual ability for changing costumes, for impersonat
ing assorted, usually fictitious figures. Hence the anag
norisis, so frequent in The Odyssey, i. e. narration situ
ations in which the protagonist becomes unexpectedly
recognised (Aristarchus described anagnarismos as the
telos of The Odyssey [scholia to XXIII, 296]), because,
after all, he may be “recognised” only when he first
seems to be someone else. In this situation it is difficult
to avoid asking: becomes recognised as whom? Is it
not precisely as polutropos? Is talent for "disguise” and
devising fictional stories not his true fate?
Stanisław Rosiek wrote: Odysseus lived in a world
that he had split into two parts: “illusory life" and “real
life", as Pascal would have put it. He was a master of
split existence. 17 A t the same time, things are differ
ent - this “delusion” is not so much a second, sepa
rate extreme of the opposition (foris versus domi) as
the split, the fissure between extremities. It is that
fissure, which is ”erotic” and not one of the two
"shores” (as Barthes would put it). 18 If this is the
case, then Odysseus is himself the more the longer
he stays away from Ithaca, even if he yearns for it so
much, or rather the more he longs for it. The “dis
tant” (this yearning for the distant, as Thomas Mann
described the feeling experienced by Gustav A schen
bach) does not leave him even while at home (domi)
and makes it impossible to get rid of the status of
a “stranger”, a ”guest” and a “beseecher” (hiketes).
As I have mentioned, the ”distant” or the ”split” of
Odysseus’ world no longer separates Ithaca from the
unreal rest of the world but actually is that unreality,
”fictionality” that permeates the whole of existence,
including the “genuine” home life of Odysseus on
Ithaca.
Instead of a stable ”’centre” we discover a “void”
(outis), which, as Derrida wrote in his reflections
about the philosophical concept of the structure, is
the “movement of supplementarity” initiating an end
less “play of substitutions” (the same, let me recall, as
the one mentioned in the epithet: polutropos). This
substitute does not substitute itself for anything which has
somehow existed before it . We thus arrive at the con
clusion (I quote Derrida while keeping in mind the
text by Homer): That there was no center, that the center
could not be thought in the form of a present-being, that the
center had no natural site, that it was not a fixed locus but
a function, a sort of nonlocus in which an infinite number
of sign-substitutions came into play. This was the moment
when language invaded the universal problematic, the mo
ment when, in the absence of a center or origin, everything
191
became discourse-provided - we can agree on this word
- that is to say, a system in which the central signified,
the original or transcendental signified, is never absolutely
present outside a system of differences. The absence of the
transcendental signified extends the domain and the play of
signification infinitely”19
Replacing the stable “centre” by a sui generis “non
place”, a process of undermining the presence of the
source of signifié, making possible an endless substitu
tion of signs, rendered Odysseus a ”poet,” and his jour
ney - a nostalgic ”art” of returning home (in Greek:
nostos means “return”, algos - ’’suffering” , although it
is worth keeping in mind that “nostalgia” is a mod
ern lexical idea). David Lachterman wrote: Odysseus
achieves his nostos [...] by means of poetry, by telling and
crafting tales [...]. What Odysseus tells, is his odyssey
proper, his nostos and noos in words. 20 Hence, Odysseus
does not travel in reality and sometimes, especially
upon returning, he goes back to his peregrinations in
his tales, the latter being a journey conducted in the
sphere of “language”, “fiction”, and thus the irremov
able “distant”, in a fascinating space opened by the
Song of the Sirens (according to Blanchot). 21 Noth
ing, therefore, can end it, no port, no final conclusion,
and even no “great sign”, since it is “nothing” - a mere
s t o r y about what is lost for ever and the object of
infinite longing.
It is often maintained that the feature that best
characterises Odysseus is his “curiosity”, which was
supposed to incite him to leave Ithaca (this was the
view of, e.g. Dante [Inferno 26]). In this way, how
ever, Ithaca too remains untouched - and as a home
it still constitutes a stable centre of existence. The
reading of The Odyssey, which I proposed, naturally
questions the obviousness of this interpretation: I
tried to demonstrate that this text contains another
concealed mechanism. A t the end, in order to pro
vide at least a temporary tag line, let me cite Gabriel
Marcel, whose words I noted down years ago; quot
ing them I am not overly concerned whether I am
faithful to the context, i.e. the entire reflection of
this philosopher:
To be curious - to leave a certain immobile cen
tre, to attempt to capture an object about which one
had only an unclear or schematic concept. With this
meaning all curiosity is directed towards the peripher
ies. On the other hand, to be restless is to be uncer
tain of one’s centre, to seek one’s equilibrium. [...]
Curiosity will turn into unrest the more its object will
constitute a part of me, the more thoroughly it will be
included into my inner structure. On the other hand,
anxiety will become metaphysical the more it pertains
to that, which cannot be separated from my ”Ego”
without, at the same time, causing the annihilation of
that ”Ego”. 22
Wojciech Michera • THE HOMELESSNESS OF ODYSSEUS
Endnotes
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
Beata Spieralska, Dach nad głową. Pojęcie „domu" w języ
kach indoeuropejskich, "Konteksty” 2004, fasc. 1-2, p.
34.
Vincenzo Vitiello, Pustynia, Ethos, Opuszczenie.
Przyczynek do topologii religijności, transl. Ewa Łukaszyk,
in: Religia. Seminarium na Capri prowadzone przez Jacquesa
Derridę i Gianniego Vattimo, KR: Warszawa 1999, p.
177.
Maski, vol. II, Maria Janion and Stanisław Rosiek (ed.),
Wydawnictwo Morskie, Gdańsk 1986, p. 184 (my
emphasis - W M.).
Plato, Republic, 620c (Myth of Er).
Jules Verne, Voyage au centre de la Terre, ed. J. Hetzel,
Paris 1864.
[...] and the clock of which would then have struck twelve,
if any Icelandic church had been rich enough to possess so
valuable and useful an article. These sacred edifices are,
however, very much like these people, who do without
watches—and never miss them. (ibid.).
Ibid., Polish edition, p. 304. On this book and the
images and mytholgoical structures therein see: Simone
Vierne, Jules Verne et le roman initiatique. Contribution z
l’étude de l’imaginaire, Lille 1972; see also: Maria Janion,
Gorączka romantyczna, Warszawa 1975, pp. 275-277.
The Aeolian Islands were associated with the Lipari
Islands and Stromboli already in antiquity (see, e.g.
Tucicides III, 88; Virgil, The Aeneid VIII, 417).
Alfred Heubeck, Introduction, in: A Commentary on
Homer’s Odyssey, vol. II, ed. A. Heubeck, Arie Hoekstra,
Oxford 1989, p. 4.
Kazimierz Kumaniecki, in: Homer, ed. K. Kumaniecki
and J. Mańkowski, Warszawa 1974, p. 165.
J. V. Luce, Homer i epoka heroiczna, transl. E. Skrzypczak,
Warszawa 1987, p. 267.
Erich Auerbach, Blizna Odyseusza, in: idem, Mimesis,
Rzeczywistość przedstawiona w literaturze Zachodu, vol. I,
transl. Zbigniew Zabicki, Warszawa 1968, p. 62.
Aristotle, Physics 197b.
See: W. Michera, ‘Lathesthai’. O pokusie zapomnienia,
"Konteksty” 2-3/2003, pp. 217-222.
Jerzy Andrzejewski, Nikt, Warszawa 1987, p. 11.
See: W. Michera, Ekranizacja pamięci. O filmie Memento
Christophera Nolana, in: Iluzje pamięci, ed. S. Wróbel,
Wydawnictwo WPA UAM, Kalisz 2007, pp. 81-97.
16 See: Roland Barthes, The Third Meaning, [in:]
Image, Music, Text, transl. Stephen Heath, Fontana
Press , p. 54: Signifiance, a word which has the advantage
of referring to the field of signifier (and not signification). See
also: R. Barthes, Le plaisir du texte, Seuil, Paris 1973, p.
82. The term: signifiance comes from: Julia Kristeva,
Semiotiké: Recherches pour une sémanalyse, Seuil, Paris
1969.
Stanisław Rosiek, op. cit.
Cf. R. Barthes, Le plaisir..., pp. 13-14.
J. Derrida, Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference,
transl. Alan Bass, The University of Chicago 1978, pp.
353-354, 365.
David R. Lachterman, ‘Noos’ and ‘nostos’: The Odyssey
and the Origins of Greek Philosophy, [in:] J.-F. Mattéi (ed.)
La naissance de la raison en Grèce, Actes du Congrès de
Nice 1987, Paris 1990, p. 37 (Polish edition: ‘Noos’ i
‘nostos’: ‘Odyseja’ i źródła filozofii greckiej, transl. W.
Michera, "Konteksty” 2-3/2003).
Maurice Blanchot, Le chant de Sirènes, in: Le livre à venir,
192
Gallimard: Paris 2005 (1959), p. 9 sqq. It must be
stressed, however, that Blanchot judged Odysseus pri
marily within the context of the battle with the Sirens,
i.a. by stressing the technical effort of maintaining a
boundary between the real and the imagined (see: p.
16). One could say, therefore, that the purpose of this
essay is to show the simultaneous presence in the
Odyssey of a competing model, i.e. the ideological prox
imity of Odysseus and the Sirens.
22 Gabriel Marcel, Homo viator, transl. P Lubicz, IW Pax:
Warszawa 1984, p. 142.
