The special world of Cavafy's poetry : from symbol to reality

Abstract

The essay focuses on the literary theme of nostos, as it was handled in post-Homeric poetry, especially the nostos of Odysseus concerning "the sweet day of return" and the pangs of nostalgia. The occasion in this essay is C. P. Cavafy's well known poem "Ithaka". It shows how the central emotion of nostos has been altered in leading works of post-classical poetry and replaced with a quest for the post-Ithaka voyage of Odysseus ending for Dante in the Purgatorium and for Tennyson in unspecified transatlantic explorations. Nor was Kazantzakis an excepion to this altering of nostos when he had Odysseus' last move end with his death on the iceberg. The post-Homeric rejection of Ithaka as the center of nostos and of Odysseus' voyage has dominated the "Ulysses theme". It also transformed the hero's post-Ithaka adventures by placing the legendary hero outside the original Greek perimeter.