Ulysses’s Journey and Homer’s Odyssey: An Eternal Return MARTINA TREU Abstract Homer’s Odyssey provides a perfect case for showing the eternal return of the Greek myths in contemporary literature, and culture: tales of Ulysses’s journeys have always been popular, till nowadays. He is the only survivor of an entire crew: he safely arrived home alone, and soon left, heading for a new journey. Today, in a way, he keeps coming back, on and on: in all sort of books, in fine arts, inside and outside theatres. Ulysses and his myth are also “surfing the web”, as I proved with a recent survey on the use of the terms ‘Odyssey’, ‘Odysseus’, and ‘Ulysses’, on the Internet. Moreover, the last decades recorded, all over the world, an increasing amount of modern versions of Odyssey, and related myths. I focus particularly on the most recent translations and adaptations for the stage: many of them are dedicated to those who did not come back home – unlike Ulysses – or did not survive at all. In 2010, for instance, the Italian playwright and director Marco Martinelli wrote Rumore di Acque (“Noise in the Waters”), a play later translated into English, French, German, and other languages. Ulysses’s myth and its happy end are reversed, in his antiheroic Odyssey, inspired by the tragic death of immigrants, in the shipwreck of their boats, while they try to reach Southern Italy and Sicily. The play was staged in Lampedusa – the island on Italy’s Southern border where many ships land, and countless corpses are found – and it is still on tour in Europe, Africa, and U.S. Meanwhile, other international projects inspired by Ulysses’s journeys tell us the “Odyssey of Nobodies”, while thousands of unnamed sailors keep challenging the waves, as they have done since the Minoan Age, across the Mediterranean Sea. Keywords Homer; Odyssey, Ulysses; Travel; Shipwreck. 1. A never-ending journey. Among ancient myths, and figures, those which appear in the so-called Homeric poems (Iliad and Odyssey) are increasingly popular, worldwide, especially in the past decade, thanks to translations, adaptations, performances, and public readings.1 Not only epic poems can count on a large audience, but they are the object of more and more reception studies in recent years: international conferences, essays on Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics, Vol.40.2 : 2017 single authors or specific aspects, collections of studies on a range of examples all over the world. The complex interaction between epic, drama and performance (especially ‘durational performance’) is well-synthesised in the Call for Papers of the Panel “Performing Epic/Epic Performance” at the Tenth Celtic Conference in Classics: Especially interesting are those adaptations that attempt to capture the ‘epicness’ of the original: National Theatre of Wales’ ‘Marathon’ production of Christopher Logue’s War Music; Stathis Livathinos’ five- hour Iliad; the Almeida’s day-long readings of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Outside of Homeric adaptations, durational performances have become more popular and internationally recognised, including those based on the Classics, like Sean Graney’s All Our Tragic or Jan Fabre’s Mount Olympus: To glorify the cult of tragedy, and others not, like Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of Popular Music. How can contemporary durational performance lend new insight into the Homeric performance tradition?.2 The reception of the Odyssey, in particular, rapidly expands across all genres and medias, from cinema to TV, and radio, from children books to comics. On these premises, of course, it would be impossible to treat adequately all aspects of this heterogeneous field, in the limited space of this article. Therefore, this article will expose the main thread of my research on some aspects of the contemporary reception of Homer’s Odyssey, and on the common use of the terms ‘Odyssey,’ ‘Odysseus’ and ‘Ulysses.’ S Secondly, some trends and key-themes in reception will be analyzed, with examples, particularly on the international scenes: on stage, the Odyssey is adapted and played worldwide, with a remarkable frequency. Thirdly, a special attention will be given to some theatre productions of the past fifteen years (variously connected not only to the Odyssey, but also to ancient and modern routes across the Mediterranean Sea), with a brief account of the most relevant cases. Before focusing on reception, it is worth remembering that the two surviving poems were originally part of a larger ‘epic cycle’; an extensive narration of the Trojan War and of many related myths, regarding the heroes who took part in it.3 Some of them came back home from Troy, and their adventurous homecoming was sung in a few distinct poems known as “Nostoi” (literally “Returns”). Only one of these poems survived, the Odyssey. Its very name is meaningful still today, trespassing all boundaries of space and time, and becoming even more popular than the hero himself: Odysseus, aka Ulysses, King of Ithaca. Notoriously, he came home from Troy, alone, after a decade spent in travels on the sea: meanwhile, unfortunately, he lost all his ships and comrades. He survived, and he is the only eye-witness of his journey. He (a notorious liar, according to epic and tragic tradition) is in charge of telling us what happened, and carrying the memory of those who perished at Troy, or died in the waves. The happy ending of the poem reflects the good luck of its hero (or anti-hero? The question is open). But the war and the journey, over two decades, have left 104 permanent scars on his skin.4 Ulysses comes home, at last, but the price is high in terms of human lives and sufferings. The seafaring is particularly tragic, for the perils he has to face and for the death of his comrades in arms. 2. Ancient words, modern travellers. The ambivalent legacy of the Homeric hero, and of his adventurous journey, is still visible today all over the world: not only in books, comics, on screen and on stage (as many studies testify), but in a more pervasive, immediate way. The deep roots of Homer’s legacy lie even in current words of everyday life. This is precisely the starting point of my research: many terms related to my subject are still in use, with a striking variety of meanings. In order to show it, as a first step, I searched on the Internet ‘Odyssey’, ‘Odysseus’ and ‘Ulysses’5: most references are related to travel, of course, to seafaring, sailing, homecoming. But they are also popular names for tools, cars, videogames, cruise companies, leisure places, camping sites, hotels, etc. However, the lists of places, objects, persons, events may change consistently from one language to another. Even the numbers of occurrences vary if I look for the same terms in different languages. In English, for instance, I find 10.400.00 results for ‘Odysseus’ and 23.900.000 for ‘Ulysses’, thanks to Joyce’s novel which occurs on top on https://www.google.it/ (Last accessed 28 August 28 2017).6 The name of the hero, in a larger view, fits also a variety of places, objects and events, more or less related to the concept of travel, discovery, and adventure (such as hotels, ships, travel agencies), but also to learning and getting to know people and places (reviews, TV show, schools, etc.). As for ‘Odyssey’ I find 184.000.000 results, including many possible definitions, often ambiguous, suspended between positive and negative meanings, such as “an adventurous /unfortunate journey”, “a long journey full of adventures”.7 On top of the list, after the Homeric poems, stands a recent adaptation written by Simon Armitage, directed by Bob Wilson and produced by the National Theater of Greece and the Piccolo Teatro (Milan). Across the world, theatres and other public spaces host performances and lectures of the poem: at the University of Almeria (Spain), for instance, various chapters have been performed in Spanish over a few years, and are available online.8 There are also hundreds of references to other adaptations of the poem, on stage and on screen, which usually include well-known masterpieces of different genres, from graphic novels to science-fiction movies, such as Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: a Space Odyssey (1968).9 Perhaps under his influence, the name of the poem is quite frequent in cinema. As the most celebrated movies and TV series have been already analysed by many critics, I will focus here on less known examples, which borrow their name from the Odyssey, in order to verify if they share meanings, implications, and concepts. In July 2009, Scottish newspapers described as “an Odyssey in the Highlands” a travelling movie festival named ‘Pilgrimage’ (meant as a mix of pilgrim and image).10 Historical, classical movies were shown inside a mobile cinema on wheels, which travelled through the Highlands; once a day it was also ‘pulled’, with ropes, by the 105 walking pilgrims. In this case, the definition of “Odyssey” was clearly associated to the concept of travel, but also to the effort, and to the passion for cinema, which moved the participants. The festival was created and led by the Scottish actress Tilda Swinton and by the Irish director Marc Cousins. Significantly, the same director later wrote and directed an ambitious and artistic documentary in fifteen episodes: “an epic journey through the history of cinema” entitled The Story of Film: an Odyssey.11 My third, and last example outside theatre, is a TV series produced by NBC (premiere April 5th 2015), simply called Odyssey in UK and, quite significantly, American Odyssey in the U.S. It was meant as a modern-day take on the Odyssey, according to its authors.