Ulysses and the voyage

Ulysses and the voyage

Reading Tennyson text, we can think that here he is the prototype of the modern man, the metaphor of the man thirsted of knowledge. He trusts in God and for this reason he doesn't try to know the truth only with his tools.

In the "Divina Commedia" we can find this aspect of Ulysses that is considered a fraudulent adviser. He is damneted 'cause he crossed Ercole's columns.

The Homeric Ulysses is a teacher of the trick and of the astuteness, is a fearless hero and a clever speaker, a sweet father and a excellent husband.

He doesn't trust in God. He is pragmatic and his ideals are the "kleòs" (glory) and the "nòstos" (return trip to own country).

The Ulysses of Tennyson, like that of the Dante, is full of a religious feeling and he is condamneted only because he dares what man can't dare.

The human being has to control his potentialities and his limitations to obtain his goals; he mustn't challenge God.

Dante, so, made the figure of Ulysses smaller while Omero wrote thinking that man can be compareted with god. The Ulysses of the Tennyson hasn't the same family's feeling of the Homeric Ulysses. For the last, the return to his home, family, to telemaco are essential components of his personality while in the other they aren't so much important, too. Ulysses is a person that trust in himself and in his potentialities. Homeric and Tennyson Ulysses have the same idea of the mean of the heroic death but one looks for the "klèos" and the other has a human wish of knowledge. And, for this reason, he appear a person of the renaissance.

When we talk about Ulysses,  we have to talk about the travel in fact as we have understood the character of Ulysses has always quoted in the literature of the travel.

A travel is a discover of the world and of ourselves.

Besides in the Odissea, we find the theme of the voyage in the Bible where the man look for the safety and for god.

An important example of the travel is, obvious, the Divina Commedia where Dante travel to understand the way to arrive in the heaven.

In heroic poems of the middle age, the voyage makes the hero knows himself and his ideals. He travels to show his love, his faithfulness and his bravery.

From the renaissance, men travel to discover new lands, new populations and new values. We can compare C.Colombo with Ulysses. He was a modern Ulysses.

Nowadays the travel is a metaphor of the restlessness of men because he lives a world full of chaos and he get lost himself. He travel to discover himself.

One example is the book of Jack Kerouac "on the road", another is "Siddharta"by Herman Hesse or "The long voyage" by Sciascia. Man goes away to escape from the reality.

Films like "Easy Rider"(1969) by Dennis Hopper and "Thelma & Louise" (1991) by Riddle Scott talk about the escape.

There is a paint by De Chirico that paint the return of Ulysses that can be interpreted in a psychological way to understand De chirico's ideas.

The thirst of knowledge have to be in ourselves in fact De Chirico draw Ulysses in a room with a paint. In the paint there is the sea, a place where the world challenge the nature and himself. In a paint in the painting there is a mountain. You have to climb it (it represent the risk) to discover yourself and to be saved.  You should have the flexibility to change your opinion and to throw in all situations in fact in the room there is the water and man has to have some values and ideals that has to respect.

The safe in the room is the place when you have to think and to sleep. Also, it can be represent the enjoyment. The house in the room represent a part of ourselves that nobody known:  unconscious.