THE MEANING OF ITHACA
FINAL PAPER TOPIC
In your final paper please define and analyze the representation of Ithaca from Homer to modernity. Why has it meant so much to ancient and modern authors? And what does it mean to you after reading all related material?
THE MEANING OF ITHACA
Your task in this comparative paper is to evaluate and examine how the idea of Ithaca has been interpreted and represented by modern authors and artists inspired by Homers ideas. One of these authors is the modern poet Constantine Cavafy whose celebrated poem Ithaca is crucial to the modern understanding of Ithaca as a state of mind rather than a fixed destination.
-Begin your paper by explaining the symbolic meaning of Ithaca in the Homeric context and its importance as the final milestone in Odysseus journey.
-Then discuss Cavafys modern interpretation of Ithaca and explain how it differs from the ancient representation of Ithaca in Homers poem.
-Finally, compare Cavafys rendering of the voyage to Ithaca as a symbolic journey through life with ONE of the modern poems you are reading for this course by Whitman, Baudelaire and Walcott.
-You may also refer to Dantes Inferno, Canto 26, to show how the medieval imagination went beyond the idea of Ithaca as a fixed destination and suggested a new understanding of the human journey as an ongoing quest for knowledge and experience.
Please cite specific examples from some of the above texts to demonstrate knowledge of the topic and elucidate your points.
To fully respond to this topic, its imperative you have completed reading critically the following:
-the Odyssey (Introduction and Chapters 1-24)
-the Power Point The Allure of Ithaca (posted on BB)
-Cavafys poem Ithaca
-My lecture/notes on Cavafy (posted on BB)
-Edith Hall’s chapter “Exile from Ithaca” from the Return of Ulysses.
-Dante Inferno, Canto 26 (posted on BB)
-The final three readings/poems by Whitman, Baudelaire and Walcott (also on BB)
This paper should not be about the geography of Ithaca, it should be MAINLY about Ithaca as a literary milestone. In other words, how has Homeric Ithaca inspired literature and art of subsequent generations? In my power point and in your readings, there are several references to related sources and authors who have reinterpreted the idea of Ithaca and what it means to modernity, such as Cavafys Ithaca, Charles Baudelaires Man and the Sea, Walt Whitmans Had I the Choice, Derek Walcotts The Sea is History.
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