Shedding light on Odysseus’ companions

A parallel reading of selected poems by Ezra Pound and Yannis Ritsos

Abstract

Seen in the framework of the classical reception, this paper discusses the use of the ancient sources by modern poets highlighting some main aspects of the dialogue between past and present. It focuses on the examination of four poems that present an interesting reworking and appropriation of themes drawn from the Homer’s Odyssey: Ezra Pound’s Canto XX (1928) and Yannis Ritsos’ three selected short poems, included in the collection Testimonies 2 (1966), where myth, history and politics interweave. Although they were written by poets engaged in different ideologies these poems have a key element in common: the focus on Odysseus’ companions instead of Odysseus himself, a choice which reveals both their aesthetic and ideological choices. The way myth is used here brings out the association between aesthetics and politics, thus illustrating the views of the two poets on the position and function of literature in society and their critical intervention in the in the current socio-political developments of their time. The consideration of the poems in the context of Pound’s and Ritsos’ work at this stage of their poetic careers suggests an ideological reading of the myth linked το contemporary concerns, and also confirms the importance and lasting impact of the Homeric epics, providing yet another example of the modernists’ reception of the classical tradition.

Keywords: classical reception, mythical method, modernist poetry, E. Pound, Y. Ritsos