The Afterlife in the Classical and Italian Traditi

Writing a call for papers is a collaborative process. First, the group must decide what the conference should be about (i.e., not the title of the course–pick something relevant to it, but an idea that is broad enough to stir the imagination of everyone in the course), a process which should begin with vigorous discussion. The topic should be interesting, inter-disciplinary, and dare I say, sexy. It should seduce us all. Second, the group should begin exploring possible avenues into the topic. What are some possible lines of inquiry? Why is your topic relevant? What are some possible avenues for further research? Lastly, what do you imagine will be the product of the conference? What does the group envision the conference will accomplish in terms of ground covered?

I have placed links on the sidebar to samples of calls for papers for your reading pleasure.

At the close of the Inferno’s canto 26, Ulysses recounts that he and his crew had travelled for 5 months (l. 130) at sea when a mountain rose before them (l. 133-5) and a great storm hammered at their ship. The storm turned the ship around three times in the water, and during the fourth time, sunk the ship, “as pleased the Other, until the sea again closed–over us”. [tr. by A. Mendelbaum]

[The number three is significant in the katabases of Odysseus and Aeneas. Although I could cite many more examples, three will have to suffice. Odysseus attempts to wrap his arms around his mother's ghost in Od. 11. 205-8, "Three times I started toward her, and my heart was urgent to hold her, and three times she fluttered out of my hands like a shadow of a dream..." (tr. by R. Lattimore); and when the ghost of Palinurus provides to Aeneas an account of his own death in Aen. 6. 374-5, "Three nights I rode the waters, three nights of storm, and on the fourth morning..."; lastly, echoing Homer, Vergil's Aeneas attempts three times to embrace the shade of his father Anchises when they meet in Elysium, "Three times he reached out toward him, and three times the image fled like the breath of the wind or a dream on wings." (tr. from Aeneid by R. Humphries).]

Dante either purposefully deviates from or is unaware of the classical tradition’s account of Odysseus’ death. However, one might view Dante’s account as an imaginative elaboration of the prophecy made to Homer’s Odysseus by Teiresias.

During Odysseus’ encounter with Teiresias in the Homeric epic, Odysseus learns that death (“thanatos”) will come to him from out of the sea (Od. 11. 134) in an unwarlike way when he has reached a ripe old age. Teiresias’ prophecy, although seemingly transparent, actually invites misunderstanding. We are perhaps not surprised to learn that will die “from the sea”; after all, Odysseus has suffered for many years precisely because of his myriad adventures lost at open ocean.

The death of Odysseus in the epic tradition, however, offers another account of his death which runs contrary to Dante’s narrative. The Odyssey belongs to a cycle of epics on the Trojan War, the last of which follows the Odyssey in sequence. The Telegony features the adventures of Telegonus, Odysseus’ son by Circe, the sorceress in the Odyssey who enchants Odysseus’ men and who directs Odysseus how to reach the land of the dead. Although the actual text of the Telegony is lost, a few summaries and sources which reference the text survive from antiquity (particularly useful are Proclus’ Chrestomathia and Oppian’s work on fishing, Halieutica 2. 497ff). We know that in this epic, Telegonus accidentally kills his father on dry land with a weapon Circe had given him. This weapon, a spear barbed with the poisonous spine of a sting-ray, provides the means by which Odysseus dies “from the sea.”

Whether Dante had direct access to Homer’s text is a nettled issue, but Dante seems to allude to both the Odyssey and the Iliad (through the figure of Diomedes particularly). Although Dante may be working through intermediaries (most notably, Vergil), he still seems to understand the quintessential ethical nature of Homer’s “man of many turns,” who dies in the quest for experiential knowledge. To what degree does Dante’s Ulysses reflect the actual character of the Homeric hero, and to what degree (and why) is there some revision of the Homeric Odysseus?