/lit/ - Literature

>>22429054
This is peak attractiveness. And if you disagree you're racist

>The most beautiful, all-embracing theme is that of the 'Odyssey'. It is greater, more human that that of 'Hamlet', 'Don Quixote', Dante, 'Faust'. The rejuvenation of old Faust has as unpleasant effect upon me. Dante tires one quickly; it is as if one were to look at the sun. The most beautiful, most human traits are contained in the 'Odyssey'. I was twelve years old when we dealt with the Trojan War at school; only the 'Odyssey' stuck in my memory. I want to be candid: at twelve I liked the mysticism in Ulysses. When I was writing 'Dubliners', I first wished to choose the title 'Ulysses in Dublin', but gave up the idea. In Rome, when I had finished about half of the 'Portrait', I realized that the Odyssey had to be the sequel, and I began to write 'Ulysses'.
>Why was I always returning to this theme? Now 'al mezzo del' camin' I find the subject of Ulysses the most human in world literature. Ulysses didn't want to go off to Troy; he knew that the official reason for the war, the dissemination of the culture of Hellas, was only a pretext for the Greek merchants, who were seeking new markets. When the recruiting officers arrived, he happened to be plowing. He pretended to be mad. Thereupon they placed his little two-year-old son in the furrow. In front of the child he halts the plow. Observe the beauty of the motifs: the only man in Hellas who is against the war, and the father. Before Troy the heroes shed their lifeblood in vain. They wish to raise the siege. Ulysses opposes the idea. The stratagem of the wooden horse. After Troy there is no further talk of Achilles, Menelaus, Agamemnon. Only one man is not done with; his heroic career has hardly begun: Odysseus. Then the motif of wandering. Scylla and Charybdis—what a splendid parable! Ulysses is also a great musician; he wishes to and must listen; he has himself tied to the mast. The motif of the artist, who will lay down his life rather than renounce his interest. Then the delicious of Polyphemus. 'No-man is my name.' On Naxos the fifty-year-old, perhaps bald-headed, with Ariadne, a girl who is hardly seventeen. What a fine motif! And the return, how profoundly human! Don't forget the trait of generosity at the interview with Ajax in the nether world, and many other beautiful touched. I am almost afraid to treat such a theme; it's overwhelming.