Nostos and the impossibility of ‘a return to the same .docVIP

Nostos and the impossibility of ‘a return to the same’: from Homer to Seferis ?Marigo Alexopoulou, Open University of Greece Home is where one starts from. T. S. Eliot, East Coker The notion of return (nostos in Greek) is explored with varying elaboration throughout much of Greek literature. The earliest Greek tradition included several variants of the nostos story, in both epic and in lyric versions. The Odyssey is the most famous example, but other examples of this theme were also well-known in antiquity, such as the Nostoi ascribed by Proclus to one Agias of Troezen and the three fragments of the Hesiodic catalogue that treat various features of the story of Agamemnon’s fatal return, while Stesichorus wrote a poem called Nostoi and a poem called Oresteia. Thus it is clear that the Returns of the Greek veterans from Troy was a magnetic theme in poetic tradition, both epic and lyric. There are ample instances of the treatment of the classical themes in modern Greek writing. The following study therefore is far from comprehensive; I attempt to comment only on the particular kind of nostos that seems to be at work in one of Seferis’ poems, ‘The Return of the Exile’ [O gyrismos tou xenitemenou], relating it to the classical tradition and to the folkloric elements of Greek culture. The particular theme I will explore here in brief is how the Odyssean nostos with its traditional feature of recognition becomes a great metaphor for the concept of change and serves to characterize Seferis’ vision of a contemporary Greek reality. Seferis’ poem can be read within a literary system that well demonstrates how the poet merges the present with the past. His new perspective on the treatment of nostos in literature can be illustrated by comparing his themes, motifs, and language with those of his forerunners who dealt with a nostos-story in Greek culture. In particular Seferis’ poem proceeds from that of Homer and elements of the folksong tradition especially a pop