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The Image of Odysseus in the Works of N.Kazantzakis Maka Eradze(The Odyssey

–

a Modern Sequel)

Odysseus and God

(Chapter from MA thesis in Modern Greek Studies)

Odysseus and a worm:

Odysseus sees a dream

–

a worm that struggles to fulfill itslittle, meaningless pursuit. Odysseus looks at the worm with empathy, takes it in his handsand the worm with the warmth of his hands turns into a butterfly. Odysseus is a creator;Odysseus is an image of God. This episode practically demonstrates a prophesy of the utopianstate, that collapses so quickly.Once, starved Odysseus tries to use a trick: he orders Orpheus to cut out a headlesssculpture of God. This sculpture is so comic, no room is left for the extra interpretations of theaim of the image; Odysseus (Kazantzakis) mocks at all the idolaters that are in a search of theouter God manually creating it without any quest inside.Hear, open your mind, brothers and I will tell you!

God doesn’t reside in the clouds nor in the dark hell

Nor like a shade wonders in human fantasy,God crosses this dried land with us and fights by our side!

Just because God is inside us and fights by our side, his main weaponry is

this world itself

–

the land of ours - there is no hatred towards any earthly happenings. Earth - a greatfeminine

Arche

, conjunct with the masculine one creates the final reason.God of Kazanzakis is equal to man and co-fights. He is always by the human side,enough to follow him. Kazant

zakis’

Odysseus looks him in the face, plays with him, just likeGod plays with Odysseus. His God is gloomy, often gracious; like Olympian Gods, he also has ahuman face and this face demonstrates only the fact that man and God head together to thefinal purpose.

God will not save us: we are going to save God by struggle, creation, by

Οδφςςεα,

page. 498

The Image of Odysseus in the Works of N.Kazantzakis Maka Eradze(The Odyssey

–

a Modern Sequel)

converting matter into the spirit

God and man coexist

–

they struggle and stand together.God

objectively

exists, however, he should be reanimated in each of us in order make himthe

Subjective

God. Many scholars, based on his political views and public work, have madesome false statements and sold the desired for the possible; its true

–

his political views werethe same utopian and nihilistic (as a result) as those of Plato (The Republic) but what aboutthe philosophy and the personal beliefs?Though P. Bien in his work

expresses his high opinion about the views of Prevelakisand Vretakos, he

a priori

rejects the discourse of nihilism, as nihilism paralyzes action

–

“from

the biographies of the spiritual figures we learn that the salvation of the desperate come notfrom the personal achieve

ments but from God’s grace:

Apocatastasis

comes only on thepassive obedience basis.

This work of Kazantzakis should be perceived as a whole: with all its controversies,self-contradictory theories and irony, which is of no less importance. While discussing theMetrics

of the work, Avgeris says that the metrics of

The Odyssey

resemble the metrics of that of low comedy of Ancient Greece. Surprisingly, the author of very interesting findings,Avgeris splits

The Odyssey

into the parts

–

metrics, poetry, lyrics, philosophy... though comic (Iwould say, tragicomic) passages are so typical for this work, one can laugh wholeheartedly.But this aspect of the work is not going to be discussed here.The discussion is about

Thesis

Antithesis

and their crown

–

number Three

, the hintof which is given in the letter of N. Kazantzakis, published in

Nea Estia

.Ithaca is the beginning of the journey. This is the symbolic passageway of Odysseusfrom

Real Ithaca

to his decease. Gradually - by the continual negation, Ithaca represents thefirst stage of the negation on the way from matter to spirit. It unites the whole range of stages, the negation of which is portioned from rhapsody to rhapsody in

The Odyssey.

The struggle with the matter ends in the rhapsody XIV, where Odysseus alreadycrosses the immaterial world and becomes an ascetic. Here he goes through all the stages,

Ν.Καηαντηάθ, Αςθτι, Ακινα, 1971

,85

Peter Bien

,Καηαντηάθσ

θ πολτι του πνεφματοσ, απόδοςθ ςτα ελλθνά

Α.Δ.Λαμπρίδου

------- Page. 243

Μάρου Αυγζρθ, Ζλλθνεσ Λογοτζχνεσ, ΙΚΑΡΟ΢, 1993.

page. 244

The Image of Odysseus in the Works of N.Kazantzakis Maka Eradze(The Odyssey

–

a Modern Sequel)

previously described in

The Saviors of God:

he breaks free from the Ego, nationality,ancestors, from the material part of the world - nature, animals, and plants, aspires toloneliness and moves from matter to spirit.Odysseus builds a genuine utopian state in a desert;

this state is “harmonious” with

the fascistic state laws, previously illustrated by Kazantzakis himself:

According toKazantzakis, the main characteristics of the fascistic state is the system that carriesresponsibility for every area of everyday problems in human life, that brings down the rightsof the citizens in the name of common benefit.

This definition itself that is written prior tothis rhapsody, demonstrate

s Kazantzakis’ awareness about the utopia and this “strangeresemblance” with

The Republic

of Plato is not discovered by the scholars. The state is really

utopian and that’s why it’s destroyed at the end, but why to build

a state if known the tragicend? So we have the following reason: it has to be thrown down as proof that the struggle isnecessary and that the goal is the action itself, that Odysseus

the Creator

must leave somematerial values behind himself, which are of course futile, but those make the road to thefinal purpose.And still, we have a question

–

so what is the

goal

? Ithaca or

the journey

?To my opinion, the goal is the cycle. The goal is the road that never ends. Ithaca is just one stage of the cycle of repetitive negations.Repetitive negation is one of the main motives in the Odyssey. Through the negationof the negations we come across the final purpose. According to P. Bien, Kazantzakis tries tobring down the two main elements, characteristic to the Western civilization: Ancient Greeklegacy and Christianity. The main essence of the Greek spirit is the regenerative cycle;Christianity though, goes straightforwardly to the divine presence. Although the statementheads to the fact, that Odysseus uses the rectilinear way

–

he gets to the

cycle

through thechain of negations. That leads to the

Elan Vital

theory: materialization, dematerialization,materialization etc.

Peter Bien

,Καηαντηάθσ

θ πολτι του πνεφματοσ, απόδοςθ ςτα ελλθνά Α.Δ.Λαμπρίδου

page. 272

Peter Bien

,Καηαντηάθσ