2) Exegesis. Wicksteed says that Ulysses' last voyage is entirely of Dante's
invention.
Contra.
It is worth a look at what John Scott wrote in Lettere Italiane, 1972 (anno
XXIII), pp.145-186 in the article titled "Inferno XXVI: Dante's Ulysses" .
I excerpt from pp.146-147
"Some kind of agreement, however has been reached on the immediate source
of Dante's narrative: G. Padoan and B. Reynolds both believe it is to be
found in the Fourteenth Book of Ovid's "Metamorphoses", where Ulysses again
sets sail after his year's stay with Circe and no mention is made of his
return to Ithaca. Ovid's silence was reinforced by the debates that took
place in classical antiquity regarding Ulysses' ultimate fate, for Homer
himself had left the question open in the "Odyssey" by mentioning that his
hero's death would "come off the sea" and this cryptic reference had given
rise to all manner of conjecture. Dante was probably aware of this through
two authorities: Servius and Seneca. In the eighty-eighth epistle to
Lucilius, Seneca argues against the useless pedantry of grammarioans and
literary critics. Rather than ask such otiose questionsas "where did
Ulysses' wanderings take him?", we ought instead to open our eyes to the
moral implications behind the word "errare" and do our best to avoid the
storms of the spirit that buffet us every day, surrounded as we are by
false allurements, shipwrecks and evils of every kind: Quaeris Ulixes ubi
erreverit potius quam efficias ne nos emper erremus? .........."
Hope this is useful,
A. Pagliaro
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|