The Metaphor of the Odyssey in Western culture: science, art, and religion

While popularising myths, Homer, Hesiod, and the other Greek tragedians expounded them in their own way, shifting the semantic accents in accordance with their times. Accordingly, their works were later interpreted in different ways. Each era used to read something of its own in them, which was closer, more intelligible and relevant to the contemporary times. 

The Odyssey is full of existential symbolism. Throughout the post-Homeric history, interpreters often viewed it not just as a fascinating story about the life peripeteia (περιπέτεια – adventure) of one of the participants in the Trojan War but as a universal image of the existence of a man who searches, struggles, learns, discovers, makes mistakes, who is always alone and unique, always incomplete and capable of change. 

Thus, the notion of the Odyssey was filled with unprecedentedly rich metaphors over its long life in the history of culture. The original idea of the Odyssey as a long and hard journey to return home has survived, but it has moved to the background of the subsequent interpretations. Nowadays, we use the notion of the Odyssey in a more general sense, as a long, complicated, sometimes fascinating journey, and more often, we interpret it even more broadly, as a man’s life and creative path, his individual and always unique experience of understanding and mastering the world, creating its holistic image and describing this image in a specific language. Therefore, the notion of the Odyssey often connotes not only the story of a great traveller or explorer but also the intellectual twists and turns of scientists, scholars, artists, religious reformers, engineers, and doctors in their discovery process. Furthermore, it signifies navigation across different cultures, traditions, alien planets, or galaxies. Each Odyssey is unique and unrepeatable because it is not just a sequence of events but a manifestation of the spirit of a “hero”, a community or the whole of mankind; it contains a part of the personality of a certain ingenious man who is always alone, unique, incomplete and capable of change. 

An Odyssey can be considered a complex process of researching a scientific problem, achieving a discovery, creating a novel artistic style, exploring the unknown, and transforming an idea over time. 

During the workshop, we expect to listen to exciting stories about the “Odysseys” of great people, great ideas, great scientific problems, breakthrough discoveries and artistic styles that bear the imprint of the personality of their creators and researchers.