The Odyssey - Notes

This is the secret object of contest between epic and mythos: the self does not make adventure out of obstinate opposition, rather it comes to create is own obstinacy by means of this opposition, a stark unity in a world of multiplicity which negates that unity. Odysseus, like the heroes of all real novels after him, gives himself away in order that he may come to win himself; the distancing form nature which he effects is realized in the abandonment to nature in which every episode he eschews; and, ironically, the relentless force which he commands triumphs-- he comes home a relentless hero, as judge and avenger of the heritage of the forces he escaped.