Abstract

The essay examines the desire for homecoming in Western literature from ancient times to the modern age. The archetype established in the Iliad, and especially in the Odyssey tries to be very dynamic and flexible to adapt itself to historical changes, while preserving its fundamental thematic tenets. The narration of the homeward journey is a basic element of the Homeric model and helps the hero to regain his identity together with the world he left on his departure. We can notice the same aspects in the stories of the protagonists of James Joyce's Ulysses, Primo Levi's La tregua, Jean Giono's Naissance de l'Odysseé, and Milan Kundera's Ignorance show.