Abstract

The aim of this essay is to identify the distinctive elements and motives in the Elysium described by Lucian of Samosata in his "True Histories", an extraordinary and paradoxical tale of 'Lucian's Travels'. The music, produced by the Nature and by the voices and the instruments of the Blessed in their hereafter symposium, becomes the main sign of Blissfulness. Lucian builds his Elysium through a literary technique that he calls "mixis", consisting in a programmatic contamination of different sources in the poetic tradition. In this research the origins of Lucian's brilliant and complex image of musical Bliss are traced back in earlier Greek literature, passing by ancient Paradises, the Golden Age, Utopia and other fanciful worlds of Happiness.