{"product_id":"imagining-ithaca-nostos-and-nostalgia-since-the-great-war-hardcover","title":"Imagining Ithaca: Nostos and Nostalgia Since the Great War - Hardcover","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eKathleen Riley\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Though home is a name, a word, it is a strong one', said Charles Dickens, 'stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit answered to, in strongest conjuration.' The ancient Greek word \u003cem\u003enostos\u003c\/em\u003e, meaning homecoming or return, has a commensurate power and mystique. Irish philosopher-poet John Moriarty described it as 'a teeming word... a haunted word... a word to conjure with'. The most celebrated and culturally enduring \u003cem\u003enostos\u003c\/em\u003e is that of Homer's Odysseus who spent ten years returning home after the fall of Troy. His journey back involved many obstacles, temptations, and fantastical adventures and even a \u003cem\u003ekatabasis\u003c\/em\u003e, a rare descent by the living into the realm of the dead. All the while he was sustained and propelled by his memories of Ithaca ('His native home deep imag'd in his soul', as Pope's translation has it). From Virgil's \u003cem\u003eAeneid\u003c\/em\u003e to James Joyce's \u003cem\u003eUlysses\u003c\/em\u003e, from MGM's \u003cem\u003eThe Wizard of Oz\u003c\/em\u003e to the Coen Brothers' \u003cem\u003eO Brother, Where Art Thou?\u003c\/em\u003e, and from Derek Walcott's \u003cem\u003eOmeros\u003c\/em\u003e to Margaret\u003cbr\u003eAtwood's \u003cem\u003ePenelopiad\u003c\/em\u003e, the Odyssean paradigm of nostos and nostalgia has been continually summoned and reimagined by writers and filmmakers. At the same time, 'Ithaca' has proved to be an evocative and versatile abstraction. It is as much about possibility as it is about the past; it is a vision of Arcadia or a haunting, an object of longing, a repository of memory, 'a sleep and a forgetting'. In essence it is about seeking what is absent. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cem\u003eImagining Ithaca\u003c\/em\u003e explores the idea of \u003cem\u003enostos\u003c\/em\u003e, and its attendant pain (\u003cem\u003ealgos\u003c\/em\u003e), in an excitingly eclectic range of sources: from Rebecca West's \u003cem\u003eThe Return of the Soldier\u003c\/em\u003e and Remarque's \u003cem\u003eAll Quiet on the Western Front\u003c\/em\u003e, through the exilic memoirs of Nabokov and the time-travelling fantasies of Woody Allen, to Seamus Heaney's Virgilian descent into the London Underground and Michael Portillo's Telemachan railway journey to Salamanca. This kaleidoscopic exploration spans the end of the Great War, when the world at large was experiencing the complexities of homecoming, to the era of Brexit and COVID-19 which has put the notion of nostalgia firmly under the microscope.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKathleen Riley \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eKathleen Riley completed a DPhil in Classics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford where she later held a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. Now a full-time writer, she specializes in classical reception, biography, and theatre history. She is the author of \u003cem\u003eNigel Hawthorne on Stage and The Reception and Performance of Euripides' Herakles: Reasoning Madness\u003c\/em\u003e. She is also co-editor of \u003cem\u003eOscar Wilde and Classical Antiquity\u003c\/em\u003e and, most recently, a contributor to \u003cem\u003eSeamus Heaney and the Classics: Bann Valley Muses\u003c\/em\u003e. Her book \u003cem\u003eThe Astaires: Fred and Adele\u003c\/em\u003e has been optioned for a feature film currently in development.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 352\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.9 x 8.6 x 5.4 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e June 01, 2021\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42728626946111,"sku":"9780198852971","price":92.32,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0105\/8226\/1823\/files\/c7881c7c5458d347eb1aea7f7ac992af.webp?v=1765119197","url":"https:\/\/dhlswag.com\/products\/imagining-ithaca-nostos-and-nostalgia-since-the-great-war-hardcover","provider":"BBB","version":"1.0","type":"link"}