The Misadventure of Staying Home: Thwarted Nostos in De Chirico and Rebecca West
Penn collection
Degree type
Discipline
Subject
Classics
Funder
Grant number
License
Copyright date
Distributor
Related resources
Author
Contributor
Abstract
From the Odyssey onwards, the long nostos tradition has at times called J attention to a paradoxical insight: the challenges and rewards of homecoming can be experienced by those who never leave home. If being at home means more than being physically located in a certain place, then the dynamics of presence and absence, loss and recovery, that make up nostos can be played out within a single setting. Something new can be gained that makes the non-traveler somehow more "at home" than before. Or the obstacles to a successful experience of outward journey and smooth reintegration may not be intrusions from the outside, but internal, homegrown impediments.