Define and analyze the representation of Ithaca from Homer to modernity. Why has it meant so much to ancient and modern authors? And what does it mean to you after reading all related material?

Your task in this comparative paper is to evaluate and examine how the idea of Ithaca has been interpreted and represented by modern authors and artists inspired by Homer’s ideas. One of these authors is the modern poet Constantine Cavafy whose celebrated poem “Ithaca.” This poem represents the modern understanding of Ithaca as a state of mind rather than a fixed destination.

-Begin your paper by explaining the symbolic meaning of Ithaca in the Homeric context and its importance as the final milestone in Odysseus’ journey.

-Then discuss Cavafy’s modern interpretation of Ithaca and explain how it differs from the ancient representation of Ithaca in Homer’s poem.

-Finally, compare Cavafy’s rendering of the voyage to Ithaca as a symbolic journey through life with ONE of the modern poems you are reading for this course by Whitman, Baudelaire, or Walcott.

-You may also refer to Dante’s Inferno, Canto 26, to show how the medieval imagination went beyond the idea of “Ithaca” as a fixed destination and suggested a new understanding of the human journey as an ongoing quest for knowledge and experience.

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