Odyssey’s Bitterness?

strong, although discrete organization of the motives: and when the
situations in which there is no Odyssey are being stylized, as a rule
there is an indirect and suggested tie with the odysseyian complex of
meanings.
In individual poetic redactions of antique motives, as a distinctive
way of observing and self-understanding, there is a characteristic doub-
ling of erotic observation: both Calypso and Nausicaa are observing
Odyssey who is keeping an eye on them. The technique of mirroring,
of mirror or water, makes the sole odysseyian situation universal.
But, mirroring sometimes have completely distortional mark on itself,
because as a correlative of a gentle but deathlike poem “Mermaids’
Lure” that evokes antique situation, occurs postmodern and quite
ironic – even in a sense of Pyrrhonian irony that wrecks everything
– poem “Serenata Sirenissima”. The sole mirroring of poems assumes
parodying aspect: the range of feelings is so great that radical and
atonal tones within poetic correspondence occur intentionally.
In some verses the complexity of erotic situation is evoked: the
dance of the impulses within the hero, physical sensation that is
emancipated to the point of magnification in a consciousness, the
power of blood and muscles as signs of something pre-individual in
an experience. In a such register assigned figures of antique pattern
occur: Circe, Calypso, Nausicaa. The pleasure of the body is exception-
ally expressed: it was not portrayed as a figment of imagination but as
contraction and relaxation of limbs: “all over me: back and forth,” as
mechanism that conveys pleasure, the sensations of physical pleasure.
Odyssey’s strength, “I arrived to sink here lost / into dumbness of all
the elements, the song of madness”, as the strength with which the
body is being agitated, from the outside and from the inside within the
fibers, joints and nerves, “amid the foam of ecstasy and immense sen-
suality”, is complementary with his travels through bodies: Odyssey’s
travel through Circe’s body, Circe’s travel through her own unfamiliar
body. By moving his body through space, during his travels around the
world, Odyssey gets to know himself in the world; by moving her body
towards Odyssey’s, Circe discovers something unknown within her-
self. They both learn by their bodies: and by the moves of their bodies.
The end of all evocations of his bond to an erotic shine of being, to
the miraculous landscapes of the travels, in that great and successful
character of the antiquity, seems like an unusual existential bitterness
is deposited. Is that the sign of a modern poetic redaction or an aspect
of an individual impression – certainly not the only one – into a clas-
sical figure?
With what the Sirens – not being able to hurt him – marked him
forever? That – in undertone – shows the poem „Mermaids’ Lure”.
Siren song, as a beautiful song of death, seduces: “Everybody’s drunk
bewitched at once / Cut into the pieces by the sharp rocks”. That is the
moment that evokes traditional content of the odysseyian situation.
But, the key for evoking its intensity is to recognize the wish arrow
guided by the Siren song. It is – and that is logical for a wish – hidden
in something that is beneath human understanding, in something
that erodes solid fortress of conscious decision. Because the Sirens
“bubbled foam under the tongue”: the physiological state of the wet-
ness under the tongue is in symbolic connection with the movement
of the sea foam. Both qualities – so different because they belong to
different objects in reality – have their equivalent in the unconscious: it
is the ocean or the sea, as a place where the boat of reason drifts, as
the instinctive flicker of desire exists in the untold, in something that
is under the tongue.
Hence the Sirens – whose song release the ropes of desire – “sink
under skin at once”: into tissue, fibers, capillaries, circulation of blood.
Because, they did it with “screaming call wave”. That screaming call
wave is not just any call but it is placed in nadir. What does it mean?
Nadir is the furthest point in the universe, it is situated vertically at
the furthermost point below the spectator. Hence it is the lowest point
of his spirit because it is the deepest point of energy in which he – as
consciousness, as I – dissolves (hence the death he falls into). That is
the call placed in Sirens’ screaming. A figuration like this of a deep,
pre-conscious, dire energies that resonate with the Siren song is ren-
dered with dispersion of light, body tensions, and “their song tendons
of the muscles dissolved”, with movements of desire: “lusts in vortex
caught in a dream.” The bond between death and brightness is marked
with the Siren song. Only Odyssey in whom the moment of exaltation
has passed could have noticed that.
In that tense bitterness of late knowledge we find also a tragic tone,
which rage as if belongs to all times. The epigraph of the poem “The
Question of Guilt” was taken from – not at all accidentally – Jovan
Hristić, which point is that “they smashed the Trojans and were cele-
brated after that”: “But nobody talks about Troy any more.” This mean-
ing reveals completely modern peace that originates from the absolute
of unrest. Because, the oblivion of the defeated is the central strength
of modern conscious, which, as if it does not have strength to forget
anymore, remembers despite the knowledge – as Nietzsche warned
– that forgetting is essential to life. It should be forgotten – Odyssey
knows that also – but not anymore: why? Because “with this murder-
ous sin his own punishment evokes”. That is the antique basis, but in
individual redaction there is a poetic turn: “Even today thirty centur-
ies after / New murderers believe they credit have.” This actualization
acts like existential poisoning of Odyssey that can not pass. Its point is
far-reaching: “As if the thousands of those smashed yesterday / Are the
same miserable shadows pushed into oblivion.“ Those who were killed
yesterday are still here in our notions, but they – despite the pain that
marks as if that is against the inevitable – are turning into the forgot-
ten ones. They are becoming – in bitter cruelty of Odyssey who can not
forget – just miserable shadows.
We have asked what is marginal in a poetic experience stylized like
this: about the traces of Odyssey’s bitterness that lingers despite his
strength, that gave the basic tone to this poetic experience. We were at-
tracted by – from the margins of the lyrical scene – the conscious, sat-
urated with cultural, historical and poetic contents that reveal strange
unrest within peace, scream within silence, darkness in panorama that
bathes in light. In its wondrous duplicity lies the pre-basic reason of
Odyssey’s late modernity, his figure in a postmodern state of mind: he
is hunting but he is the one who has been hunted, he wages war but he
does not want to, he is dreaming about Siren song but he is heading
home, he can but he does not want to, he evokes with pride the horrible
things but he is scared of the usual things. Odyssey’s bitterness leaves a
strange spiritual stamp on the poetic matter – and as if it lingers forever.

Translated by Ivana Milankov