The Return of Ulysses

Speculative Fiction, Ecocriticism, and the Wanderings of Odysseus

“…13.Hall (2008), 75–100, uses colonization as the thread linking Renaissance receptions of the Odyssey to those in Westerns and science fiction. She mentions two stories by Weinbaum, ‘The Lotus Eaters’ and ‘Proteus Island’, but not, oddly, ‘A Martian Odyssey’.…”

“…19.Fredericks (1980), 100f. On the Odyssey in science fiction, see also Fredericks (1982), 29–33, 86–8; Hall (2008), 82–7; Rogers (2015); Weiner (2015); Cooper (2018), 96–9.…”

“…41.Hall (2008), 93–100, identifies Horkheimer and Adorno's Odyssey excursus as ‘the major assault on Odyssean heroism’ (94) in the twentieth century and locates it within a tradition of anti-colonial readings of the Odyssey , particularly of the Cyclops episode. She notes the ecological dimension of their reading, writing that for them, ‘Polyphemus the Cyclops, in his ideal pastoral existence, is the creation of an imagination already racked with sorrow at its alienation from the environment’ (94).…”

“…47.They are rescued thanks to a message previously sent by Captain Nemo, who serves throughout the novel as a kind of benevolent Shadow Mage (see below); on Nemo's links to Odysseus, see Hall (2008), 83.…”

“…49.Hall (2008), 82f., notes that ‘scholars of the form [science fiction] routinely trace it back to the Odyssey , usually via Lucian's True Narratives .…One element missing from these ancient texts in comparison with SF is the science.’ She goes on to note several ways in which this apparent difference is not absolute.…”