The Odyssey in the Odyssey: ¿how did Laertes die?

Abstract

In his Odyssey, Kazantzakis gives Laertes the death which Homer did not. The relation of Ulysses with his father is ambiguous. On one side, we do not witness a moving and affectionate recognition, such as the anagnorisis in the Homeric work. Laertes and Ulysses do not speak to each other. The son even feels annoyance at the old age and illness of the father. Contradictorily, however, he is deeply affected by the old man‘s death. In the poem we find two long and beautiful passages where the old man appears: Laertes‘ dream in his garden, lying on the ground, and his death, also embraced to the soil, surrounded by his beloved trees, animals and birds. The feature which identifies the character in the modern poem with Homer‘s Laertes is precisely the fact that the he is a man linked to nature, to the countryside.