Odisseo a Itaca : il monologo di Od. XIII 187-221 fra critica analitica e poetica dell’ironia (con una nota su Il Ritorno di Giovanni Pascoli)

At Od. XIII 187-221 Odysseus’ wakes up on Ithaca’s soil, but does not immediately recognize his native land, covered by the mist poured by Athena. He thinks he has landed again in an unknown country and utters a desperate monologue, blaming the Phaecians for having deceived him. The scene is not free from problematic aspects, which have prompted many analytical attempts to explain the alleged defects of logic and poetry as the consequence of the overlapping of different versions of the story and/or of the work of more than one poet. On the other hand, many interpreters have detected in the passage a clear and successful poetic idea centered on irony. The aim of this article is to show how the poetic diction proves to be perfectly functional in this direction, and how the author creates a sophisticated interplay between traditional elements and innovative traits. The final section discusses the reception of the Homeric passage in Giovanni Pascoli’s poem Il Ritorno, which was included in the second edition of Odi e Inni (1907).