Ulysses at the museum. The translation of theOdyssey by Victor Bérard, dating from the 1920s and still available in particular in a bilingual edition from Belles Lettres, is, although beautiful, a little too marked, according to Barbara Cassin, by the positivist effort of its author obsessed by the coherence of an absent plan of the original. She certainly recognizes this charm that is both old-fashioned and timeless which makes it a classic, like a Chanel No. 5. With The Odyssey at the Louvrethe philosopher and philologist does not so much offer us a new French version of the Homeric text as she invites us to read it differently – namely, as “a graphic novel”. Invited by the “Chair of the Louvre”, a cycle of conferences by renowned researchers in archeology and Art history linked to the museum’s collections, Barbara Cassin delivers here her poetic and philosophical reading of the tribulations of the king of Ithaca through the Greek vases from the Campana gallery at the Louvre. This collection of antiques from the eponymous Italian marquis, acquired by Napoleon III, embodies the kairosthis “opportune moment”, for the Hellenist badge – a sort of gateway to the Louvre. Barbara Cassin was not content to deploy her interpretation ofOdyssey through the prism of the iconography of these ceramics where red or black figures from the said collection evolve. As a thinker of language and through languages, and considering the museum as a language, the philosopher has woven her thoughts by running the shuttle of her ideas far and wide: “It undoubtedly takes more than one museum today to be a “museum” itself, a museum because it is in relation to other museums. […] So I chose to walk not only inside the Louvre […]. But also everywhere outside in museums around the world. It will be a walk through space and time. » Here it is Crater of the Pretenders (around 330 BC), attributed to the painter of Ixion, exhibited at the Louvre, where the candidates for the hand of Penelope move in emulatory promiscuity; there it is Aristotle contemplating the bust of Homer by Rembrandt, hanging in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which marvelously illustrates “the porosity of genres, between poet, philosopher and conqueror”.
With Barbara Cassin at the helm, we are embarked (in addition to the aesthetic pleasure for the compass) on an itinerary to Cape Clear. Thus follow the episodes of the hero with a thousand tricks: at Calypso, in the underworld, with the Cyclops, facing the sirens, meeting Nausicaa, and finally finding the faithful Penelope at the end of her journey. And, in turn, to address the themes of mortality, nomination, word and discourse, recognition… So many steps allowing us to progress in thought, to try to restore the delineaments of the face of Ulysses and to define his identity.
Barbara Cassin
The Odyssey at the Louvre. A graphic novel
Flammarion
Edition: 5,000 copies.
Price: €34.90; 264 pp.
ISBN: 9782080462411
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