E X T E N S I O N THE JOURNEY IN LITERATURE The origins The theme of the journey has been present in literature since ancient times. Homer s Odyssey narrates the adventures of Ulysses, sailing around the Mediterranean on his way back to Ithaca. He has to face many difficulties and dangers, but discovers and experiences previously unknown realities in his wanderings. In an AngloSaxon elegy, The Seafarer1 (10th century A.D.), a man laments the hardship of life at sea. In the end, Ulysses and the Sirens (H. Draper, 1909). however, he confesses that he prefers a life of perpetual motion and the transience2 of the moment to a secure and comfortable life on land. The journey has always been associated with something beyond physical travelling. It can be a quest3 for something material or spiritual, or it is urged by man s need to enlarge his knowledge of the world or of himself. In Western culture, Ulysses has become the symbol of a man who cannot stop learning, as we can see in Dante s Inferno and in Alfred Tennyson s dramatic monologue Ulysses (1842). From the Middle Ages to the 17th century During the Middle Ages the theme of the journey is mainly connected to the figure of the wandering knight 4, offering his services to some noble cause. But we also find another kind of journey: the devotional pilgrimage. It is the case of Geoffrey Chaucer s Canterbury Tales (ca. 1390), where the author uses a pilgrimage to the shrine5 of Saint Thomas Beckett in Canterbury as a frame for his work. This enables6 1. Seafarer: sailor. 2. transience: the state of not being permanent. 3. quest: search. 4. wandering knight: a knight who travels from place to place to fight for a good cause. 5. shrine: holy place or tomb. 6. enable: give the opportunity. 92