ABSTRACT
Odysseus’s narrative of his journey to Hades forms part of his bid to be remembered as a hero and to enhance his kleos (renown, glory). The heroic desire for kleos in Odyssey 11 reaches beyond the narrator, and is reflected in the concerns of those he meets. The dead also desire to be commemorated by the living, and an encounter with the living hero is a means by which they can achieve this.
Ursula Le Guin’s world of Earthsea adapts and transforms several ancient heroic tropes and ideals, including the idea of a katabatic journey to a land known only as the ‘dry land’ in the third book of Earthsea, The Farthest Shore. Ged undertakes a katabatic journey not out of a desire to be remembered, but as the fulfilment of a heroic quest to restore the balance of the living world. The journey, as well as the location and nature of the ‘dry land’ in Earthsea draw on and re-interpret Odysseus’s original narrative.
I examine how the ideas of katabasis and memory function differently within the two narratives. I focus on how Le Guin refracts and adapts the ancient Odyssean narrative to create a different type of heroic memory, one which employs late twentieth-century ideas of heroism, rather than ancient ideals. Thus, in contrast to Odysseus’s desire for kleos, Ged in Earthsea is forced to make a sacrifice which denies him the glory and honour of ancient kleos.
