182Hither Shore 6 (2009)The Legends of theTrojan Warin J.R.R. Tolkien Guglielmo Spirito (Assisi) In 1990, the Colombian Ministry of Culture set up a system of itinerant libraries to take books to the inhabitants of distant rural regions. For this purpose, carrier book bags with capacious pockets were transported on donkey’s backs up into the jungle and the sierra. Here the books were letfor several weeks in the hands of a teacher or village elder who became, de facto, the librarian in charge. Most of the books were technical works, agricultural handbooks and the like, but a few literary works were also included. According to one librarian, the books were always safely accounted for. ‘I know of a single instance in which a book was not returned’, she said. ‘We had taken, along with the usual practical titles, a Spanish translation of theIliad. When the time came to exchange the book, the villagers refused to give it back. We decided to make them a present of it, but asked them why they wished to keep that particular title. hey explained that Homer’s story relected their own: it told of a war- torn country in which mad gods mix with men and women who never know exactly what the ighting is about, or when they will be happy, or why they will be killed.’ (Manguel 6) Only someone who has sufered through war, injustice, misfortune, someone who has learned how far ‘the domination of force’ extends ‘and knows how notto respect it, is capable’, according to Simone Weil, ‘of love and justice’ (Manguel 222; Weil). ‘When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy / And blind oblivion swallowed cities up’– wrote Shakespeare – (Troilus and Cressida (III, 2, 197). Indeed, the city of Troy was lost, its location forgotten, faded into misty golden legends, alive only in memory trough literature and tales. In 1873, using the Iliadas his travel guide, Schliemann unearthed at Hisarlik the fabled city of Troy. From the 17th century on, readers had imagined that it was possible to ind ‘Priam’s six-gated city’, as Shakespeare called it. Once again it was easier to believe, with the words of Doris Lessing, that ‘Myth does not mean some- thing untrue, but a concentration of truth’ (Manguel 208). Troy in theIliadis both a city and an emblem for the story of a war whose beginning and end are not chronicled in the poem. It seems to be an everlasting conlict, providing a useful mirror for all future anguished centuries.he Legends of the Trojan War
Hither Shore 6 (2009)183 1. Status Quaestionis: ‘classic’ against ‘northern’? R aymond Queneau, in his Preface to Flaubert’sBouvard et Pécuchet, states that ‘every great work of literature is either theIliador theOdyssey’, a statement which goes far beyond homas Howard’s on C.S. Lewis’Till We have faces: ‘here is really no such thing as making up a whole new story in any event: we are told that there are only ten or a dozen possible plots in the whole world. Every narrative presents some variation on these few, basic patterns’ (Howard 207f). Perhaps it even goes beyond Jorge Luis Borges’ bold assertion inLos cuatro siclos, where he says that Four are the stories. One, the oldest, is that of a strong city whom valaint men surround and defend. he defenders know that the city will be given up to iron and ire and that their battle is useless… Centuries have being adding elements of magic… Other, linked with the irst, is that of a return…he third is that of a quest… We
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