In his ironic comparisons with the Homeric tradition, Ovid offers some
subtle analysis of the difference between exile and adventure in literary
tradition. Recognizing the fact that life works in mysterious ways, he
only wishes to “contrive the right / endings for everybody as the literary
tradition, / teasing us, offers” (Slavitt 16). Homer’s Ulysses is a hero, with
“heroic endurance,” but Homer makes it clear that there is a homecoming:
“Ithaca waited.” As for Ovid himself:
I’m no hero,
and my lot is worse than his: he was going home,
while I have fled mine; he was a warrior,
while I am a gentle soul, used to the comforts of life;
he could rely on his own strenuous efforts,
while I must complain to my wife and hope that a few friends
may speak in my behalf.
(Slavitt 16)The epical or the mythical and the real are two different worlds, and poets in
exile do not confuse the two, as their difference can be overlooked only at
one’s peril. The Palestinian poet Ma.mnd Darwlsh knows as much, too, and
hence he also says:
I sang to measure the loss
In the pigeon’s agony,
not to elucidate what God says to humans,
I am not a prophet to claim inspiration
and to proclaim my descent as ascent.^49On occasion, exile involves further complications. As lands and people are
taken, controlled, or colonized, identity formation becomes traumatic. Poets
who find themselves with conflicting senses of belonging and attachments
end up with an overwhelming sense of rupture as they survive in-between and
are unable to attain certainty or comfort. Rena N. Potok reads in this vein the
poetry of the Druze Palestinian Naim Araidi, the Israeli citizen: “I came
back to the village / as one who flies from civilization / and appeared at the
village / as one who comes from exile to exile.”^50 Such an experience is no less
complicated than the juxtaposition between the host culture and the hope for
return. Because the latter is desperately woven into the web of memories,
there is the lurking recognition that new settlements are the ultimate refuge.
As the editors of Borders, Exiles, Diasporasargue, “... the voyager who has
tasted the pleasures and displeasures of exile is unable to steer the ship back
home” (Barkan et al. 2). Although a few succeeded, unfortunately many
failed. Return brought about dismay to such well-known literary figures as
the late Iraqi poet M. M. al-Jawmhirl(d. 1998). Returning from Prague in
ENVISIONING EXILE