Andrew's Wiki
Lotos Eaters

Content

• The travelers don’t resist the lure of the lotos, so they end up staying with the lotos-eaters, not going home
  • It seems like a tale of poor sad people being overcome by a drug like opium, but truly is it any different from what’s espoused in Ulysses? Both end up staying away from home and engaging in a world that stays the same (for Ulysses, constant action, but for Lotos Eaters, constant idleness)
• “A land where all things always seem’d the same!”
• Those affected by drug seem dead or asleep
  • They’re too tired to do the work to get home, to sail home: “we will no longer roam”
• So, superficially it’s the opposite of Ulysses (they will keep moving; or they won’t), but really I think it’s the same in view of home. Ie they just don’t want to go home. There’s a hidden dislike for England, that heroism doesn’t “go” with the hearth, just as Victorians see a problem of public v private
  • Now, the question is, will we ever WANT domestic?
  • How will we make the domestic palatable? Cf problem with superfluous women in England during Victorian era

Form

• It begins, “Courage!” even though it ends w/them being overcome
• Exotic words, elided vowels (border’d, thro’, linger’d)
• Lots of semicolons, exclamation points, exotic words for fun (galingale)