Episode 19: The Last Voyage (Part 1)

With its twenty-four cantos, “The Last Voyage” is the longest poem in the Conviviali collection. Pascoli imagines Odysseus in Ithaca, in his old age, after many peaceful years as king of the island. Odysseus, however, wants to relive his youth and see the places he stopped by during his perilous voyage back from Troy, as told in the Odyssey.  In this episode, we will listen to the first fourteen cantos of the poem.

In this episode, Elena Borelli discusses the figure of Odysseus/ Ulysses with Francesca Schironi. The  poem starts at minute 9.57.

From Giovanni Pascoli, Convivial Poems, translated by Robert Nugent and Egidio Lunardi, Painseville; Lake Erie College Press, 1979; from Giovanni Pascoli. Last Dream, translated by Geoffrey Brock, World Poetry Press, 2019; from Convivial Poems, translated by Elena Borelli & James Ackhurst. New York: Italica Press, 2022. Copyright 2022 by Elena Borelli & James Ackhurst. Used by permission of Italica Press.