Reach and Reunion in the Odyssey: An Enactive Narratology

Abstract:This article begins by analyzing the way in which reach and touch mark the achievement of Odysseus’s reunions and suggests a new way of conceptualizing Homeric desire and the protagonist’s need for fulfillment within a narrative through haptic action. It then turns to the ways in which the telos of reach, namely, touch, manifests in a gendered dynamic that pits the masculine grasp against the feminine caress of fingertips. It concludes by outlining the ways in which the very progression of the Homeric narrative, in both the Odyssey and Iliad, is conceptualized in terms of a reaching body.