The idea of 'return' has thus exerted a centripetal force on the narrative so that return is a narrative ring-structure, representing a spatial journey-pattern by the protagonist(s), that has assimilated to itself complementary, cyclical and linear temporal processes. My central claim is that epic performance is a kind of time travel that involves both the internal characters and the external audience. 4 In what follows, I argue that the Odyssey involves just such a return, of the heroic age in linear time, and in two, complementary ways. But, I also suggested that the same pattern can be re-imagined in linear time as a return of the past, and specifically the heroic age. In the story of Persephone, the pattern of withdrawal, devastation, and return with renewal takes place in cyclical time. 3 In my analysis of ring-composition, I concluded that what began as a cognitive and functional pattern, organizing small-scale narrative structures, evolved into an aesthetic pattern, organizing large blocks of narrative, before finally becoming an ideological pattern, connecting the hero's return to the promise of renewal offered by fertility myth and cult. The first paper focused on a detailed comparison of the plots of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and the Odyssey 2 and the second on the relationship between withdrawal and return narratives and ring-composition. 1 The return of Odysseus thus heralds the return of prosperity to his kingdom in a manner functionally equivalent to the return of Persephone, and with her of life, to earth. In a recent pair of articles I argued that the Odyssey presents itself as the heroic analogue to, or even substitute for, fertility myth.
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