Volume 4,Issue 1
From Returning Home to Returning to the Way:Comparative Philosophy of Odyssey and Li Sao
Centered on Homer's Odyssey and Qu Yuan's Li Sao, this study reinterprets the "return" motif through a philosophical comparative lens, examining its divergent conceptual frameworks and value systems in Chinese and Western traditions. The Odyssey employs the narrative core of nostos (return) to depict heroes maintaining direction amidst temptation, violence, and contingency. Through the "recognition-acknowledgment" mechanism, it restores subject identity and ultimately legitimizes return by clearing transgressors and reconstructing familial-state order. Here, return signifies not merely spatial reintegration but a comprehensive event of identity restoration and social order repair, presupposing the reality's "restorable" habitability. Li Sao elevates return to "returning to the Way" in contexts of exile and disorder: when political communities lose legitimacy, spatial return becomes invalid. Subjects can only preserve integrity through normative inquiry ("seeking up and down") and moral steadfastness ("though dead nine times, I still do not regret"), presenting a tragic structure of "homeless return." This reveals the philosophical divergence and complementary value between "return" and "returning to the Way."
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