French Literature Reviews - 2026

The Metamorphoses of Ulysses.
Comparative and World Literature

Just published:

Les Métamorphoses d'Ulysse. Réécritures de l'Odyssée, introduction and commentary by Agathe Entanaclaz, GF-Flammarion, "Étonnants classiques", 2003. 162 p.

Did the adventures of Ulysses truly end in Ithaca? Far from it. After ten years of war in Troy and ten years of wandering across the Mediterranean, the Greek hero embarked on another journey—the journey of literature. From Virgil to Joyce, from Dante to Kubrick, he has continuously inspired artists, making The Odyssey the most frequently rewritten text in Western culture. "Ulysses of a thousand wiles," as Homer called him, now invites us to follow him on a new odyssey of a thousand disguises and a thousand faces.

Anthology: Apollinaire, Aragon, Du Bellay, Boileau, Céline, Chateaubriand, Dante, Erasmus, Euripides, Fénelon, Gautier, Genette, Giono, Giraudoux, Homer, La Fontaine, La Motte, Mallarmé, Marivaux, Moravia, Queneau, Ronsard, Sainte-Maure, Scarron, Simon, Steiner, Virgil, Zola.

Introduction:
What can be rewritten?
Intertextual rewriting
Hypertextual rewriting
What is the purpose of rewriting?

Commentary:
Ulysses in cinema
Glossary
Index of characters.

The figure of Ulysses occupies a central place in the Western literary canon, serving as a foundational archetype for the themes of exile, homecoming, and the human condition. Since antiquity, the narrative of the Greek hero has been adapted across diverse genres and languages, reflecting shifting cultural priorities and aesthetic values. Readers interested in the evolution of classical motifs within literature may find this collection relevant.

Les Métamorphoses d'Ulysse. Réécritures de l'Odyssée, edited by Agathe Entanaclaz, includes an introduction on intertextual and hypertextual rewriting, as well as a commentary on Ulysses in cinema. The anthology gathers texts by various authors, including Dante, Du Bellay, and Giraudoux, and provides a glossary and an index of characters to assist in navigating these manifestations of the hero across different historical periods.