Seaward: The Sound of Eros and an Athenian Avenue to the Aegean
Abstract
Τhe present paper deals with the imaginary relation of ancient and modern Athens with the sea. Using the material trace on the urban space, the road axis from the center towards the seafront, the paper focuses on the human body of the resident, and more specifically, its connection to the desire, to the pleasure and catharsis, which sea water symbolically entails. Seawards is no more than the construction of a brief, anthropological soundscape for this desire, using the sound of the music created to accompany the imaginary descent to the sea. As a method it ties together myths, poetry and popular music to create a polyphonic paradigm replete with emotions and atmospheres.
The paper is structured through different episodes related to the history of the city’s connection to the sea. The ancient episodes include first the mythic battle of Athena and Poseidon and its traces on Athenian acropolis, the ancient ritual of the Eleusinean mysteries ἅλαδεμύσται (“Seaward, initiates”), where crowds of people were descending from Athens to the sea in order to be washed and purified, and Plato’s preamble to the Symposion. The modern episodes take the way of Syngrou Avenue, the wide and straight thoroughfare connecting Athens with Phaleron, completed in the 1930’s. Heeding the call to write on erotic desire as following an Avenue towards the sea, George Seferis has left three poems related to Syngrou: Syngrou Avenue (1930), Syngrou Avenue II (1935), and A Word about Summer (1936). The poetic discourse of Seferis about the Syngrou Avenue overshadows the contemporary discourse of the margin, the songs by rembetes, which relish the sea physically without any ethical dilemma.
A kind of controversy is valid for all the episodes: a strong longing desire and a mourning are detected. The sea functions as a collective unconscious that encompasses the desire for the impossible.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish in this journal retain copyright and are required to grant a licence to the journal to allow distribution and reuse, as described in the following agreement.
Author’s grant of rights (Licence to publish):
The author grants to the Montreal Architectural Review the following:
1. An irrevocable non-exclusive right to reproduce, republish, transmit, distribute, and otherwise use the Work in electronic and print editions of the Journal and in derivative works throughout the world, in all languages, and in all media now known or later developed.
2. An irrevocable non-exclusive right to create and store electronic archival copies of the Work, including the right to deposit the Work in open access digital repositories.
3. An irrevocable non-exclusive right to license others to reproduce, republish, transmit, and distribute the Work in both print and electronic form under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial [BY-NC] Licence
Author’s retained rights:
The Journal provides Open Access to scholarly work and applies the Creative Commons licence to ensure access and free use. This agreement means that copyright in the Work remains with the Author and the Author retains the right to reuse the article. Provided proper attribution is given and the use is non-commercial, authors are encouraged to use the article in the following ways:
- to deposit the published version in institutional repositories or on a personal website
- to republish in a thesis or book
- to present the article at a meeting or conference
- to use all or part of the article for lecture or classroom purposes.