Il canto delle sirene
2025
First Published
112
Number of Pages
Ulysses plugs his companions’ ears with soft wax and has himself tied to the ship’s mast so that he can enjoy the Sirens’ song without dying. However, the Sirens do not sing for him, nor do they want to seduce him: they sing for their own pleasure, “one to the other”. In a compelling comparison with Plato, Kafka, Brecht, Blanchot, Adorno and Eliot, Adriana Cavarero questions the traditional representation of the Sirens as primordial, bewitching and dangerous beings, rethinking these mythical figures as free subjects, women who sing for themselves, enjoying their own voices and music as a shared experience that escapes the rigidity of logos. Opposing the Homeric paradigm of the cunning and victorious hero – who, according to some 20th-century interpretations, has become a ridiculous little man – with a vision in which the female voice is harmonious and plural, Cavarero offers a novel and subversive interpretation of a millennial myth, capable of restoring to the Sirens the still unsolved mystery of their singing power.
