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The Hero’s Journey

English, via Old French, from Latin

exilium

Exile

exile

Banishment, and the place of banishment. Not a synonym for travel.

Etymology

Latin exilium / exsilium: banishment, the place of banishment. Related to exul, the banished person. Old French exil. Middle English exile. Word history is not the history of exile as a human condition.

Historical usage

Legal and political: Ovid’s relegatio, Roman aquae et ignis interdictio, later national exiles. The Odyssey’s wanderer is trying to end exile. Ovid cannot.

Later development

Edward Said’s Reflections on Exile and a large modern literature treat exile as a twentieth-century political condition. Use that literature for those centuries. Do not back-apply it as the secret meaning of every ancient departure.

Why it matters here

Exile, as a shape: departure without sanctioned return. Home may continue. The traveler may write toward it. The circle stays open.

Stories that hold this word

Relationship type is not optional

A word present in a source text is not the same as a later critical term applied to that story.

  • In the source text

    Ovid at Tomis

    Latin exilium, relegatio, the Tomis letters.

  • Historical context

    The Odyssey

    A wanderer trying to end exile, not a legal banishment like Ovid’s.

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