The Shores of Aphrodite’s Island

Abstract

Cyprus’s mythical aspect is well-established. Its praises as cradle of the goddess of love have been sung from Homer to Lawrence Durrell (at least), making clear Bertrand Westphal’s statement that, if “few human spaces are left untouched by literature, no Mediterranean place is so.”¹ On the maritime road to Jerusalem, its very position on the articulation of Occident and Orient (where, as Voltaire put it, “Europe ends and Asia begins”) activates un imaginaire du lieu, reminding us of the Greek eschatological idea of the limits of the known world. History came to reinforce this idea, as the island was lost to the Ottomans in 1572, after the Battle of Lepanto saw the victory of the Holy League over the Ottoman Empire. With fewer pilgrims going east and not being one of the most economically attractive places of the eastern Mediterranean, the island of Cyprus did not attract many travelers. It was seen as a contingent stop on the road to the Middle East and the East. In this particular context, it seems crucial to examine the views of Western travelers about the island as its various representations turn it into an ideological space in a time when a new conception of space slowly permeates our mentality thanks to the development of travel writing.²