Hosting beauty. Resignification of the guest and the host from the mythos of Helena

Abstract

This paper proposes a look at the dynamics of hospitality: migration, reception and encounter, based on some interpretative points suggested by the mythos of the most beautiful woman on earth, Helen of Troy, a character marked by abduction, uprooting and wandering. This dynamic of migration opens us to the recognition of certain characteristics defined by the symbolising mode of mythic language. Likewise, each encounter implies a "re-knowledge", a re-signification of the host already installed, but unveiled in the intramundane fact of the face to face. But, faced with the symbolic function of Helena, the first question that arises is: What about beauty? How does this reconfiguration of the meaning of the identity of the guest and the host take place in this mythical context? What relevance does the identity of the host Helena and the Helena-Beauty have?