Dear Professor, elsewhere you mentioned teaching Miller, Barker and Atwood and I was wondering if you could expand a little on your thoughts on their respective retellings.
QUEERING AND FEMINIZING HOMER: MILLER, BARKER & ATWOOD
For my âAncient Greece in Modern Historical Fictionâ course, I assigned three texts that all dealt with the Homeric poems, in order to examine how ancient myth can be reappropriated for modern audiences. These were Madeline Millerâs The Song of Achilles, Pat Barkerâs The Silence of the Girls, and Margaret Atwoodâs The Penelopiad.
There are a lot, and I do mean a lot of retellings of the Iliad or Odyssey. Some, maybe most, do so in a straightforward way, treating the myth like an historical novel. They may try to resituate it in another head, like Helenâs, or Hektorâs, or even Parisâs. But they donât, otherwise, change much. If anything, they attempt to eliminate the fantastical elements (like gods) and play the story as if it really happened.
Yet the nature of myths makes them different from historical fiction. The latter, for me, has a much higher bar for detail accuracy. A myth begins as fiction, so while I do appreciate various renditions attempting historical accuracy, I donât see it as essential to a good retelling. And the three novels I chose mostly donât track in that direction; all retain gods and heroes and at least the patina of the magical.
Part of why Iâm less concerned with historical accuracy owes to the fact Homer* wasnât. Itâs hard to have accuracy when the original text was all-over-the-place.
Homer wrote a stunning piece of war fiction in terms of its impact on a soldierâs psyche. But itâs crap historical fiction. Letâs just put that out there at the start. Imagine putting Al Capone and 1920s gangsters in Elizabethan England, or maybe, Queen Elizabeth in 1920s southside Chicago. Thatâs the time and cultural differential. Heâs theoretically writing about events at the tail end of the Bronze Age (c. 1200-1100), but the social structure reflects the Late Iron Age (c. 750-650).
Another point of clarification: the Iliad and Odyssey are about fictional people. There was no Agamemnon, Achilles, Priam, Hektor, or Helen. The Trojan War probably did happenâbut not for the reasons or in the way the story relates. Itâs a bit like Saving Private Ryan: WW II certainly happened, but Private Ryan is Everyman Lost.
Last, the basic plots of the Iliad and the Odyssey were not invented by Homer. These were well-known epic stories. Homerâs brilliance lay in what he did with them. Ergo, itâs more correct to speak of Homer as the composer of the Iliad and Odyssey, than the author/writer.
Therefore, what Iâm looking for in modern retellings is what a MODERN author does with the same story. How does she or he use these familiar stories to talk about our present ageâŠwhich is what Homer did himself, after all.
Iâve talked elsewhere about some issues I have with Millerâs Song of Achilles, but as is probably evident from what I said above, I have absolutely zero problems with her queering the tale. What I find more interesting is how her adaptation of Achilles and Patroklos as lovers speaks to our modern world and modern needs.
Any retelling of the Iliad today will run up against the brick wall of ancient values that were very differentâand often rather repugnantâto modern readers. To ancient minds, Achilles was a HERO. Admirable. Worthy of emulation. To modern readers heâs, well, kind of a dick. And a butcher.
Iâd submit that Homer meant him to be a jerk, too. Part of Homerâs lasting value is his ability to take a cultural hero and finesse him until heâs maybe not so hero-ish, but still comprehensible in his actions to listeners who had, themselves, experienced combat. Ergo, Homerâs Iliad still has something to say today to Vietnam Vets (as per Jonathan Shayâs brilliant Achilles in Vietnam). But most modern readers are not going to like the guy. He has a terrible temper, throws fits when thwarted, and is repeatedly described as âman-killingâ like itâs a compliment.
So as a modern author with a modern audience, how do you redeem him? (If you redeem him; not all authors choose to.)
Miller turned the Iliad into a love story to make Achilles more likeable. We see him painted by Patroklosâs adoration. In both Millerâs retelling and Homerâs original, Patroklos is depicted as empathic in a way modern readers can get behind, so heâs a good choice of point-of-view character. Yet although he comes off as your basic ânice guy,â in the original he is also a skilled warrior who kills a lot of people. Miller deliberately ignores this, making him a healer, not a fighter.
Like her casting of Thetis as a bitch, I have issues with her decision to avoid dealing with the more brutal parts of Homerâs epic by eliding it. ThatâsâŠcheating? And why I remain less-than-impressed with it as a retooling of the original epic. Sheâs buffed off all the ugly rather than confronting it. It winds up feeling like a puff piece. Not all that serious.
Why it does succeed owes not to the fact itâs a love story, but a queer love story. In antiquity, Achilles was a prince (as was Patroklos): the elite of the elite, the ruling class and conquering heroes. They were, in no way, an oppressed minority. A âsubalternâ group.
Yet today, queer people are a subaltern population, although people in the queer community enjoy differing degrees of social acceptance. A black or brown trans woman experiences a great deal more oppression than a white gay guy. Yet public acceptance of queerness in any form is relatively recent, as in, something Iâve seen occur in my lifetime. And of course, now itâs being pushed back against.
So to have heroes who did occupy the ruling class and didnât have to apologize for who they loved is important. If Achilles is a dick, well, heâs a gay dick (pun intended), and pretty, so weâll slip him a pass.
Is that wrong? Iâm of mixed mind. Homer doesnât have a copyright on Achilles. Or Patroklos. Just as he used Achilles and Hektor and Priam to his own ends, so does Miller. But Iâm bothered by her ducking of the fundamental violence of the Iliad. Homer doesnât, and it makes his the superior story, in my opinion. Grief (and rage) make Achilles into a monster. Empathy redeems himâŠbut itâs not empathy for Patroklos. In fact, his inability to empathize with Patroklosâs own grief gets his friend killed. Homer doesnât sugar-coat that.
No, itâs empathy for the enemyâfor Priam, when Priam evokes the grief Achillesâs own father will feelâthat finally gets through to him. It re-humanizes him. He and Priam cry together.
See what Homer did there? Thatâs why the poem is still read c.2700 years after it was composed. On certain levels, itâs timeless. By contrast, Millerâs rendering is time-/situation-dependent. It succeeds now. It wouldnât have succeeded 50 years ago, if it had even got published, and Iâm not sure itâll be as relevant 50 years in the future. Thatâs not a condemnation. Sometimes books become important when theyâre needed.
Yet, as I have issues with her ducking the storyâs inherent violence, I also have issues with her handling of Thetis as one of only two prominent women in the novel. Again, thereâs no copyright on Thetis, but in Greek myth, sheâs not a cold bitchâin fact, sheâs rather the opposite. So, while I think Millerâs queering of the Iliad had positive current social coin, her vilifying of Thetis played into negative tropes about women (and mothers) that I didnât at all like.
These are things I invite my students to wrestle with, when we talk about The Song of Achilles.
Btw, I sometimes see Miller grouped with Barker and Haynes and Atwood as âfeministâ retellings of the Iliad. In no way is her book a feminist retelling. A queer retelling, but not a feminist one.
Letâs turn then to Barker. The very title of Barkerâs book gives us a hint of what she wants to accomplish. The Silence of the Girls recasts the myth as Briseisâs story, Achillesâs war prize. Barkerâs is one in a line of attempts to present the Iliad from a womanâs point of view, which goes back at least to Marion Zimmer Bradlyâs 1987 Firebrand. Just as June Rachuy Brindel told Ariadneâs story (and Phaedraâs too) from a feminist perspective 40 years before Jennifer Saint (and was nominated for a Pulitzer). Another, more recent approach to this was Natalie Haynesâs A Thousand Ships, published just a year after Barker.
[A point: two books published a year apart do not owe to each other. It takes years to write, then publish a novel. But they may reflect current publishing perceptions of market interest.]
Barker makes a concerted effort to take a feminist look at the myth by centering Briseis as the narratorâŠbut only for the first part. By part two, Achilles elbows his way in. Suddenly, itâs no longer Briseisâs story once sheâs carted off to Agamemnonâs tent. It seems that Barker just couldnât unhook entirely from centering Achilles, even if heâs more anti-hero.
We can consider this several ways. Itâs possible that she didnât want Achilles to be as simplistic as Briseis saw him, and therefore needed to get out of Briseisâs head in order to suggest more nuance. Itâs also possible that she really does mean her title, The Silence of the Girls, and so silences the girl narrator when handed off to Agamemnon.
I have problems with both readings. First, the need to cast Achilles as more complex than Briseis wants to read him moves the needle away from the female/feminist perspective. Why should it be necessary to give Achilles depth if itâs Briseisâs story weâre telling? Unless she eventually comes to see depth in himâŠin which case, show us how she comes to that conclusion.
And if she really wanted to âsilenceâ the girl when she became a slave, silence her THEN, not just when she moves residence. Sheâs no more a slave under Agamemnon than under Achilles. She might lack Patroklosâs support and semi-understanding, but her basic situation has not changed enough to justify a significant change in narrator.
To me, it just seems that Achilles sucked up all the air in the room, as heâs wont to do. He took over her story because Barker let him. Itâs still a male-centric view.
This may have happened because Barker, like Miller, didnât know enough history of the period to thoroughly reimagine the story sheâs telling. In this respect, a little more historical accuracyâif not necessaryâmay have been helpful. How? By recentering the story not only on the female voice(s), but also on non-Mycenaean/Greek voices. Her opening was incredibly interesting, and could have had much more done with it. Marauding Greeks raze her town and take her captive. She comes from a satellite kingdom of the rich and powerful city of Wilusa (Troy), part of the Arzawa confederacy, itself a sometime-tribute group of the even more powerful Hittite Empire. The Mycenaeans are essentially pirates, hated by Hitties (and their allies?). It might have given Barker a two-pronged way to anchor her narrative more solidly: non-male AND non-Greek.
As noted, attempts at historical situating isnât required. But Barkerâs take ended up bogged down by the original Greek-centric view. She wanted to un-silence the girls, but unfortunately, by my reading, she only continued Achillesâs dominance.
So, I see both Millerâs and Barkerâs attempts as not quite succeedingâwhich is interesting in itself. The books are hardly failures, or they wouldnât have sold so many copies. And they do, in their own ways, take on Homer to resituate it for our era. But neither can quite get away from the historical value systems that make the Iliad problematic to modern readers.
Then we have Margaret Atwood, who takes us to school.
Folks, The Penelopiad is how you give voice to subaltern populations. For such a short book, it has wonderful layers.
First, this is not set in antiquity. Penelope tells her story from Hades, in the ânow,â because she wants to correct Homerâs presentation of her (even though Homerâs presentation is overall rather favorable). The tone is modern and discursive. Some find it annoying, but she chooses it for a reason. While the book is not a comedy (unless black), itâs full of intentional, sarcastic humor.
Thousands of years have passed since the events of the Iliad and Odyssey. Penelope remains in Hades, not choosing to be reborn, unlike most of her contemporaries, including her husbandâŠa nice nod to Platoâs Myth of Er where Odysseus is one of several souls who choose rebirth. I donât know if Atwood is familiar with the story, but itâs Atwood, so it wouldnât surprise me if she is. Itâs an âEaster Eggâ the average reader wonât get. Doesnât matter. Atwood litters her novel with allusions to Greek myth, drama, and philosophy, as well as modern anthropology and Classics. None of it is necessary to follow her tale, but the more you know, the more youâre going to get from it. And the harder youâll laugh (she spoofs Robert Gravesâ White Goddess).
Most of the narrative is Penelopeâs metafiction first-person account, but her chapters are broken up by a âchorusâ of her twelve maids, actual figures from the Odyssey, mostly unnamed. Atwood uses them exactly as a Greek chorus in a traditional tragedy (which is what sheâs writing). In Homer, the handmaids were traitorous little sluts, as ancient Greek men tended to see slaves, especially slave women. Atwood does something brilliant with them.
The Penelopiad lets women take over the narrative in a way Barker attempted but didnât quite manage. If the men, Odysseus, Telemechus, are present, Atwood never let them have a POV. Only Penelope or her maids narrate, and she sets those in tension. Like Briseis, Penelope is a member of the elite: a princess, then queen, however she presents herself in contrast to Helen. Sheâs a âpoor little rich girl.â The twelve maids are manifestly not.
As the story unfolds, Atwood cleverly reminds us of something deeply embedded in Homer: these characters LIE. Odysseus is a magnificent liar, and Penelope lets us know it. âBent-minded Odysseusâ is the typical way heâs described by Homer, and itâs meant as a compliment. Even today, in Greece, being âcleverâ is better than being âsmart.â Homerâs âbent-minded Penelopeâ is his match. He draws a sympathetic picture of her as Odysseusâs true partner, even if Odysseus entertains dalliances on the side. Of course, in that world, it was expected. Penelope is loyal, waiting at homeâŠnot unlike Penelope waiting in Hades here, never venturing out into new lives.
But we must remember: As Odysseus lies about his exploits and life, Penelope lies, too.
As we begin the book, the temptation for the readerâas Atwood intendsâis to take Penelopeâs account at face value. We may think weâre reading a novel that upends the narrative, centering female voices at last! But as the book continues, the chorus of maids presents us with a different tale, a different view. Then we reach the end and realize what Atwood has so cleverly done.
She truly decentered the narrative.
Sheâs not just telling Penelopeâs story. Sheâs also telling what happened to the slave women, the twelve maids, who were hanged by Odysseus and Telemachusâin the original epic because they betrayed their mistress/Ithaca by consorting with the suitors. Here, Penelope, whoâs just trying to survive, asks them to consort with the suitors to gain intelligence, and some are raped as a result. In the end, theyâre executed along with their âlovers.â And Penelope didnât step in to save them.
This is not just a Greek tragedy, but a horror story. Atwood reminds us that although Penelope may be less powerful than her husband, the King of Ithica, she is NOT truly disempowered. She is only half-subaltern. The maids, who are both women and slaves, are the truly disenfranchised. All they have in the world are their looks, and the protection of their mistressâŠwhich she doesnât give.
Most people reading the Odyssey never think about the hanged maidsâwhether it was a just punishment. It happens in the background; theyâre traitors like the suitors. But after reading Atwood, youâll never read that poem again and overlook them.
Atwoodâs novel is not romantic, not poetic, not inclined to have readers read and re-read it to get lost in the romance all over again (as with Millerâs). Itâs deeply disturbing. And itâs meant to be.
Of these three novels, this is the one that will still be read, and resonate, fifty years down the road. This is the retelling of Homer that actually manages to unseat the accepted narrative and makes us re-examine the story from the real flip-side.
This one actually âunsilencesâ the (twelve) girls.
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*Iâm not going to touch the question of whether there was a âHomer,â and if so, was it one or two people, a he or a she, etc. There is a veritable tsunami of writing about who âHomerâ may have been and the composition of these poems. Just be aware.
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