Bourdelle, Penelope Penelope is waiting for Odysseus to come back. She is not a widow, Odysseus’ death is unknown. She is not looking for a new husband. Yet, her house is full of suitors. She is not going back to her father to choose a new husband. Her status seems ominous. She is the Queen of the blameless Odysseus who is missing for ten years after the Trojan War. More… Read more
“The poetry of Virgil, I take it as a given, rivals that of Homer. Historically, Virgil the Classic even displaced Homer the Classic in the Latin culture of the Roman empire (though not in the Greek) – already in the age of Virgil. But the question is: what is it exactly about the poetry of Virgil that made it rival the poetry of Homer in the first place – not… Read more
Marbled head of a veiled woman (500BCE)Metropolitan Museum of Art Andromache is a fascinating woman. Following her different bedfellows or husbands, we learn about her life. Andromache appears in many texts, among them the Iliad, Euripides’ play Andromache, the Aeneid, and the French play Andromache written by Racine who offers another perspective about Andromache. Her name means battle of a man, from ἀνδρός of a man and μάχη battle. How come,… Read more
Terracotta funerary plaque (520–510BCE) This gallery displays different means of transportation used by the Ancient Greeks: chariots, horses, ships. Some pictures also show other ways of traveling in myths: dolphins and rams. The photographs were taken in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In this passage from the Odyssey, Homer compares ships to horses drawing a chariot. When they [= the Phaeacian seafarers] began rowing out to sea,… Read more
We were delighted to welcome Olga M. Davidson for an Open House discussion when she talked about why she began studying Homeric epic but went on to study the Shāhnāma of Ferdowsi and its poetic world. About her book Poet and Hero in the Persian Book of Kings: Olga M. Davidson argues that….whenever the Shāhnāma was performed by the poet or by later practitioners of his poetry, the performer could… Read more