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lucy is reading's Reviews > Mythica: A New History of Homer’s World, Through the Women Written Out of It
Mythica: A New History of Homer’s World, Through the Women Written Out of It
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A fascinating and incredibly well researched look into how Bronze Age women lived, loved, and died.
Each chapters contains a singular character from either the Iliad or Odyssey (sometimes from both), and dives into the historical basis of the character. It’s such an interesting way to study the Bronze Age, combining archaeological evidence with translated poetry. I really enjoyed unpicking the reality of women’s lives in this period, both the good and the bad.
I particularly loved reading about each women’s historical context in a very engaging and interesting way. By looking at what we actually know about Bronze Age women, and applying it to the mythical women in Homer, I had a much better understanding of why Homer’s poems would have been so important to ancient audiences. It also interesting to read about how misused these epics are in more modern study for people’s own agendas (as I didn’t study classics at university).
This book is not just challenging the masculine version of Homer, but of the Hellenic-only version too. In these chapters, Hauser looks past prior western readings of Homer to look at true multicultural bonds between ancient societies. Hauser dives into how connected societies were, and how women had similar experiences, no matter their home country.
It’s always so hard to retrace the steps of women past, but it’s incredibly important to do this because it can really change how the historical narrative is influenced and changed by those that dictated it before hand.
Thank you to the publishers for this arc. All thoughts are my own.
Publishes; 17th April
Each chapters contains a singular character from either the Iliad or Odyssey (sometimes from both), and dives into the historical basis of the character. It’s such an interesting way to study the Bronze Age, combining archaeological evidence with translated poetry. I really enjoyed unpicking the reality of women’s lives in this period, both the good and the bad.
I particularly loved reading about each women’s historical context in a very engaging and interesting way. By looking at what we actually know about Bronze Age women, and applying it to the mythical women in Homer, I had a much better understanding of why Homer’s poems would have been so important to ancient audiences. It also interesting to read about how misused these epics are in more modern study for people’s own agendas (as I didn’t study classics at university).
This book is not just challenging the masculine version of Homer, but of the Hellenic-only version too. In these chapters, Hauser looks past prior western readings of Homer to look at true multicultural bonds between ancient societies. Hauser dives into how connected societies were, and how women had similar experiences, no matter their home country.
It’s always so hard to retrace the steps of women past, but it’s incredibly important to do this because it can really change how the historical narrative is influenced and changed by those that dictated it before hand.
Thank you to the publishers for this arc. All thoughts are my own.
Publishes; 17th April
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