An epic battle on Homer's gender

The Australian ^ | July 03, 2006 | Dalya Alberge (The London Times)

[SunkenCiv]

Historian and linguist Andrew Dalby is challenging the accepted gender of one of the most influential writers of all time -- the poet who created the Greek epics The Iliad and The Odyssey in the seventh century BC. Dr Dalby said: "There is no direct evidence of the poet's identity and therefore no justification for the customary assumption that the two epics were composed by a man." Women have a long tradition worldwide as makers of oral literature, he said, citing Sappho, the best-known female poet of ancient Greece, and Enheduanna, the woman mentioned on a Sumerian tablet who thus became the first named poet in the world. Dr Dalby, whose study Rediscovering Homer will be published in September, said: "It is possible, even probable, that this poet was a woman. As a working hypothesis, this helps to explain certain features in which these epics are better -- more subtle, more complex, more universal -- than most others." ...Anthony Snodgrass, emeritus professor of classical archaeology at Cambridge University, said The Odyssey could have been written by a woman because it is about "a world at peace in general terms, with domesticity, fidelity ... endurance and determination rather than aggression". But he added: "The idea of a woman writing The Iliad and not being bored out of her mind by the endless fighting and killings is a bit more far-fetched." The issue, he said, lay in whether the same person wrote both poems. "Most of us now believe the same person did."

[Valpal1]

There is no direct evidence of the poet's identity and therefore no justification for the customary assumption that the two epics were composed by a man."

But

Women have a long tradition worldwide as makers of oral literature

Am I the only one that sees the contradiction here? Oral tradition identifies a blind male poet called Homer as the author, so I guess the traditional makers and keepers of oral tradition (women) got it wrong.

We're supposed to be in awe of the wisdom and amazing accuracy of oral tradition, except when the liberals want to rewrite it to fit the feminist agenda.

[Lurker]

You knew this was coming.

L

[Knitting A Conundrum]

I've read a good bit of Graves, but that's one I missed.

[nopardons]

Oh yes; that's a fine example! And then, there's MOLL FLANDERS for another.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Perhaps. But considering the time maybe not.

After all these were guys who were intent on forcing her into marriage and they were a direct threat to her children.

Why would having them slaughtered be so unfeminine?

[nopardons]

When I was very much younger, I read through almost ALL of Graves and spent some of my adulthood rereading him. I enjoyed HOMER'S DAUGHTER very much, when I read it, but don't know if I'd still.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Of all the tales in the world, the Oddyssey is one of my most favorite. I reread it every few years because it is one of the greats.

[SunkenCiv]

...anal sex between men and boys was commonplace and accepted...

[nopardons]

Child, one son, who was set to inherit the throne. And in those days, women, even queens, had NO say-so at all, in Greece.

It would REALLY be a man's "voice", because it would be a male, with dynastic sensibilities, re his son and his kingdom, who would have such concerns.

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, that seems a little goofy to me as well.

I guess no one has found it offensive that he mentions "women" and "oral tradition" in the same sentence. It's so sexist...

[SunkenCiv]

Doh!

[nopardons]

Likewise, it is also one of my favorites and I have reread it often, throughout my lifetime.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Because the setting is a guy arrangement. A female POV would have had the guy break into the room and carry her away to safety, not the detailed and careful and wonderful battle scene with Father and Son and faithful retainer whooping butt on the bad guys.

IMHO, of course, based on reading huge amounts of ancient and folk tale material....and lots of more modern stuff as well...

[JRios1968]

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Penelope, for example, is helpless to protect her estate from the guys who came over and ate up her goods every day, and again, even the powerful women in the Oddyssey are all Goddesses, firmly being controlled by the male Gods, and who pay heavy prices when trying to work around them.

Even Helen is mostly passive, the victim of a kidnapping, unable really to do much - she's a very ambivalent figure, more done to than doing.

Clytemnestra steps out of the mold with her murder of Agamemnon and is constantly compared to Penelope. And even Clytemnestra, in taking this action, can't rule in her own right...daughter of a king even so, but has to have Agamemnon's cousin to fulfil the kingly duties.

Cassandra, in many ways a tragic figure, tries to make her own way, but gets Apollo mad at her, and no one credits her for the truth she tells them, and still goes down to death at the hand of another woman because she refused to be what Apollo wanted her to be.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Indeed. But Penelope does have a say if only because her suitors wanted everything to appear legal and aboveboard. That she held out so long is proof of that. Her say may not have been a traditional kind of power but never the less it was still there.

She played them very skillfully.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Is Homer's Gender of any importance to anyone except Homer.

[Cyclopean Squid]

Robert Graves is horrendous. I, Claudius was feeble (it still makes me mad thinking about the libel perpetrated against Augustus and Livia).

[nopardons]

Exactly and that is why it was written/originated by a man and NOT a woman! Even in THE ODYSSEY, women, as was the fact in ancient Greece, have no power.

Circe is a witch, because she rules her domain and does so through magic, because otherwise, she has no power.

It is ridiculous for much later generations to speculate about who wrote ancient great works, using the perspective of their own times and completely disregarding the culture/manners of the time such works were written in.

[nopardons]

Not exactly...if she had had any power at all, she c ould have dislodged the damned freeloaders. Instead, all she did was keep unraveling her weaving and feeding and housing the "suiters" for years on end.