13 - Women in Homer and Beyond

Summary

This chapter investigates the roles and the relevance of women in Greek epic, and argues that the tradition developed in Homeric epic has intense and complicated relevance to the later development of the tradition. Hauser shows that looking back to gender, and women, in Homer is as important now as ever. She surveys key moments in the Iliad and Odyssey featuring women; female characters like Helen and Penelope are examined first in their own right and then in their engagement with (and against) men, to illuminate the gender roles and the complex dynamics of womanhood and the feminine in the epics. Hauser ends by looking forward to the reception of Homer’s women in recent novelistic reworkings from Madeline Miller to Margaret Atwood, showing how Homer’s women are taking centre stage in contemporary classical receptions by women, a prominence which demonstrates their continuing relevance.