For someone who loved Natalie Haynes’ A Thousand Ships, reading Madeline Miller's The Song of Achilles was a logical next step. Rather than focusing on the unseen and unheard women of the story, The Song of Achilles takes the relationship between the hero Achilles and his male companion Patroclus as its central focus, interpreting their relationship as a romantic one and following it from when they meet through to when they part. My students have been waxing lyrical about it – it has even inspired a student who doesn't take any classical subjects at A Level to write an EPQ on whether retellings like this dilute Homer's original. Simply put, I was not disappointed.
The title initially appears deceptive; the story of Achilles is in fact told in the first person through the eyes of his companion Patroclus. This is a nice piece of Ovid-esque misdirection and puts the reader off-balance immediately when the curtain rises on Patroclus in his father's palace, especially when he describes himself on the first page as a ‘disappointment’. It is made more effective by the fact that his name is not mentioned until page 20, after Patroclus has accidentally killed a boy, although we are aware from page 5 that Achilles is a separate entity to our mysterious, hitherto nameless, narrator.
It is immediately clear that this is far more than a retelling of the Iliad; it is wide-ranging, both in time frame and geographical location. It could be argued that this broader focus detracts from the storyline, but I appreciated the deviation from the narrow time confines of the Iliad to explore, for example, the story of Achilles on Skyros (told by later authors such as the Roman poet Statius in his Achilleid) where he is hidden as a woman to prevent him being called up to fight. While students might struggle to discern where Homer's story ends and Miller's (or indeed Statius’) story starts in this section of the text, the sympathetic and human portrayal of these characters ultimately brings the story to life in ways in which more formal translations of the Iliad can struggle to.
While I would not hesitate to recommend this work to A Level students, I would question its suitability for younger years, especially KS3, as there are fairly explicit scenes of a sexual nature. It neatly complements students’ studies on the World of the Hero for A Level Classical Civilisation and provides a way to stretch and challenge A Level Latin students as an accessible teaser of epic poetry beyond Virgil.
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