Greek Myths: A New Retelling, with drawings by Chris Ofili

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The vast portions of their lives women spent weaving are ubiquitously reflected in ancient mythology. Occasionally, we hear what pictures they created – Helen at Troy weaves scenes from the very war she is said to have caused – but more often we do not. Higgins describes how, when Penelope must finally complete the shroud for her father-in-law, Laertes – a fabric with “a design as intricate as her own involved, withheld mind” – she folds it up and puts it away. The design we want to hear described is left cleverly untold. It will “remain a secret, now, between her and Laertes’ corpse”.

At the same time, I can see flaws of my state—both in history and current events—that disturb and sadden me. As an example, and to generalize a bit, the traits of “traditional” masculinity are still highly valued here: stoicism rather than emotion, strength and action over vulnerability and thoughtfulness, and violence as a way to restore honor. In my novel, I found myself grappling with the ways those traits add even more of a burden on the women adjacent to those types of men. The Guardian’s chief culture writer, classicist Charlotte Higgins, leads this fascinating tour through the Greek myths, from the stories of Homer’s epic poems and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, to representations in theatre, pottery, mosaics and more. You will discover how these ancient stories of bravery, tragedy, love and treachery continue to influence contemporary society. Resources for further exploration will be suggested. Recounting Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the Trojan War of in The Iliad, The Odyssey, Homer’s Hymns, and so much more, I thoroughly enjoyed having a woman’s perspective on these stories. I think my favorite of all may have been Penelope’s narrative. What a way to revisit The Odyssey and turning her loyalty to Odysseus into something more authentic and powerful.

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Higgins began her career in journalism on Vogue magazine in 1995 and moved to the Guardian in 1997, for which she has served as classical music editor and arts correspondent. So: tapestries. As you point out, my stories are told as if they are descriptions of elaborate textiles woven by female characters. I’m following in the footsteps of classical literature: authors from Homer to Catullus and Virgil used a technique known as ekphrasis, in which descriptions of artworks are drawn out at length, gaining their own narrative force. There’s a long poem by Catullus, for example, whose entire central central section—threatening to take over the whole poem, in fact—is a description of the coverlet on a marriage bed, decorated with scenes that tell the story of Theseus and Ariadne. What we think of as “the Greek myths” are the stories we find in the poetry, plays and prose of the ancient Greeks and Romans – a world also animated by an extraordinary surviving visual culture including ceramics, sculpture and frescoes. These myths deal with a long-lost past in which the worlds of immortals and humans overlap, and in which some exceptional humans can become almost divine. It is from this vast, contradictory, extraordinarily variegated body of literature that the tales in my new book are taken. What I did expect from this book was a slightly more academic retelling of the myths and I did expect there to be a more feminist perspective on the stories, especially when you look at the table of contents and the chapters are all named after women in the mythology. Gain a foundational understanding of the meaning of myth, in this interactive masterclass with one of the leading modern voices in culture. This course is for …

I also especially loved seeing Penelope’s chapter to finish off this book. Enjoyed how the author captured Penelope not as “the loyal one” (her epithet) but as someone who was simmering in anger, rage and grief hearing of Odysseus’ affairs, as well as her uncertainty and distrust of him when he comes home- I also immensely loved Penelope’s lamentation of the goddess Athena.

Inspired by the ancient world’s favourite literary technique of ekphrasis – not only describing a static tableau but telling a story that moves through time via a description of an artwork – she uses the personae of her weavers to add psychological depth, emotional clout and sometimes philosophical profundity to dozens of embedded narratives. Weaving was a metaphor at the heart of ancient metaphysics, since the Fates measure out and cut off the threads of human life itself. Arachne, the victim of Athena’s pride and self-love, depicts stories of gods committing injustices against humans; Philomela, raped and mutilated by her own brother-in-law, weaves tales of individuals damaged by sexual desire.