The Penelopiad

Recommended by Emily Wilson, and 1 others. See all reviews

Ranked #27 in Ancient Greece, Ranked #29 in Canadiansee more rankings.

Now that all the others have run out of air, it’s my turn to do a little story-making.

In Homer’s account in The Odyssey, Penelope—wife of Odysseus and cousin of the beautiful Helen of Troy—is portrayed as the quintessential faithful wife, her story a salutary lesson through the ages. Left alone for twenty years when Odysseus goes off to fight in the Trojan War after the abduction of Helen, Penelope manages, in the face of scandalous rumors, to maintain the kingdom of Ithaca, bring up her wayward son, and keep over a hundred suitors at bay, simultaneously. When Odysseus...

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Reviews and Recommendations

We've comprehensively compiled reviews of The Penelopiad from the world's leading experts.

Emily Wilson I really love the Penelopiad. It’s wonderful at bringing out some of what I already hinted was important in my work of a translator: teasing out the multiple perspectives, multiple voices, in this poem. I also love how it juxtaposes different styles and different voices. It has both ballad-like verse and prose intermixed, which is not what the Odyssey does, but I think it speaks to something which is in the Odyssey, about the mixture of different modes, different ways of seeing things. (Source)


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