I have come to believe that my mind is put to far better use dreaming of the past than existing in the present or planning for the future. Ever since I was a child, my thoughts have dwelled in ancient civilizations or fictional tales, and I have made a life for myself in each and every one. But nonetheless, they are merely dreams, so I find it prudent to occupy my time with studying those stories and myths instead. That is where this particular story begins; as though it were the Book I of my own epic, here the Muse begins to sing---here I set sail, finding my way "home."
I first recall being introduced to Greek history and mythology in third grade. We learned of the city-states, the philosophers, the rulers, the great wars, and the greater heroes that arose from them, both in myth and in reality. In particular, I was always fascinated with the Trojan War in all of its tragic glory: then, Achilles had always seemed to me to be the greatest of heroes, Odysseus had always seemed the cleverest of men, and Helen always appeared to be a paradigm, an ideal for what a woman was supposed to be.
It was these fascinations that I pondered incessantly this summer, lounging in the grass in the morning light with a copy of The Song of Achilles resting in my lap. When first beginning my preliminary annotated bibliography, I was certain I wanted to select a topic for my research that would bring me joy, and the one subject that always came to mind was, of course, Ancient Greece---the history, the poetry, the philosophy, all of it. I had already been finalizing my college applications by late July, and at every school I applied to where it was available for study, I declared Classics as my major. So, I figured it might be a prudent decision to focus my research on a topic I would be able to continue studying in college, and one, of course, that I would thoroughly enjoy.
What intrigued me most about the study of classics was the languages, particularly in regards to epic poetry: I figured it would be extremely interesting to learn Ancient Greek and Latin because I wanted to read the stories I was so fascinated with in their original language. I read translations of Homer's two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, for the first time about two summers ago, and all I could think of was how the stories of the Trojan War and Odysseus's return to Ithaca might sound in harsh, lilting Greek. So, needless to say, the selection of my overarching topic was rather simple: I would study the Homeric epics.
But what about them? At first, I thought of Homer's heroes: Achilles, Odysseus, Agamemnon, and all the other renowned kings and princes that fought in the Trojan War. I was so enamored with each and every one of their thoughts and characters that I had originally resigned myself to tracing a certain trait from one to the next that constituted heroism, or analyzing historical connections to their mythical tales.
But soon, I recalled Helen. For so many of my childhood years, I believed her to be exactly what a woman should be, but now I feel I better understand her story: she was an ideal because she was beautiful, of course, but more so because she was self-deprecating, incessantly blaming herself for being the cause of the Trojan War. As Ruby Blondell, the professor of Classics at the University of Washington, explains in her article, Helen was taken to Troy not because it was her desire, but because Paris and Aphrodite desired her for her beauty—it was referred to as a seizure or an abduction. With such language, Helen was reduced to a victim and an object of desire for the men of both Troy and Greece. And Since Helen blames herself for the proceedings of the war, the men have no need to; Priam instead attributes the fault to the gods, enabling her to hold her value as a woman and compensate for her behavior via self-deprecation. Each and every one of those traits that Homer and his contemporary scholars espoused as ideal, therefore, was meant as a tool for subjugation, both millennia ago and today.
Scholars, such as P. Walcot and Leonard Moss, have suggested that the portrayal of women in the literature of Ancient Greece contributed greatly to the establishment of guidelines and values in later society intended to subjugate women, as men viewed them with fear and consternation. Not only that, but Marilyn Katz, a professor in the Classics Department at Wesleyan University, suggests that due to the fact that scholars now continue to study the same Ancient Greek texts---most of which, from histories to poems, are written by men---and have pondered the role of women in Ancient Athens since the eighteenth century, those stories and myths are supposed to have influenced contemporary discussions of women's role in society. The women of Ancient Greece were seen as second rate, as objects of beauty and sensuality that were expected to be simple; if they were not compliant with the customs that ruling men set, they were regarded as dangerous. Those beliefs, though ancient and cruel, pervade contemporary life like a disease, and more than anything, I fear what this world may become for women if others continue to blindly stifle their humanity and limit their place in it. So, I believed that if I could unveil the implicit misogynistic model employed to characterize women in the Homeric epics, it might contribute to the reconsideration of how ostensibly "ideal" the lives of the Homeric women are.
As autumn set in, this was where I stood. By early August, I had finished my summer work and was beginning my second annotated bibliography, though I was still unsure what methods I would employ to conduct my research and what translations I would select for analysis. I approached my first meeting in September rather timidly, expecting to be reproached for my endeavors to research a topic with such little substance, but one of my teachers instead approached me with an idea instead when I brought up the question of which translations to analyze. Recently, I had heard that the first English translation of the Iliad written by a woman was published, and upon mentioning that fact, he suggested that I compare a male-translated version of the Iliad and the Odyssey with the newly published female-translated versions in order to demonstrate how each portray women differently. The translations, after all, act as their own literary works: research and comparison suggests that each author attempts to situate themselves into contemporary scholarly conversation by writing in a distinct verse or selecting unique words or phrases to tell the same story. So, I then resigned myself to analyzing the disparities between male-translated and female-translated Homeric epics in regards to their portrayal of women; since then, I have felt that most everything has gone rather smoothly.
Following my first meeting, most of my class time was spent completing the various components of my research proposal: primarily, I focused on identifying my gap and selecting my methodology. I often found it difficult to balance my research with my other schoolwork, my job, and my health, even, so the time I received to work in class was really the only time I could devote utterly to my project; needless to say, pressure for time presented some difficulties in the autumn months. Now, though, I feel prepared. I believe that this epic journey of mine is well on its way to being properly weaved together.
Upon deciding to compare male-translated and female-translated versions of the Iliad and the Odyssey, the gap in existing research on the topic became wonderfully concrete. I elected to analyze the most recent translations written by each gender--- Robert Fagles's Iliad (1990) and Odyssey (1996) and Emily Wilson's Iliad (2023) and Odyssey (2018)---and as Emily Wilson's Iliad was published only last year, no research yet exists comparing her translations with those of other authors. Other male-authored English translations have been previously compared in regards to their use of verse, prose or poetry, and word choice---Robert Shorrock, for instance, compared six male-authored translations for verse, word usage, sociopolitical situation, and invocation of the muse in order to demonstrate the claim that translated works can indeed stand alone from their original texts---but no comparison has been drawn between male-authored and female-authored translations. Not only that, but a comprehensive analysis of the female characters across both the Iliad and the Odyssey has yet to have been conducted.
My methodology was slightly more complicated to organize, but it was after a discussion with a friend of mine that everything seemed to fall into place. I had originally been worried that selective qualitative analysis of each passage describing a female character would be tedious, extensive, and extremely biased. So, on a late-night drive through town, I brought up the use of a dictionary to define the adjectives employed to describe the characters, believing denotations would be more secure against bias than my own assumptions of the words' connotations. As it turns out, the use of a dictionary to define evaluative adjectives used to describe characters was employed in another study written by Lyudmyla Gryzhak regarding the portrayal of women in various Victorian era novels, so I suppose fate must have been in my favor. I plan to analyze each poem separately, beginning with Robert Fagles's Iliad, then reading Emily Wilson's Iliad, and then reading both Odysseys in the same order. In each poem, I will manually select each evaluative adjective---defined by Gryzhak as "ones that carry in their use an implication of a positive or negative attitude or evaluation on the part of the writer (beautiful, awful, etc.),". Then, in order to define and categorize each adjective, I intend to employ the Merriam-Webster dictionary, as it is the most widely used dictionary in the United States, and the Oxford Learner’s dictionary, as it includes etymology and is likewise easily accessible. In a spreadsheet split into four separate sheets (one per poem), I will be placing all of the evaluative adjectives employed to describe each woman in a positive, negative, or neutral category, as well as a subcategory pertaining to what the adjective was describing: general characterization, physical appearance, intellectual abilities, manner or behavior, emotional state/feelings, and decisions. Each female character will have a particular color assigned to her, and that color will be used to make note of the adjectives in the physical text as well. Hence, in data analysis, I will be able to demonstrate both quantitative and qualitative data, and though their remains potential for bias in the manual selection of adjectives, I will have significantly limited bias in their categorization due to my reliance on widely accepted denotations instead of personally founded connotations.
Each time I entered first period, I would put in my headphones, play a waltz or ballet of some sort, and work (albeit slowly, as I often do) to finish my proposal. September and October passed in this manner, and now even November has come and gone. I have since completed my proposal, my project has been approved, and I hope to begin my analysis by the onset of winter break.
I said once before that my mind is more well suited for dreaming of the past than expecting the future, and if my selection of a topic so well-situated among the grandeur of ancient civilization is not testament enough to that fact, I am unsure what else would be. And though civilization then was far from perfect---still reliant on subjective hierarchy and far from understanding the workings of the world---it seems to me that it remains that way. We continue to learn and adapt and relapse because history is pervasive throughout time, and often, we are forced to learn and relearn the same lessons over and over again. So, I have chosen to begin with the women of Homeric myth because I believe the lesson we have to learn from their lives and stories is far more evident than many elect to realize.
After all, all myths have foundation in reality. I hope only to unveil the machinations of those who weaved such ageless tales.
"Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed, Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles." - Robert Fagles, The Iliad