Some Suggested Works for Final Project

N.B. Works marked with *** are particularly recommended. I encourage you to consider other, perhaps less directly inspired, works for your project as well.

Before you start working on a text, please inform me of your decision first.

HEBRON E. ADAMS. The burodyssey of H.O.M.E.R.  Reston, Va.: Foxon, 1994.  This is a clever spoof of the adventures of Odysseus as reflected in bureaucratic memos.***

 

HILDA DOOLITTLE ALDINGTON (H.D.). (1886-1961). American poet: Helen in Egypt,1961. A semi-dramatic lyric poem based on the legend that Helen did not go to Troy and including her sojourn with Achilles in the White Island. ***

 

MARGARET ATWOOD. Penelopiad (2005). In this sly updating of a famous Greek myth, Odysseus's wife, Penelope, gets to tell her version of events.***

 

STEPHEN VINCENT BENET (1898-1943) American author. His two Visions of Helen appeared in 1931; the First Vision of Helen deals with one of her early loves; the Last Vision of Helen, with her disappearance by merging with the Sphinx.

 

MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY. The Firebrand. 1987. New York: Pocket Books, 1991.  Kassandra narrates the Fall of Troy.

 

LINDA CARGILL. To follow the Goddess. Charlottesville, Va.: Cheops Books, 1991.  The story of Troy is told from Helen’s point of view.  She explains how she really wasn’t a bad woman after all.  Helen loved Menelaus, was seized by Paris against her will, and was held in Troy against her will because the Trojans believed her to be an incarnation of Inanna, the ancient Near-Eastern goddess of fertility.

 

ELIZABETH COOK. Achilles: A Novel. 2003. Picador. Cleaving closely to the Odyssey but embellishing her tale with sharply imagined creative flourishes, Cook navigates the rise and fall of the powerful Greek warrior Achilles, tragic hero of the Trojan War.***

 

MARGARET DRABBLE. The Seven Sisters. 2002. A lonely, middle-aged woman disillusioned with her life and wary about her future takes a class in Virgil. A series of misadventures and a minor miracle leads her to Naples, Tunis and Sicily, following the footsteps of Aeneas.

 

THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT (1888- ). English poet. His drama, Family Reunion, based rather distantly on the vengeance of Orestes, is set in contemporary England.

 

JOHN ERSKINE (1879-1951). American author: satiric novels, The Private Life of Helen of Troy,1925; Penelope's Man, 1928; Helen Retires, 1934.

 

PAUL FLEISHMAN. Dateline: Troy. Cambridge, Mass.: Candlewick, 1996.  This retelling of the story of the Trojan War for young people juxtaposes modern news clippings about contemporary wars and the events of the ancient war.

 

SARAH B. FRANKLIN. Daughter of Troy: A Novel of History, Valor, and Love. New York: Avon Books, 1998.  The author is Dave Duncan, writing under a pseudonym. Briseis narrates this well-researched story of the Fall of Troy, from her idyllic girlhood through her love affair with Achilles to her old age as a survivor of the war.

 

ADELE GERAS. 2002. Troy. Harcourt Paperbacks.  Adele Geras, best known for her trilogy based on Sleeping Beauty, takes on the seemingly impertinent task of retelling the siege of Troy as a young adult novel, but manages to carry it off without trivializing the original. The great battles of the bronze-clad warriors and the clashes between Achilles and Hector and Odysseus are seen at a distance from the walls of the city, where the Trojan townsfolk gather to sit each day and cheer the action like spectators at some archaic football game.

 

MARGARET GEORGE. 2006. Helen of Troy. Viking Adult.  George's extraordinary storytelling abilities shine in her portrayal of Helen as both a conflicted woman who abandoned her homeland and child for true love, and as a legendary figure whose beauty and personal choices had epic consequences.  An absorbing retelling of the classic Trojan War myth, and a sobering look at the utter futility of trying to change one's fate.

 

JEAN GIRAUDOUX (1882-1944). La Guerre de Troie n'aura pas Lieu, 'The Trojan War Will Not Take Place', was produced in Paris in 1935 and in New York as The Tiger at the Gates, in 1955. It suggests that the Trojan war was not inevitable, as it was precipitated by a mere 'incident' after Hector and Ajax had arrived at a peaceful settlement. His Electra was produced in Paris in 1937.***

 

WOLFGANG VON GOETHE. 2004. Iphigenia in Taurus in Dramatic Works of Johann von Goethe. Kessinger Publishing.***

 

ROBERT GRAVES (1895- ). English poet, novelist, and translator. Homer's Daughter, a novel, 1955, is based on the premise that the Odyssey was composed by Nausicaa.***

 

BRIAN HERBERT AND KEVIN J. ANDERSON. Dune: House Atreides. New York: Bantam Books, 1999. This is a “prequel” to the Dune books by Frank Herbert, Brian’s father.  The story focuses on the House Atreides, the descendents (after 12,000 years) of the House of Atreus.  Mention is made of Agamemnon; Helena (like the ancient Clytemnestra) arranges the murder of her husband, Paul Atreides, and the “House Play”  Agamemnon is performed.  Leto Atreides takes on the role of Orestes, but he banishes his mother instead of killing her.  All in all, the Agamemnon material is more decorative than integral to the story.

 

REGINALD HILL. Arms and the Women. New York: Dell-Random House, 1999.  This is a nifty British mystery wrapped around a first novel being written by one of the characters.  The novel in the mystery is about Odysseus and Aeneas, who meet on their respective wanderings after the fall of Troy.  This Odysseus is close kin to Andy Dalziel, a fat and clever Detective Superintendent (with some nods to Falstaff).

 

HUGO VON HOFMANNSTHAL (1874-1929). Austrian poet and dramatist. His Elektra, 1903, adapted from Sophocles, was set to music by Richard Strauss in 1909; his Egyptian Helen, a variant of the legend that Helen never went to Troy, produced with music by Strauss, 1927.

 

JAMES JOYCE (1882-1941). Irish novelist. His Ulysses, 1922, sets the story in contemporary Dublin, changes the relationship of the characters, and the motivation of actions.*** (but a challenge)

 

NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS (1885-1957). Greek poet and novelist: Odysseus, published in modern Greek verse in 1938 and in English verse translation in 1958 as The Odyssey, a Modern Sequel, begins with the hero's adventures near the end of the Odyssey and continues in a series of events very different from the Telegonia, including an abduction of Helen, the destruction of Knossos, and death in the icy seas.***

 

ANDREW LANG. 2003. Helen of Troy. Wildside Press.  Andrew Lang's epic poem about Helen of Troy.

 

CHRISTOPHER LOGUE. War Music. 2003. University of Chicago Press.  In his brilliant rendering of eight books of Homer's Iliad, Logue here retells some of the most evocative episodes of the war classic, including the death of Patroclus and Achilles's fateful return to battle, that sealed the doom of Troy. Compulsively readable, Logue's poetry flies off the page, and his compelling descriptions of the horrors of war have a surreal, dreamlike quality that has been compared to the films of Kurosawa. Retaining the great poem's story line but rewriting every incident, Logue brings the Trojan War to life for modern audiences.***

 

JOHN MASEFIELD (1878- ). English poet and prose writer. His works on Trojan themes are: A King's Daughter, 1923 (a verse tragedy on Helen and Jezebel); The Taking of Helen, a short story; and A Tale of Troy, 1932 (dramatic stanzas in various metres).

 

RICHARD MATTURO. Troy. New York: Walker, 1989.  This retelling explains the events at Troy in the euhemeristic tradition of Dictys and Dares.  Almost all events are rationalized into rather boring, pedestrian occurrences.  The dialogue is stilted and except for Odysseus the characters are undeveloped.  The story covers the period from after the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles through the destruction of Troy and the flight of Aeneas and his friends.

 

COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH. The Song of Troy: A Story That Will Outlast History. 1998. London: Orion Paperback, 1999.  McCullough has retold the story of Troy as historically real, in the tradition of Dictys and Dares: no gods, no destiny, nobody larger than life.  Odysseus and Deiphobos are lovers, as are Achilles and Patroclus.  Achilles is a very nice man.  Briseis is a sweet woman who kills herself in Achilles’ tomb.  The “quarrel” between Achilles and Agamemnon is a stratagem of Odysseus to draw the Trojans out of Troy.***

 

CLEMENCE MCLAREN. Inside the Walls of Troy: A Novel of the Women Who Lived the Trojan War. New York: Laurel-Leaf Books, 1996.  Helen and Cassandra narrate the events at Troy.  This readable book is aimed at a young-adult audience.

 

CLEMENCE MCLAREN. Waiting for Odysseus. 2004. Simon Pulse.  Odysseus took the long way home from the Trojan War--20 years of wandering and adventuring through the islands of the Aegean Sea. The story of his voyage is one of the great tales of Western civilization--but meanwhile, what about the women who loved and yearned for this handsome, crafty hero? Homer has very little to say about how these women felt about being at the mercy of Odysseus's wanderlust. To even the score, Clemence McClaren follows her award-winning Inside the Walls of Troy with a novel that offers a backstage perspective of Odysseus's life and adventures from the voices of the four women who cared most.

 

CHARLES MEE. History Plays. A collection of Six Plays, including Orestes and The Trojan Women: A Love Story. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Mee’s contemporary versions of Greek tragedies are interesting to read and wonderful to watch.  He has his plays posted on the Web, too!  The current (2003) internet address is http://www.charlesmee.org/indexf.html

 

CHRISTOPHER MORLEY (1890-1957). American author: his Trojan Horse, 1937, retells in contemporary terms the story of Troilus and Cressida.

 

AMY MYERS. “Aphrodites Trojan Horse.” In Classical Whodunits. Ed. Mike Ashley. New York: Barnes and Noble, 2000. 1-24.  This story is a tongue-in-cheeck, rather silly murder mystery.  Aphrodite is accused of the death of Anchises, father of Aeneas, and she responds by doing some detective work in Troy.

 

EUGENE O’NEILL. Mourning Becomes Electra. 1931. In Three Plays: Desire Under the Elms, Strange Interlude, Mourning Becomes Electra. New York: Vintage Books, 1959.  Mourning Becomes Electra is a trilogy (Homecoming, The Hunted, and The Haunted) in which the American playwright reinterpreted the Oresteia of Aeschylus as a New England tragedy.***

 

MICHAEL PRESCOTT. Comes the Dark. New York: Signet, 1999.  This is a retelling as a modern murder mystery of the story of Orestes, son of Clytemnestra.

 

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE. The Flies. 1946. Trans. Stuart Gilbert. In No Exit and Three Others Plays. New York: Vintage, 1989.  This play reinterprets the story of Orestes as an existential dilemma.***

 

DAN SIMMONS. 2003. Ilium. Eos.  Simmons creates an exciting and thrilling tale set in the thick of the Trojan War as seen through Hockenberry's 20th-century eyes. At the same time, Simmons's robots study Shakespeare and Proust and the origin-seeking Earthlings find themselves caught in a murderous retelling of The Tempest. Reading this highly literate novel does take more than a passing familiarity with at least The Iliad but readers who can dive into these heady waters and swim with the current will be amply rewarded.

 

ERIC SHANOWER. Age of Bronze: A Thousand Ships. Orange, Cal.: Image Comics, 2001.  This books is a collection of a series of high quality, seriously researched, carefully detailed, and beautifully drawn comic books retelling the events of the entire Trojan War.

 

JONATHAN SHAY, M.D. Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character . New York: MacMillan, 1994. Shay works from an intriguing premise: that the study of the great Homeric epic of war, The Iliad, can illuminate our understanding of Vietnam, and vice versa. Along the way, he compares the battlefield experiences of men like Agamemnon and Patroclus with those of frontline grunts, analyzes the berserker rage that overcame Achilles and so many American soldiers alike, and considers the ways in which societies ancient and modern have accounted for and dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder.***

 

REX STOUT. The Great Legend. Originally published fairly early in the twentieth century in All-Story magazine (n.d.). New York: Carroll and Graff, 1997.  Idaeus, son of Dares, narrates this hardboiled version of the Fall of Troy.

 

SHERI S. TEPPER. The Gate to Women’s Country. 1988. New York: Bantam, 1989. Tepper describes a future civilization where the women live in walled cities and the warrior men live outside.  It uses a play, “Iphigenia at Ilium,” as a central device.

 

BARRY UNSWORTH. The Song of the Kings. 2004. W.W. Norton & Company.  Provocative and subversive, Unsworth's new novel rewrites ancient history to show how a wily, ambitious and power-hungry man can distort the truth, convince the masses to support him and incite his country to wage war. It's an audacious blending of myth with sharp contemporary resonance. The setting is Aulis in 1260 B.C., where unfavorable winds are keeping the fleet of the Greek expeditionary force (actually a motley assemblage of hostile and predatory tribes loosely united under Agamemnon) from setting out to capture Troy. The pretext is revenge for the "rape" of Helen by Paris, but Agamemnon and such tribal leaders as Achilles and Odysseus are, in fact, lusting for the fabled treasures of Troy, spoils of war that each man, down to the most common soldier, yearns to possess.

 

DEREK WALCOTT. The Odyssey: A Stage Version. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993.  This delightful play takes Odyssey, his family, and crew to the Caribbean.***

 

DEREK WALCOTT. Omeros. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990.  The story of the Odyssey is retold as an epic poem set in the Carribean.***