6 years in the making: miraculous myths
What is Miraculous Myths?
Miraculous Myths is a new series of blog posts centred around a myth. In this series, I want to give a good overview of a well-known myth by providing my translations and analyses of important source texts (Greek and Latin). Moreover, we will transgress the boundaries of ancient times and approach the myth from more modern retellings and stories. In a way, these posts will combine my skills of translation and interpretation with studies of reception. Thus, it's gonna be more than a mere overview of all the source material or common plot lines, as you can find on many other websites.
How did I come up with the idea?
This series of miraculous myths is indebted to the podcast "Let's Talk About Myths, Baby!" by Liv Albert. As the title implies, this podcast is all about Greek & Roman mythological stories with sporadic interviews of professors on other ancient historical topics (her last series was on the Mediterranean Bronze Age). Liv likes to contextualise our (often fragmentary) knowledge of the myths from the perspective of ancient audiences in contrast to our modern perspective on the myth. She used to have a pet peeve for which she's often criticised in her reviews: the patriarchal mindset of the ancient sources. These reviews just didn't really grasp how important it is to explain this patriarchy. It undermines the position and description of female mythological characters, which undercuts their rights and voices (women in myths get raped too often, which has to be higlighted). Sure, the podcast can be charactirised as having a feminist approach. Yet, this is only a small part of her description of the myths in her podcast and each podcast is a very detailed analysis. As I've been listening to this podcast for quite some years (sporadically), I hope to have picked up some useful ideas that will be incorporated into this series.
Another inspiration for this blog series is the modern novels that retell ancient myths. Popular ones are Madeline Miller's A Song of Achilles (2011) & Circe (2018), Path Baker's The Silence of the Girls (2018), and Natalie Haynes' A Thousand Ships (2019). Ever since Stephen Fry's Mythos series have mythological retellings been popping up. This trend hasn't escaped the notice of publishers and bookshops, so each bookshop now has a stand with these retellings displayed. As a fan of these stories, I've got to admit that I've gotten myself a couple of these books for my bookshelves. So this series is also a good reason for me to read those novels (instead of only standing there) and to be critically engaged with them.
What myth are we exploring first?
Orpheus & Euridice
a scene of Orpheus playing his lyre in front of public of Thracian men.
Namenvase of the Orpheus Painter, ca 450/40 BCE, in Altes Museum Berlin (Antikensammlung) - photo from wikimedia.
Upcoming topics
sporadic posts:
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