Coffee Table
Modern Fiction based on Ancient Epic poetry:
Iliad:
Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles. https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780062060624 Links to an external site.
Pat Barker, The Silence of the Girls. https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780525564102 Links to an external site.
Pat Barker, Women of Troy. https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780385546690 Links to an external site.
Alice Oswald, Memorial. A Version of Homer’s Iliad. https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780393347272
Robert Graves, The Anger of Achilles: the Iliad. https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780140455601 Links to an external site.
Christopher Logue, War Music: an Account of Homer’s Iliad. https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780374536817
Odyssey: Ramayana
Madeline Miller, Circe. https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780316556323 Links to an external site.
Robert Graves, Homer’s Daughter. https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9781609807733
Iliad, Odyssey, multiple tragedies, and other sundry things:
Natalie Haynes, A Thousand Ships https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780063065406 Links to an external site.
(check out also Natalie Haynes' delightful podcast-see below)
Ramayana
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, The Forest of Enchantments.
Mahabharata:
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. The Palace of Illusions. https://www.amazon.com/Palace-Illusions-10thAnniversary/dp/9386215659/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1642748039&sr=8-1 Links to an external site.
Amruta Patil, Adi Parva. https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9789350294161 Links to an external site.
Karthika Nair, Until the Lions: Echoes of the Mahabharata. https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9781939810366 Links to an external site.
Podcasts
- Ancient Greece Declassified: http://greecepodcast.com/ Links to an external site.: Thoughtful, accessible and detailed discussion of important aspects of Greek Civilization with leading experts in the field. Made in Seattle!
- In Our Time Links to an external site., hosted for the BBC by Melvyn Bragg. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl Links to an external site. Lively, fast-paced discussions with a panel of experts. There are hundreds of episodes on various cultural, literary and historical subjects available of this long running radio broadcast. It's hard to find all the Classical ones on the BBC website, so I have put together a list of episodes that deal with ancient Greece and Rome and its broader context.
- Natalie Haynes Stands up for the Classics Links to an external site. is another BBC podcast offering; discussions of classical Greek and Roman topics as standup comedy before a live audience, with academic guests.
- The Mahabharata Podcast Links to an external site.with Arti Dhand: an absolutely wonderful, very funny and very sharp retelling (with some commentary) on the Mahabharata. It's not finished yet, but you can binge for a while: there are 60 episodes, the final one ending in Book (parva) three.
Articles and Books
(mentioned in class or prompted by questions).
Ann Bergren, "Similes and Symbol in Odyssey V" Links to an external site. (in Weaving the Truth: Essays on Language and the Female in Greek Thought, CHS 2008)
Casey Dué, Homeric Variations on a Lament by Briseis Links to an external site.. Rowman and Littlefield 2002
Casey Dué, Achilles Unbound. Multiformity and Tradition in the Homeric Epics. Links to an external site.Harvard University Press 2018.
Olga Levaniouk, "The Waters of the Underworld and Ino in the Odyssey" (In "The Upper and the Under Worlds in Homeric and Archaic Epic, Proceedings of the 13th International Symposium on the Odyssey, 2017)
Gregory Nagy, The Ancient Greek Hero in 23 Hours. Links to an external site. Harvard University Press 2013.
Nano Marinatos, "The Cosmic Journey of Odysseus." Numen 2001. 381-416.
Richard Martin, "Hesiod, Odysseus, and the Instruction of Princes" (Transaction of the American Philological Associations 1984:29-48.