In her first book, The Song of Achilles, she placed the first person narrative in the hands of Patroclus, Achilles’ right-hand man and supposed lover, who sacrificed himself for the Greek hero-while remaining a voiceless character in the Iliad. During a recent talk between Miller and Penn professor and translator Emily Wilson, hosted by Sweet Briar College, Miller pointed out that “in particular, women in mythology are really veiled and otherised.” Her work also takes interest in other silent figures from Homer. She looks for the characters who have traditionally been objectified in translation, specifically female characters such as Circe and Odysseus’ wife, Penelope, who plays a major role in the novel. When it comes to historical retellings, Miller knows what she’s doing. The book provided an escape from the pandemic, transporting me from lockdown to the isle of Aiaia in the far distant past.
Two years later, while in quarantine back in my high school bedroom, I finally read Circe. I first was introduced to Miller’s Circe in March 2018, a month before its publication, at a promotional reading by Miller at my high school. In a new retelling of this familiar story from antiquity, Madeline Miller expands the witch’s short role in the Odyssey into a full novel, Circe, which illuminates her story in a feminist light while harkening back to Homer’s epic.
While the legendary epic doesn’t tell us much about her background, we know she’s wily like Odysseus she has magical powers and turns men to pigs, seemingly for fun.
If you’ve read the Odyssey, you remember the enchantress Circe. Credit: Madeline Miller Circe : A Human Witch? Reviewing Madeline Miller’s “Epic”
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