LE3 .A278 2023

2023

Gardner, Chelsea

Acadia University

Bachelor of Arts

Honours

Classics

History & Classics

This thesis will analyze Homer’s characters Circe and Penelope as they appear in the Odyssey alongside the contemporary author Margaret Atwood’s version of these two figures in Circe Mud/Poems (1971) and the Penelopiad (2005). Circe and Penelope are the only two figures who explicitly have sex with Odysseus in the Odyssey; despite this connection, they do not oppose each other in the Odyssey but are dichotomized in post-Homeric literature. I will show that Homer’s Penelope is highly sexually alluring while Homer’s Circe is not, despite her sexual relations with Odysseus. This thesis shows how post-Homeric literature and scholarship effectively desexualize Homer’s Penelope and hyper-sexualize Homer’s Circe. It also shows that Atwood’s works do not participate in this dichotomy but are a return to Homer.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:4029