Homer
Were the Ancient Greeks shameless?
Last week Mary Wakefield discussed the virtues of her ‘Victorian’ education, designed to stiffen the upper lip of the young…
The bloody prequel: a triumphant new translation of the Iliad
Following her translation of the Odyssey, Emily Wilson has turned her hand to the Iliad – and it is a triumph, writes A.E. Stallings
The waking nightmare
After years of insomnia, Marie Darrieussecq derives some comfort from finding herself in the company of Kafka, Kant, Proust, Dostoevsky, Borges and Plath
Was Penelope really a 'silenced' woman?
Problems about the misuse of history, especially on subjects such as race and colonialism, have been running for a long…
Singing to the gods: a millennium’s span of ancient Greek hymns, gloriously portrayed
We are experiencing a boom of popular books on Greek mythology: Stephen Fry’s Mythos; Natalie Haynes’s Pandora’s Jar; Liv Albert’s…
What really happened at Troy?
Heinrich Schliemann had always hoped he’d find Homer’s Troy. Although he had no archaeological background to speak of, he did…
John Flaxman is the missing link between superhero movies and Homer
As you enter the forecourt of the Royal Academy, you see them. A row of artistic titans, carved in stone,…
Homer’s Trojan War epic richly deserves its lavish new BBC adaptation
Did the Trojan War really take place? The Foreign Secretary certainly thinks so. ‘The Iliad must have happened,’ Boris Johnson…
Could the Odyssey have been the work of a woman after all?
Until recently, it seemed we were living in an age of Iliads. Since 2007, the ancient Homeric epic has been…
A woman’s version of the Trojan War
The Iliad begins with a grudge and ends with a funeral. In between are passages, if not necessarily of boredom,…
Now that's what I call sex: Birmingham Royal Ballet's Ashton Double Bill reviewed
That joke about the young bull who tells the old bull, ‘Hey, Dad, see all those cows — let’s run…
Adventures on the isle that seduced Odysseus
Gozo — Malta’s tiny island neighbour — was once rather a crucial spot in the Mediterranean. The Knights of Malta…
How consumer habits are subject to the law of unintended consequences
Some time in the 1960s, a group of people in an advertising agency (among them Llewelyn Thomas, son of Dylan)…
Napoleon's birthplace feels more Italian than French
Napoleon’s birthplace, Casa Buona-parte, in Ajaccio, Corsica’s capital, is pretty grand. It has high ceilings, generous, silk-lined rooms and a…
Alexander Pope, inventor of celebrity
‘The Picture of the Prime Minister hangs above the Chimney of his own Closet, but I have seen that of…
Stephen King – return of the great storyteller
Stephen King’s latest novel, Mr Mercedes, is dedicated to James M. Cain and described as ‘a riveting suspense thriller’ —…
Looking for the meaning of life? Come to Constantine Phipps' poetic theme park
A favourite game of mine is to imagine Virgil and Homer today, plying their trade among the supermarkets and office…
If all left-wing academics were as nice as John Sutherland, Taki would tolerate Hush Puppies
Just before I left Gstaad for the Greek islands I went to dinner at Eugenie Radziwill’s, whose other guests included…
