The world's most famous classicist on the world's most famous classic: Mary Beard and The Odyssey

The Odyssey - where stories began. Probably written down around 7th century BC - give or take a few centuries either way - by somebody or somebodies who may or may not have been called Homer. Leaving aside these mysteries, what is the Odyssey really about, why is it so violent and why is Odysseus himself - the lord of the lies - such an unlikeable hero?

Who better to navigate this intellectual Scylla and historical Charybdis than the world’s best-loved classicist Mary Beard? Sophie and Jonty listen in admiration as Mary describes discovering The Odyssey aged 14 - a self-proclaimed swot with aspirations to be scruffy and cool (or, in Sophie’s parlance, a ‘dag’). How it - or at least the several incidents in which Odysseus’ wife Penelope is told to shut up and go to her room by her own son - inspired Mary’s best-selling book Women and Power. And how the whole poem, which begins with the word ἄνδρα (man), is a riff on toxic masculinity millennia before Andrew Tate was even in a twinkle in Zeus’ eye.

And listen, pithy mortals, to Jonty as he repeatedly mangles Ancient Greek names, particularly the ‘Laestrygonians’, to Sophie as she - for the first time in this podcast - tries and fails to make a convincing link to The Reformation, and to all of us as we advocate the benefits of an oil rubdown every evening.

-- To join the Secret Life of Books Club visit: www.secretlifeofbooks.org

-- Please support us on Patreon to keep the lights on in the SLoB studio and get bonus content: https://patreon.com/SecretLifeofBooks528?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@secretlifeofbookspodcast/shorts

insta: https://www.instagram.com/secretlifeofbookspodcast/

bluesky: @slobpodcast.bsky.social

Further Reading:

Emily Wilson, trans, The Odyssey

Mary Beard books:
Women & Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard (Profile Books, 2019)

Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures and Innovations by Mary Beard (Profile Books, 2013)

The Parthenon by Mary Beard (Harvard University Press, 2002)

Support the show

Producer: Boyd Britton
Digital Content Coordinator: Olivia di Costanzo
Designer: Peita Jackson
Our thanks to the University of Sydney Business School.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.