TW: mentions of SA
As two books with Achilles as a prominent character (The Song of Achilles/The Silence of The Girls) have risen in popularity, they have kind of become the defacto depictions of Achilles to a younger audience. I want to preface by saying that I found both books incredible. I would say that TSOA is a bit closer to the Iliad but both of them strive pretty far off from the actual character of the Iliad
It’s perfectly valid to love the TSOA Achilles or to hate the TSOTG Achilles but this has also started this trend of people finding one random verse from one random Ancient Greek author that was written centuries after the Iliad that supports their biased opinion and using it as gospel.
I specifically want to rant about Achilles being seen as a rapist. He is one of my favourite mythological characters but I’m so tired of hearing “BUT HE RAPED XYZ ON THE ORIGINAL” every time I mention him. I’ve written both papers and my thesis on depictions of Achilles and this is just flat out wrong. The first depiction of Achilles as a rapist is in the Cypria which was written a century after the first book and that is after hundreds of retellings about him. Why is that 1/100 the new canon now?
In the Iliad, his only interaction with any woman other than his mother is with Bryseis and all he does is comfort her, calling her his child when she is mourning Patroclus. She even calls Patroclus her protector.
I think that seeing Achilles, or any ancient character, as a rapist is very easy considering the war culture of the time so it’s easy to believe that something like TSOTG is more accurate to the original but I’m so tired of hearing about rape every time I want to talk about one of my favourite characters just because of some of the thousands of retellings his stories have gotten
by FeelTheKetasy
6 Comments
I just read the Iliad (Greek, Lattimore, or Fitzgerald) and don’t waste my time on the tendentious retellings.
R/redditsniper
Never once heard Achilles portrayed that way, but modern academia is being slowly shifted towards elevating certain perspectives, so it doesn’t surprise me.
That’s crazy. The factt that they keep calling the rapist one the “original”, and yet use one of the retellings is so annoying.
Achilles… keeps female war trophy slaves in the Iliad.
I believe the “woke media” and “the war of the woke” is reactionary bullshit as much as anyone.
But I’ve been seeing the perspective that Academia and progressive audiences are trying to apply modern political values and worldviews to literature and coming to wrong conclusions. Which yeah I side with that. Like beyond identity politics, literature is still art, philosophy, and witness of the past all at the same time. It’s ok to read about nasty characters and discuss them because thought crimes are not real.