The Epic Women of Homer: Exploring Women's Roles in the Iliad and Odyssey

Reexamines the women of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, restoring their essential roles and challenging traditional heroic narratives.

Our earliest written sources for Greek mythology, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, feature women prominently as drivers of the narratives. Though they occupy a variety of roles and speak eloquently for themselves in every role, these women have been obscured by the assumption that each epic’s central hero, Achilles and Odysseus, respectively, is also its singular hero. ...