From Legendary to Contemporary: The Literary Evolution of Narratives through Retellings and Adaptations of The Iliad and The Odyssey
Project no. 24200 · Status: Kapanmış · 2022
Summary
<p>Retelling and adaptations have become popular literary narrative types in our age. Many myths that we know today have managed to survive from oral tradition to the present day, and have also influenced different cultures throughout history. In particular, we can feel the effects of the intercultural effect of the myths even today. Taking their roots from our own geography, Homer's epic poems <em>The</em> <em>Iliad</em> and <em>The</em> <em>Odyssey</em> are perhaps the two most famous mythical narratives that have managed to trigger the curiosity of philosophers, scientists, artists and writers throughout the history of civilization and have survived to the present day. The reason why these two works have been able to maintain their currency until today is the universality of the narratives they contain, as well as the fact that their transtemporality can be reflected in many periodical works in different centuries until today. Different novels will be examined within the Master's thesis in order to shed light on the parallel relationship between the mental and sociological evolution of human beings and the evolution of myths, to investigate its reflections today, and to discuss how this is reflected in literature and language. The novels selected for review are in Literatures Written in English: <em>The Song of Achilles</em> and <em>Circe</em> by Madeline Miller,<em> The Penelopiad</em> by Margaret Atwood, <em>The Silence of The Girls </em>by Pat Barker, <em>A Thousand Ships</em> by Natalie Haynes, and Emily Hauser's<em> For The Most Beautiful. </em>These novels were chosen because the authors give voice to the shadowy characters in the myths they are inspired by and address different perspectives. By examining how all the formal, fictional and thematic changes in these retellings of<em> the</em> <em>Iliad </em>and<em> theOdyssey</em>, the most well-known written examples of ancient myths, fit the conditions of the period in which they were written, how the human condition narratives evolved with our historical development will be researched in a literary and scientific way and a Master's thesis will be written.</p><p><br></p><p>Keywords: Retelling / The Iliad / The Odyssey / Myths / Comparative Lit., Retellings, Storytelling, Revisionism, Cultural interactions, Jung</p>