Homer's Daughter

by Robert Graves

Book Overview

Homer's Daughter is Robert Graves' novel of the girl, Nausicaa, a character in the Odyssey, who Graves believed was a its true author (not the blind and bearded Homer, whose Iliad was composed at least 150 years before.... ). That Homer did not write the Odyssey continues to be a bold historical and literary claim. Add to it Graves's protofeminist heroine, and a radical modern classic is born.

In his Historical Note, Graves says...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1609807731
• ISBN13: 9781609807733
• Release Date: June 2019
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

An Interesting Concept

"Homer's Daughter" does not compare favorably to "I, Claudius"--Graves does not write a woman's voice convicingly. Still, the idea behind this novel is an interesting one. I can well believe after reading it that the "Odyssey" could have been written by a woman. The main character, Nausicaa, is likeable and spirited. As an "Odyssey" fan, it was a lot of fun seeing how Graves set up the story as parallel to "The Odyssey"--the sort of situation that could have inspired it. The setting, in actual historic Greece/Mediteranean, not a mythical setting, was well-drawn and interesting. I would recommend this novel as a thought-provoking read for someone who is well-familiar with "The Odyssey".

A wonderful conceit: A Sicilian princess plays Homer

Robert Graves, poet, novelist and scholar of things Greek, here explores the possibility that The Odyssey, successor to Homer's Illiad, was written by a princess of mixed Greek and other ancestry in a Greek-Trojan settlement in ancient Sicily some time after the Trojan War. Using internal evidence which suggests female authorship and a relationship of the terrain described to areas in the western Mediterranean, Graves speculates that the true author told her own story, possibly a true one, buried within the Homeric epic which has been handed down to us via the ancient Greeks. To get it included among the Homeric canon this young, energetic and extremely intelligent woman manages to get the tale incorporated into the body of Homeric songs through the auspices of a member of the Homeric guild. But, scholarly speculation aside, this is basically a tale of adventure and intrigue as it recounts the events surrounding the siege of a king's household by rebellious nobles using a suit for his young daughter's hand as an excuse to undermine and destroy her father's rule. The princess, clever and indomitable by turns, first investigates the mystery of her elder brother's disappearance and then organizes a shrewd counterplot, reminiscent of Odysseus' triumphal and bloody return to Ithaca, to reclaim her father's holdings and the honor of his house. A bit slow and ponderous in the beginning, and somewhat too scholarly, it nevertheless comes sharply to life in the second half of the book as the plot to undo the suitors' predations hurtles toward its bloody resolution. A good tale and worth the read, though it's not quite as compelling or erudite as Graves' other work in this vein: Hercules, My Shipmate -- a tale of Jason and his Argonauts on the quest for the Golden Fleece. -- Stuart W. Mirsky author of The King of Vinland's Saga