#i feel crazy beefing with euripides for how he wrote menelaus. like homer menelaus ate. euripides menelaus??? is he any less myth though.

[edwardscissorfeet]

could you elaborate on the canon thing irt mythology? i don't disagree, i would just love to hear what you think

hello! just a preface before i get into it, i'm not in this field at all as a student or professional so i'd take my own words with a grain of salt. if im getting anything wrong please do let me know!!!

im linking two posts i think are relevant by:

@/thoodledoo and @/what-even-is-thiss

and let's get on! the problem with saying something is an 'original' is that more often than not, you're going to be wrong about that. i get it! there are a number of retellings i don't like either, which narrate stories i care little for, but consider that myth is often a reflection of society and culture. people then and now ascribe stories to phenomenons and events to make sense of the world. like,

persephone's tale gives a mythological reason to why we have the change of seasons. now, imagine i said "in the original myth, persephone was an unwilling captive".

one, what myth am i saying is the "origin"? hesiod, because he was one of (if not) the first to write it down? do you see the problem here? does 'original' just mean the first instance of recording?

and then, two, does it make every adaptation of persephone's myth that came after that something 'fake'? are you going to beef with ovid for changing your 'original myth'?

it's absolutely alright (and id say encouraged!) to critique adaptations and retellings. this, however, should be done with the understanding that changing a myth isn't the crucial factor here - it's how it affects and reflects on us in this time. an example,

your reaction to a medusa retelling could be less "but in the original she wasn't a victim of rape! this is taking away from her girlbossness!", because what is the original??, and more "how does her backstory, given to her by this author, affect her character and how [x group of people] are represented in media" (or something like that).

essentially, like any other literature, how does this one impact anyone and anything at all?

back to homer, a lot of the time (i find) when someone says something like 'originally odysseus was assaulted by calypso' is that they mean a very specific source of myth - i.e. the odyssey. oral myth tradition predates written work by centuries. just because homer (not even sure about this, actually) wrote it down first, does not mean he is your og!! the odysseus in homer's two works don't even sound like the same person!

like hi! i love homer! but let's not pretend he was mr "came up with every myth about the trojan war under the sun".

making very obvious my point here, my critic of a book, like say, the song of achilles, isnt that madeline miller failed to copy the iliad plot for plot. it's fine that she changed it! in fact, it's great! it's a myth! it changes with time anyway! my critic is that girl you made patroclus literally the boringest blandest boy ever good god, (only sort of joking)

tldr; there is no real mythological canon. clarify, make it clear and say 'in homer's iliad' or something if you need to. don't brush a story off just because it doesn't fit within the version of the myth you know. and don't cheapen your criticism by saying it isn't original.

#ive used up all six braincells i have on a good day #also this is a very boring spoken of again and again regurgitated nonstop topic i am not adding anything new to this line of discussion #asks #greek mythology #homer #iliad #odyssey #i hope i am not making a FOOL of myself here #i feel crazy beefing with euripides for how he wrote menelaus. like homer menelaus ate. euripides menelaus??? is he any less myth though.