Homer's Daughter: Graves's Vera Historia

University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons

Departmental Papers (Classical Studies) Classical Studies at Penn

2015

Sheila Murnaghan University of Pennsylvania, [email protected]

Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/classics_papers

Part of the Classics Commons

Recommended Citation (OVERRIDE) Murnaghan, Sheila. (2015). Homer's Daughter: Graves's Vera Historia. In A.G.G. Gibson (Ed), Robert Graves and the Classical Tradition (pp. 57-76). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/classics_papers/135 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Homer's Daughter: Graves's Vera Historia

Abstract Within Robert Graves's enormous output, the novel Homer's Daughter is easy to miss. Written mostly in hopes of achieving large popular sales and inspired by another book that few people take seriously, Samuel Butler's The Authoress of the Odyssey, Homer's Daughter has never commanded the same respect as Graves's better-known historical fiction, especially the Claudius novels. This is in part because Homer's Daughter does not concern what are generally considered real historical events, although, as I hope to show, that difference has positive as well as negative consequences: it allows Graves to raise some of the same questions about writing history that he does in the Claudius novels, but with even more freedom. With its light tone and romantic plot, Homer's Daughter may seem especially deserving of the label 'potboiler' that Graves applied to all of his prose works. Yet, like the work of Lucian to which my title alludes, it is a playful but challenging exploration of the interplay between history and fiction. The jokey, satirical character of Homer's Daughter is less a sign of inconsequence than a reflection of how difficult the main elements of its story-romantic awakening and poetic inspiration-were for Graves, and the book stands as an overlooked illustration of the serious uses of wit.

Disciplines Arts and Humanities | Classics

This book chapter is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/classics_papers/135 3

Homer's Daughter Graves's Vera Historia

Sheila Murnaghan

Within Robert Graves's enormous output, the novel Homer's Daugh ter is easy to miss. Written mostly in hopes of achieving large popular sales and inspired by another book that few people take seriously, Samuel Butler's The Authoress of the Odyssey, Homer's Daughter has never commanded the same respect as Graves's better-known histor ical fiction, especially the Claudius novels. This is in part because Homer's Daughter does not concern what are generally considered real historical events, although, as I hope to show, that differencehas positive as well as negative consequences: it allows Graves to raise some of the same questions about writing history that he does in the Claudius novels, but with even more freedom.With its light tone and romantic plot, Homer's Daughter may seem especially deserving of the label 'potboiler' that Graves applied to all of his prose works. Yet, like the work of Lucian to which my title alludes, it is a playful but challenging exploration of the interplay between history and fiction. The jokey, satirical character of Homer's Daughter is less a sign of inconsequence than a reflectionof how difficultthe main elements of its story-romantic awakening and poetic inspiration-were for Graves, and the book stands as an overlooked illustration of the serious uses of wit. Homer's Daughter was written in the winter of 1953-4 and pub lished in 1955. Graves hoped to repeat with it the financial successhe had achieved with the Claudius novels and to make even more money froma filmversion. This was to star Ingrid Bergman, providing her

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom OxfordUniversity Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries @ Oxford University Press 2015 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2015 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any formor by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2014955875 ISBN 978-0-19-873805-3 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CRO 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faithand forinformation only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.