This book explores the myth of the Cyclops across western history, and how its changing form from ancient Greece until the modern day reveals fundamental changes in each era’s elite understandings and depictions of cultural values. From Homer’s Odyssey to Hellenistic poetry, from Roman epic to early medieval manuscript glosses, and from early modern opera to current pop culture, the myth of the Cyclops persists in changing forms. This myth’s distinct forms in each historical era reflect and distill wider changes occurring in the spheres of politics, philosophy, aesthetics, and social values, and as a story that persists continually across three millennia it provides a unique lens for cross-historical comparison across western thought.
Paul Robertson is a computer programming consultant, part-time high-school math and science teacher, and the author of The Heir. He is also a former Christian bookstore owner (for 15 years), who lives with his family in Blacksburg, Virginia.