Great Beginnings Book Club discussion

Given the enduring influence and popularity of Greek mythology in modern culture, it is not surprising that Circe has attracted artistic and scholarly fascination for a long, long time. What is uncommon, however, is just how ambivalently people perceive Circe. For all of its tellings and retellings, Greek mythology tends to have a rather clear picture of good and evil - or at least of justified and taboo. We are rarely in a narrative position to question the gods' power and their punishments for the vices of mortals. There are heroes and there are monsters, and even tragic heroes who give into madness and passion are worthy of admiration and regret for their unrealized potential. Figures are helpful or hindrances; rarely are we unsure of their narrative status.

Circe is universally recognized as dangerous. She wields magic to transform men into beasts, mixing drugs and poisons into the food she offers. In Charles Segal's classic 1968 article "Circean Temptations: Homer, Vergil, Ovid," he translates Homer's description of Circe as a "'dread goddess,' the sister of 'evil-minded Aeetes,' learned in fearful drugs and destructive wiles." Religious and philosophical authors have made fine fodder of Circe to describe the supposedly dangerous power - sexual and magical - that women possess. Circe has a deep symbolic connection to animals, temptation, and lack of self-control.



Nevertheless, her ultimate role in the Odyssey is quite beneficial - and even indispensable - to the success of Odysseus's return home. Segal writes that "Homer's goddess exhibits a degree of helpfulness which is rare indeed in the monster-filled fairyland of Odysseus' wanderings." Not only can she reverse the effects of her transformations (an obvious distinction from the normal deaths that Odysseus's crew experience during their voyage), but she leaves the crew improved with rest, supplies, and needed advice. She provides both practical knowledge and psychological comfort, and, when Odysseus asks to leave her island, she gracefully sends him on his way - a favorable contrast to the nymph Calypso's stubborn tenacity in keeping an unwilling Odysseus for seven years. She "embodies the pleasures of the flesh in both their restorative and dangerous aspects."



Later authors, both during the Roman Empire and the Renaissance, tended to take a more negative attitude toward Circe. She became more remote, a figure of sensuality and witchcraft meant to represent obvious peril.

In Ovid's Metamorphoses , the river-god Glaucus seeks out Circe's "horrid court" where "monsters, in various forms, around her press" in order to ask her to help him win Scylla's affection. Circe tells Glaucus to be her lover instead and to scorn Scylla. Glaucus rejects Circe's pursuit, claiming that trees would grow on the sea floor and seaweed on mountaintops before he would abandon his love for Scylla. In vengeful jealousy, Circe poisons the pool where Scylla baths, transforming her into a hideous monster. (This is quite different from Miller's characterization of events!)

Renaissance authors, especially clergymen, tended to take an even dimmer view of Circe. In the Classical Greek world, philosophers held up the story of Circe as an allegory for what happens when men lose control of their impulses. Socrates suggested that gluttony and lack of moderation, rather than magic, is the true danger facing humanity. In contrast, 16th century Italians saw the Circe story as an allegory for unchastity and sexual promiscuity. Circe was often compared to a prostitute and someone who actively led men to ruin. In 1946, Merritt Hughes described the Renaissance popular imagination of Circe as a "conventional seductress tyrannizing over willing slaves of passion." She divested men of their reason, relegated them to unthinking beasts, and thus destroyed their special significance of God's unique creation.



Ever since the Greeks have told Circe's story, the prospect of animals who were once human - and animals who might even prefer their condition to that of humans - has both fascinated and troubled authors. The mere existence of "reasoning beasts" seemed both absurd and perverse, a simultaneous impossibility and blasphemy. When the transformation occurred, did the consciousness of the victims also change? What new experiences and abilities opened up to the new animals? And what if the animals - if offered the choice - did not want to turn back?

The French fabulist La Fontaine adapted one of the dialogues of Plutarch into his "Les Compagnons d'Ulysse." Here Odysseus speaks to his transformed companions, one after the other, and is dismayed to discover that they all believe their new condition to be the superior one. They argue that the pleasures of life are better and easier to experience as animals and that humans are more likely to betray and abuse each other. Fontaine concludes with "They thought that in following their passions they were enjoying freedom, not seeing that they were but slaves to themselves." It seems to me that the relative merits of the debate are not at all decisive for one side or the other!



In recent decades, Circe's reputation has improved considerably. This is both due to feminist authors producing works from Circe's point of view or criticizing the oppression of a patriarchal society and more nuanced distinction between her characterization in Greek and Latin source materials. This is an apt time for Miller to write Circe. Just a year before, the classicist Mary Beard published a short book Women & Power describing the various ways the classics (and intellectuals onward) have traditionally shut out women and deprived them of their own stories. Given that there is not an "authoritative" version of any of the Greek myths, it is exciting to see Circe take center stage in her own epic.

I imagine that this won't be the last portrayal of Circe that we see.