Odysseus Myth
Odysseus Myth
Odysseus Myth
.
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Victorian
Before Ulysses:
Iconography of the Odysseus
Myth
Joseph A. Kestner
University of Tulsa
Homer's Odyssey
there were
innumerable
Between
the continuous
demonstrate
my
conceiving
Ulysses
narrative
in
of
the
the
Odyssean
early twentieth century
thopoesis
in the Odyssean
of course, was not
narrative,
Joyce's interest
in the nineteenth
such as Tennyson with
century
unique. Writers
his "Ulysses" of 1842 and Arnold with
"The New Sirens" of 1849,
narrative
for their own cultural
of
the
dimensions
Homeric
deployed
to
doctrine of
the
Victorian
the
instance
first
in
purposes,
critique
the
to
examine
allure
of
the
in
and
second
self-indulgent
progress
into the
Romanticism.
Arnold was to take the Homeric
question
realm of cultural formation with his four lectures on translating
as Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1860 and 1861,
Homer delivered
es
in additional
and these lectures formed ideas later enunciated
period
of
a
direct style constituting
of Homer's
says, such as the concept
for the evaluation of subsequent writers.
touchstone
were
The consequences
of these lectures for Victorian
society
in
Not
the least of these is the renewed
considerable.
emphasis
art on classical subject themes, many of these from the
Victorian
from the Odyssey. Classical subject
Homeric
texts, and particularly
to the insular,
art arose in Victorian
culture as a counter-movement
565
meticulous
Victorian
detail
cultural
analogue.3
involv
The consequence was a considerable body of iconography
a
the
cultural
constituted
which
Homer's
text,
century
during
ing
for the
such as Joyce. It is particularly
for writers
milieu
significant
a
were generated
that such paintings
culture
of
during
poetics
the
wide
dis
new reproduction
when
processes
permitted
period
to those who
could not attend
the
semination
of these canvases
of the Royal Academy
or, later, the Grosvenor
annual exhibitions
the Cassell
series Royal
In particular,
Gallery or the New Gallery.
until
and
1888
in
1916, re
continuing
Academy Pictures, begun
at
the
annual
exhibited
of
hundreds
May exhibi
pictures
produced
annual
volumes
of the
tion. The Cassell series was supplemented
by
Ch'atto and Windus Academy Notes and Grosvenor Notes as well as the
Pall Mall Pictures and the Sampson Low and Marston
Royal Academy
which
Illustrated.4 Inmany instances, it is these reproductions
allow
a historian of cultural poetics to reconstruct the replication
of Odys
sean motifs during the late Victorian and Edwardian
It also
periods.
access
means
that writers,
to
could
have
these
including
Joyce,
even if not attending
seen
materials
exhibitions.
could
have
Joyce
or
such exhibition
even
on
in
Dublin
the
continent.
catalogues
in a cultural milieu
Ulysses, therefore/was
generated
pervaded
by
of
the
from
British painters,
and while Ar
iconography
Odyssey
nold's essays and Tennyson's poetry provided
literary antecedents
for cultural interest in Homer,
classical subject artists cannot be
excluded from a role in cultural formation
this period. The
during
of
drive
the
culture
that
in
resulted
mythopoeic
Ulysses was intense
inmedia other than literature.
Not all the components
of Joyce's Homeric
for Ulysses
scaffolding
were
treated by these painters.
For example,
of
representations
Oxen of the Sun, Eumaeus,
or Wan
Telemachus, Nestor/Proteus,
dering Rocks seem not to have attracted artists. On the other hand,
Calypso, Circe, Nausicaa,
Sirens, and Lotus Eaters were
Penelope,
in
Victorian
as were numerous
canvases,
powerfully
figured
epi
sodes from the life of
some
not
even included
in the
Odysseus,
566
with
.he had
seen
his
in a cave "darkened
eaten
companions
in the
cave
by
.into
the
faces
of
the
a
'., and
sheep's
belly,
the Enchanted
Islands.5
got
one-eyed
people,
left
them
tearing
away
to open
sea
as the dawn
broke
the Phaeacians
(Odyssey 13)
obviously
inspired by Turner Here
on the shore of Ithaca at dawn,
the
Odysseus
sleeping
deposit
exhibi
his gifts around him. In the same Royal Academy
unloading
567
from Milton's
excelled in painting
derived
important
his ability to
in 1837 (Plate 3), again like Frost demonstrating
the
includes
nude.
Here, however, Etty
decaying
paint the female
to
the
mast
in the
bound
with
dead
bodies of
mariners,
Odysseus
motif was to figure in several later Victorian
latter
This
background.
several can
Edward Armitage
(1817-96) completed
representations.
his
career,
vases with Odyssean
during
long
components
including
the fact that Armitage's
The Return ofUlysses of 1853 (Plate 4). Despite
concen
title echoes that of Linnell's 1848 representation,
Armitage
when
19
on
the episode from Odyssey
trates
Eurycleia,
Odysseus'
lan
old nurse, recognizes him from a scar; to the right, Penelope
The
of
the
following year, Armitage
recognition.
ignorant
guishes,
exhibited the lost Lotus Eater at the Academy, but he did not return to
career with the 1888 A Siren
Odyssean motifs until much later in his
Siren
laid
aside her lyre to expose
the
has
(Plate 5). In this canvas,
on
to
the ships, almost dangerously
the mariners
her naked body
RA
near
the
coast.
568
in Tennyson's
ethos of progress
embodied
"Ulysses" the painting,
with
its wearied
explorers, can well represent a powerful question
ideologies.
ing of Victorian
these artists as
Perhaps no subject from the Odyssey so engrossed
encounter with Circe in Book 10. In
these
Odysseus'
examining
treatments,
however, one should note that Circe was a code word in
Victorian
and liter
journalism for female venality and prostitution,
ature?for
in Hardy's Jude the Obscure
example Arabella Donn
on Circe's nature as a
of female sexuality.
capitalized
paradigm
most
the
famous of these images was Circe
Among
Offering the Cup to
in 1891. Waterhouse
shows some of the mariners
already trans
formed into swine as Circe offers the fatal cup to Odysseus,
seen in
the mirror behind Circe's throne, and in fact a self-portrait of the
in the figure of the jeune fille fatale
artist. Waterhouse
specialized
In
Circe.
1892
he completed Circe Jnvidiosa (Plate
this
by
represented
a rival in love. While the latter is
the
9), showing
goddess poisoning
of the Odyssean
not a component
narrative, this tendency to exhibit
two canvases
about Circe in successive years reflects the involve
in the Odyssey myth.
ment ofWaterhouse
In 1897, probably inspired
R.
the
Waterhouse
Thomas
canvas,
Spence (fl. 1876-1903) exhib
by
ited The Temptation of Odysseus by Circe (Plate 10), with Odysseus
on Circe's throne as the goddess haughtily offers the cup.
sitting
of Circe were produced
regularly during the late
Representations
Victorian period by many artists. In 1871, Briton Riviere (1840-1920)
a troop of mariners
trans
exhibited his Circe (Plate 11) showing
formed into swine, while Arthur Hacker (1858-1919) in his Circe of
on a slightly earlier phase of the trans
1893 (Plate 12) concentrates
formation.
John Collier's (1850-1934) Circe of 1885 depicted the god
dess leaning on a tiger, and this semi-reclining
posture was to
as
G.A,
the representations
influence
Storey
by such artists
in
(1864-1949) and his Circe of 1908 (Plate 14), shown with animals,
with
of
the
this instance
goddess
leopards. The representation
beasts was related to the patriarchal belief that woman's nature was
scale than man's, that woman might
less evolved in the evolutionary
thus closer to bestiality Sculptors,
an
and
atavism
be
evolutionary
569
amermaid
570
dragging
a naked
sailor
into
the depths,
while
Edward
Matthew
Hale
The Death of Ulysses (Plate 27) in 1888, showing the hero lying supine
constructs the
takes his hand, Richmond
as the faithful Penelope
of
heroism
as
a
The
classical
symbols
Odysseus'
pieta.
painting
beside him.
and shield-rest
helmet, breastplate,
The iconographie
record of Calypso, Circe, the Sirens, Penelope,
motifs was reinforced during the period by
and other Odyssean
some of which have a
other
representations,
mythological
myriad
theme
more generalized
bearing on Ulysses. The Daedalus/Icarus
a
several times during the century, including
depiction of
appeared
on
His
in 1887, Icarus Starting
Icarus by Richmond
Flight, showing
the youth perched on a precipice. Leighton's Daedalus and Icarus of
to his son's body
1869 (Plate 28) shows the inventor affixing wings
of the
conclusion
the
while
catastrophic
prior to his departure,
571
importance.
the myth,
the
pursue
after
him,...
Instead
of narrative
a method
method,
a great
In
using
contempo
which
we
may
others
now
a step toward
572
of Ulysses many
not depicted
elements
textuality
by nineteenth
classical
artists.
This
case in rela
is
the
century
subject
particularly
tion to Stephen
since the "Telemachus,"
Dedalus,
"Nestor," and
"Proteus" sections of Ulysses appear not to have attracted Victorian
because
the authority of the
artists, perhaps
nineteenth-century
was more
It is in the
significant than filial connection.
paterfamilias
of the text, especially
remainder
in the
of
Circe, Ca
reconfiguring
and
the
that
is
to
closest
these
Sirens,
artists, revealing
lypso,
Joyce
his association with a cultural milieu
that emphasized
female ven
case
In
of
the
the
forlorn
Phaeacian
Nausicaa,
ality.
princess,
Joyce
has evoked the Homeric
prototype both to reinforce it and to sabo
yet sensitive incorporation of the paradigm
tage it in the sentimental
With "Penelope" the Homeric model becomes
in Gerty MacDowell.
from fidelity to the dazzling combination
transformed
of infidelity
and
wisdom
in
Bloom.
empowerment,
configured
Molly
Joyce cre
ated Ulysses in a cultural milieu already prepared for the
reception of
his work by nineteenth-century
classical subject artists, with their
own focus and emphasis
on the Homeric
narrative.
Joyce, refor
the
heroic
Homeric
of
into
his heroic
mulating
Odysseus
paradigm
advanced
the
for the
method"
Bloom,
"mythical
Ulysses/Leopold
of
twentieth
The
method"
nineteenth
these
century.
"mythical
century artists, however-the
incorporation of myth into contempo
is the crucial ele
rary history
through classicizing
iconographyment
in cultural poetics that established
this practice and prepared
for both the creation of and the reception of Ulysses*
The legend for each plate includes artist, title, date, medium (if other
than oil on canvas or panel or board), dimensions in inches, height before
width
(if known), and provenance (if known); where the provenance is
unknown or private, the source of the plate is identified; the abbreviation
RAP refers to the Cassell series Royal Academy Pictures.
The author would like to thank Sandra A. Martin, Senior Keeper of Fine
Art at the Manchester City Art Gallery, for her permission to reproduce
Herbert James Draper's Calypso's Isle on the cover.
NOTES
1 Stuart
573
3Recent
classical subject
scholarship devoted to nineteenth-century
artists includes: William Gaunt, Victorian Olympus (New York: Oxford Univ.
Press, 1952); Christopher Wood, Olympian Dreamers (London: Constable,
1983); and Joseph A. Kestner, Mythology andMisogyny (Madison: Univ. of
include Leon?e and Richard Ormond,
Wisconsin Press, 1989). Monographs
Lord Leighton (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1975); and Anthony Hobson,
TheArt and Life ofj.W Waterhouse (New York: Rizzoli, 1980) and John William
Waterhouse (Oxford: Phaidon/Christies',
1989). Important exhibition cata
logues include: Victorian Olympians, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1975;
Victorian High Renaissance, Manchester
1978; Victorian
City Art Gallery
Parnassus, Cartwright Hall, Bradford, 1987; and Victorian Dreamers, The
Tokyo4 Shimbun, 1989.
Royal Academy Pictures (London: Cassell, 1888-1916); Academy Notes
(London: Chatto and Windus,
1875-94); Grosvenor Notes (London: Chatto
and Windus,
1880-89); Pall Mall Pictures (London: Pall Mall Gazette,
1885-92); Royal Academy Illustrated (London: Sampson Low and Marston,
1884-85).
5
John Ruskin, "Notes on the Turner Gallery atMarlborough House"
(1857), in The Works of John Ruskin, ed. E.T. Cook and A. Wedderburn
(London: Allen, 1903-12), XIII, 136-37.
6T.S.
Eliot, "Ulysses, Order, and Myth/' The Dial, 1 (1923), 482-83.
7
Eliot, p. 483.
574
Plate1. JohnLinnell:TheReturn
of Ulysses,1848;
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Plate 24. Harrington Mann: Ulysses Unbinding
42 x 60; photo: Academy Notes 1885.
25.
Edward
J.
Poynter:
Nausicaa
and
Her
at
Playing
Maidens
Ball,
1879;
58
Plate 27. William Blake Richmond: The Death of Ulysses, 1888; dimensions
unknown; photo: Helen Lascelles, "William Blake Richmond," Art An
nual 1902.
Plate 28. Frederic Leighton: Daedalus and Icarus, 1869; 53V2X40V2; The Na
tional
Trust,
Buscot
Park.
London.
204;
876; Museums
andGalleri^
o"Merseyside
(Lady
Lever
Art
Nat?Onal
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