The Theory of Samuel Butler 1897

Move cursor over shaded areas to identify them.

 

Samuel Butler wrote The Authoress of the Odyssey, where and when she wrote, who she was, the use she made of the Iliad, and how the poem grew under her hands (London 1897; 2nd ed. corr. 1922). Some consider it a parody of classical scholarship in his day. He also wrote a classic English novel, The Way of All Flesh – listed as the 12th best English novel in a recent list of 100 best English novels, prepared by the editorial board of the Modern Library.

[Note omissions in itinerary.]

The central thesis of his book ran counter to 19th-century scholarship in several regards: that the author of the Odyssey  was not a man named Homer, but a young Sicilian lady who lived at Trapani and that the entire local of the poem is drawn from Sicily—the only locale known to the authoress.

Djerba = Lotus Eaters' Land
Favignana, Erice = Cyclopes' Land
Ustica = Aeolus' Island
Cefalù = Laestrygonians' Land
Lipari Islands = Location of Circe, Sirens, Wandering Rocks
Messina = Scylla and Charybdis
Taormina = Location of Helios' Cattle
Pantellaria = Calypso's Island
Trapani = Phaeacians' Land [Home of Odyssey's authoress, according to Butler]

ßBACK                    CONTENTS & INDICES                    NEXTà