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emma_in_dreamMary Renault is one of my favourite authors. I can safely say that everything I know about classical Greece I learned from her historical novels.
A quick biography for those who don’t know her life - She was a nurse in the 1940s, and wrote a series of doctor-nurse romances, then a contemporary lesbian novel and a contemporary gay novel, before switching to historical fiction often about gay male heroes’ romances and adventures. She moved to South Africa with her life-long partner, Julie Mullard.
*The Praise Singer* (1978) is about a poet working at the time of transition from oral to written composition and transmission of work. *The Praise Singer* was published just prior to Walter Ong’s *Orality and Literacy* came out (1982) or I would have said it was influenced by it. There is a very powerful passage describing Homer’s work being written down for the first time.
This is not one of her romances. Simonides, the protagonist, has his chief relationships with his family, his patrons, his protege and his peers. Nonetheless, she describes a world with a very different view of sexuality. Some of the free adult men prefer sex with women; others prefer ephebes.
I really enjoy the creation of this different, quite alien world, though I must say that I do find the underlying strands of misogyny disturbing. Of course I’m not suggesting that this comes from Renault - it’s built into classical Greek culture. The most valued relationships are between two free men because they are the most worthy men. (Men may like women but they cannot be peers). As the Greeks said, men have their friends, women their families, and animals their own kind.
In short, Renault is a great historical novelist, really bringing the details of classical Greece to life. She shows a world which is very different - in *The Praise Singer* she focuses on differences in oral performance of literature and written appreciation, and she explores, in the background, a quite different view of love and relationships.
A quick biography for those who don’t know her life - She was a nurse in the 1940s, and wrote a series of doctor-nurse romances, then a contemporary lesbian novel and a contemporary gay novel, before switching to historical fiction often about gay male heroes’ romances and adventures. She moved to South Africa with her life-long partner, Julie Mullard.
*The Praise Singer* (1978) is about a poet working at the time of transition from oral to written composition and transmission of work. *The Praise Singer* was published just prior to Walter Ong’s *Orality and Literacy* came out (1982) or I would have said it was influenced by it. There is a very powerful passage describing Homer’s work being written down for the first time.
This is not one of her romances. Simonides, the protagonist, has his chief relationships with his family, his patrons, his protege and his peers. Nonetheless, she describes a world with a very different view of sexuality. Some of the free adult men prefer sex with women; others prefer ephebes.
I really enjoy the creation of this different, quite alien world, though I must say that I do find the underlying strands of misogyny disturbing. Of course I’m not suggesting that this comes from Renault - it’s built into classical Greek culture. The most valued relationships are between two free men because they are the most worthy men. (Men may like women but they cannot be peers). As the Greeks said, men have their friends, women their families, and animals their own kind.
In short, Renault is a great historical novelist, really bringing the details of classical Greece to life. She shows a world which is very different - in *The Praise Singer* she focuses on differences in oral performance of literature and written appreciation, and she explores, in the background, a quite different view of love and relationships.
