2026/01/01 by Lucinda Menaul · 2 voices
Arts and Humanities · #Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies #Themes in Literature Analysis #Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices
paper · doi:10.1093/crj/clag016
openalex publication_date 2026/01/01 · openalex created_date 2026/06/18 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/18
Abstract This article explores the recasting of Homeric narratives as folklore-fairytale in the latter half of the nineteenth century in Britain, taking William Morris’s 1887 translation of the Odyssey as a case-study of a ‘folkloric’ version in contrast with Alexander Pope’s 1725/1726 ‘neoclassical’ version. Following the excavations of Heinrich Schliemann at Hissarlik and Mycenae in the 1870s, there was a renewed fascination with classical narrative at the same time as the intellectual study of European folklore and fairytales was reaching its heyday. I explore how Morris employed a folkloric mode encompassing both the fantastical tropes of and gritty historical realism behind folklore and fairytales, to convey a kind of proto-‘magical realist’ interpretation of the Odyssey through which to probe social ideals and which contributed to the development of his socialist vision.