-
Date Created
-
2024
-
Description
-
This series of linocut prints and blocks represents the act of retelling and reinterpretation as undertaken by Madeline Miller in The Song of Achilles. Each print depicts themes or scenes from the novel, each on a different type of “urn” or carrying device. The series aims to depict how stories are a method of carrying stories physically and through space and time, allowing readers to give them new life.
-
YASMIN RAZ ON WHAT THESE CRAFTED OBJECTS TEACH US:
Retelling stories is part of human nature. It is the reason why we have favourite anecdotes to tell, why we reread books we hold dear, and why some of us pore over family histories to find personal significance. The history of literature does not exist without oral storytelling traditions, transitioning from small comforts to expansive mythologies. In particular, Greek myths have been one of the most popular candidates for readaptations and retellings. However, few modern retellings can reshape the way an entire generation of people perceive these stories. With The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller has fundamentally changed how we remember the tale of Patroclus and Achilles. It inspired me to create a series of five linoblock stamps and prints, through which I explored the process of recreation and reshaping that Miller went through while creating her retelling of the Trojan war. Through it, I found myself more able to understand why and how stories can be carried and shared for 2700 years and still affect us deeply.
Miller, a classicist with a master’s degree from Brown University, takes on one of Greece’s most famous epics and retells it from the perspective of Patroclus, known only as Achilles’ “companion” in past texts. Even further, Miller makes explicit the romantic relationship between Patroclus and Achilles, a theme that had only been lightly implied in prior retellings. Despite being set around the events of the Trojan war, The Song of Achilles is primarily a romance between Achilles and Patroclus as they grow up together, their love becoming the catalyst for the events that will take place in The Iliad. Miller’s focus came from a passion for their story and deep classical knowledge, eventually combining with “[anger] at the way homophobia was erasing this reading” (Miller 2021). Miller spoke about her fear of classicist backlash while writing the novel, once writing “there is a long history of gatekeeping in classics, [a]ttempts to expand the lens of scholarship have sometimes been met with open hostility,” and later saying that she wanted the story of Achilles and Patroclus to be a story for everyone (Miller 2021).
Greek oral traditions, which is how stories such as The Iliad were originally shared, were the method by which belonging and connection were established in society (Zabel 3). The queer reading of Achilles and Patroclus was unknown to audiences until recently, because of the very fact that it had once been deemed unworthy of acceptance. In an article discussing the Greek tradition, Blaž Zabel argues that even written works of mythology are part of the oral tradition as “literature is in its nature referential and connects the [receiver] with his lifeworld, a feature inherited from the oral nature of language” (Zabel 10). Looking at the traditions from this perspective, one can argue that Miller has fully re-entered the Greek tradition in her writing of The Song of Achilles, using the original myth to declare who “belongs” to a modern audience.
When I first began to plan my pieces, I was full of passion but found quickly that the process of carving forced me to slow down and reconsider what I was doing. In 2021, Madeline Miller wrote about her own process of writing The Song of Achilles, saying that she “leaped at the opportunity” and yet “as [she] typed, [she] felt giddy but illicit” (Miller 2021). I felt myself mirroring Miller as I got further along in my project, more able to identify with the process and insights she might have experienced herself as she attempted to retell the story in her own voice, shaping the image with her careful influence, trying to control her own metaphorical chisel. In creating my linoblocks, I retraced my own pencil marks five times. In an article on artistic learning, focusing specifically on linoprinting , Dennie Wolf emphasizes that recreation is not done in a frenzied manner, but through individual, reflective steps, which is exactly the process I had to use with my linoblocks (Wolf 145). I sketched my drafts, inked them heavily, transferred them onto my blocks, and darkened the images, before finally carving around them.
Linocut printing is done by taking a block of linoleum, which is soft and rubbery, and using a V-shaped chisel to carve away pieces you to not want to show in the final work. At the correct angle, your chisel will glide through the linoleum, but at the wrong one it may get itself stuck or run away into a piece you did not want to cut. Through this process, you are aiming to leave behind the lines that will show up on the finished piece. The resulting block is then inked and transferred to another surface; a process you can do as many times as you wish. When beginning my project, I first had to decide how many blocks and prints I wanted to do, planning which scenes I wanted to depict, and on which type of vase. Including the steps of sketching my design, transferring it onto the linoleum blocks, carving the linocuts, and inking and printing the designs, I went through seven stages of planning and research before ending up with my final pieces.
My project consists of five “vases”, meant to replicate how Greek vases were decorated with scenes from important legends and myth. A typical amphora depicting a lyre with Patroclus and Achilles separated by it; an amphora made for travel with a boat on it to represent the voyage to Troy; a mixing vessel depicting the death of Patroclus; a funerary urn showing where Patroclus and Achilles were buried together; and, finally a typical 21st-century water bottle decorated with stickers depicting motifs found in The Song of Achilles, as would be found in the backpacks of most English students today. Grecian vases have been depicted for most of art history, and my choice to depict these scenes on vases was meant to recreate the way that literature can be a vessel to carry stories and see them across time (Petsalis-Diomidis).
Looking at the phenomenon of The Song of Achilles through lino cutting and printing gave me the perspective to look at how recreation shapes the way stories are told. Lino cutting requires a lot of time and thought, as nothing is erasable. Through my process, I had to take what I believed were the novel’s key moments and motifs and translate them to my audience in the way I wanted them to understand. There were entire arcs I skipped in the novel when I chose my scenes, much like how Miller decided not to include Achilles being dipped in the river Styx in her version of the tale.
Recreation is much more than just telling the same story again. It is a process that requires simultaneous care for the original work, knowledge of how you want it perceived, and questioning of how you are going to arrive there; revisiting and retelling the works of others and yourself. The reason for The Song of Achilles’ success is not that Madeline Miller has suddenly ‘made queer’ a historical work, it is that she carried her vision for what this story could be into the 21st century. The Song of Achilles has allowed a new generation of people to find and hold onto parts of a story that could have been forgotten. Recreation is the art of getting audiences to care about a story that has already been told and getting them to hold onto the pieces you want carried into the future.
-
References
-
Miller, Madeline. “Madeline Miller on The Song of Achilles: ‘It Helped People Come out to Their Parents.’” The Guardian, 27 Aug. 2021. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/27/madeline-miller-on-the-song-of-achilles-it-helped-people-come-out-to-their-parents.
Miller, Madeline. The Song of Achilles. Ecco Press (HarperCollins), 2011.
Petsalis-Diomidis, Alexia. “Introduction.” Drawing the Greek Vase, edited by Caspar Meyer and Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis, 1st ed., Oxford University PressOxford, 2023, pp. 1–23. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192856128.003.0001.
Wolf, Dennie. “Artistic Learning: What and Where Is It?” Journal of Aesthetic Education, vol. 22, no. 1, 1988, p. 143. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.2307/3332971.
Zabel, Blaž. “Belonging in Ancient Greek Oral Tradition.” Between, vol. Vol 7, June 2017, p. No 13 (2017): Longing and Belonging - Désir et Appartenance. DOI.org (Datacite), https://doi.org/10.13125/2039-6597/2633.
The Song of Achilles
Carried Stories