Homer and the Poetics of Hades

This unique approach to the Iliad and the Odyssey explores the role and function of Hades as a poetic environment in which traditional exposition of heroic values may be subverted in favour of a more immediate and personally inflected approach to the epic past, giving rise to a different kind of poetics: the ‘poetics of Hades’. By portraying Hades as a realm where vision is not possible, Homer creates an environment in which social constraints and divine prohibitions do not apply. The resulting narrative emulates that of the Muses but at the same time is markedly distinct from it, offering Homer and his readers access to an alternative epic tradition.