Regarding Penelope: From Character to Poetics, Second Edition
By Nancy Felson.
Harvard University Press, 2025.
Hardcover, 220 pages, $24.95.
Reviewed by Jesse Russell.
Until the recent fascination with Cleopatra VII, Helen of Sparta / Troy has been the most readily identifiable Ancient Greek woman in the popular imagination. Whether or not she really existed, her image as the woman who “launched a thousand ships” stands as an icon of not only ancient and/or classical beauty, but of Western womanhood in general. At the same time, while there are many Helens from many sources, she is often perceived in a negative light as an adulteress or, at the very least, someone who put up very little resistance to Paris’s charms. As feminism has changed gears in the twenty-first century from attacking public voyeuristic displays of women as derogatory to celebrating such displays as empowerment, Helen, like Cleopatra, has come to symbolize an allegedly liberated female body (and soul) that is able to charm and entrance men.
In contrast to Helen stands Penelope. Until recent revisionist readings, Penelope has stood in the popular imagination as the “kept” domestic woman par excellence. While her husband Odysseus is able to travel the world and have affairs with goddesses and witches, Penelope is the stereotypical Eisenhower Era American housewife, stuck in her boring oikos, pining to travel the world. However, within the world of classical homeschooling and the wider world of (at least culturally) conservative study of “Great Books,” Penelope serves as the image of the noble mother and faithful wife who attempts to manage her household and protect her son while awaiting the return of her heroic husband.
In her classic work, Regarding Penelope: From Character to Poetics, the University of Georgia’s Nancy Felson explores Penelope’s complex character, proving that both the New Left feminist as well as the classical conservative understanding of Penelope are not necessarily wrong, but rather only provide limited perceptions of one of the most important women in not only Greek, but wider world history.
Regarding Penelope is unquestionably one of the best and most accessible books written on Homer. It contains all of the qualities of great “middle brow” (in the best sense) classical works. Felson provides a close reading of the text, allowing Homer to speak through the often tangled thicket of critical theory that is placed over the Greek bard. More importantly, Professor Felson explores The Odyssey as a source of philosophical and psychological wisdom. It is not simply a cultural artefact to be analyzed and admired (or disdained).
Felson’s Penelope, who seems, in all probability, very close to Homer’s Penelope, is the faithful wife of Odysseus, but she is also the independent and flirtatious matriarch who rules over her household and teases the suitors, whom she views as her “geese.” Felson notes that, on one hand, Odysseus and Penelope have a deep spiritual connection. At the same time, Odysseus and Penelope both have been unfaithful for each other, and there is a clear barrier between them. Felson argues that throughout Odysseus’s journey home to Ithaca, Penelope is a lodestar and guiding light. However, it is precisely when he reencounters Penelope upon his return that Odysseus encounters Penelope as what Felson calls an “enigma.” Penelope likewise retained an image of a youthful, handsome, and athletic Odysseus, but is confronted with an older and world-weary husband whom she must choose to accept again—Felson frequently refers to Odysseus and Penelope having to undergo a second courtship on Ithaca. Unlike Agamemnon, who placed a bard to watch Clytemestra, Odysseus entrusts his kingdom to Penelope. The big question on Odysseus’s mind is whether Penelope has been faithful. The standard answer is usually “yes,” while the cad Odysseus lay with Circe and Calypso. However, as Felson rightly notes, Penelope seems to enjoy the attention from the suitors and even seems to flirt with them in front of the disguised Odysseus.
Felson’s Odysseus likewise is neither the unwavering loyal and heroic husband nor the heartless and selfish proto-colonialist he is often depicted as being. Prior to leaving Ithaca, Odysseus was known as a good and noble king, who, ironically acted as a father-figure to suitors such as Eurymachus and welcomed the family of the especially badly behaved suitor Antinous. Under Odysseus’s rule, life on Ithaca flourished. Felson even points out that Penelope will ultimately choose Odysseus again because he gives the best gifts. While such a point may seem to be petty and materialistic, it is true to the text and to “real life.” Odysseus’s gift giving is not his sole or even most important good quality, however. Perhaps the most important quality that is shared between Odysseus and Penelope is their “likemindedness.” While Homer’s world is celebrated in some contemporary discourse as being a pre-Socratic, barbaric and vital time, intelligence is still prized in Homer as among the greatest human qualities. Both Penelope and Odysseus have leonine intelligences and personalities. Felson does grant that at least some of the suitors are more than the “bros” they are usually depicted as being, but Odysseus towers above them and is the best match for the similarly aristocratic Penelope.
In Regarding Penelope, Nancy Felson also explores the figure of Telemachus. Bound in the world of women, Telemachus must become a man and form his own household in which he will be anax and basileus. Nonetheless, Felson demonstrates a profound wisdom in noting that Telemachus must not become all too masculine in his search for own masculinity. What makes Odysseus a hero is his tempered and humbled masculinity; it is this tempered masculinity, which further makes Odysseus a fit partner for Penelope. The suitors are, of course, too boyish, but Felson importantly notes that they are also too masculine: they are too aggressive and greedy and loud. Odysseus has this in him as well, but his return to Ithaca is a process of a humiliation as well as (reciprocal) submission to Penelope.
The new edition of Regarding Penelope is a gift during an especially propitious time. While the contemporary Left is working on deconstructing and repackaging classical literature to suit imposed and artificial race and gender categories, and the very online New Right is pillaging classical literature for its own hypermasculine and postmodern echo chamber, it is a very radical act to attempt to read literature on its own terms. Moreover, while so much of the traditional reading of Penelope and other Greek women attempts to frame them as one sided heroines or tramps, it is even more of a radical act to read Penelope and other classical figures as complex and multifaceted people who did not easily fit into ready-made categories.
Jesse Russell has written for publications such as Catholic World Report, The Claremont Review of Books Digital, and Front Porch Republic.
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