Top Tens – History: Top 10 Types of Empire & Imperialism (Special Mention) (11) Cultural Imperialism

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Arguably the two most famous and iconic corporate brand logos in the world – Coca-Cola and McDonalds (fair use)

 

 

(11) CULTURAL IMPERIALISM

 

Coca-Colonization and McDonaldization!

Yes, cultural imperialism is much broader than the spread of American corporate brands – extending throughout culture and cultural values or traditions – but Coca-Cola and McDonalds serve (heh) as useful symbols of it, as well as the most recognizable.

In my opinion, however, cultural imperialism is a somewhat nebulous concept, typically co-opted for ideological or political argument rather than to connote anything meaningful.

Sure, empires routinely engage in the acculturation of their imperial subjects, so much so that there’s a whole litany of terms with the suffix “isation” or “ization” for it, such as Romanization for the Roman Empire, Americanization for  the global influence of American culture (including Coca-Cola and McDonalds), and so on.

To the extent that such acculturation is imposed by direct imperial diktat or policy, then it probably counts as cultural imperialism. Outside of that, it is less clear.

For example, cultural imperialism is usually defined in terms of “asymmetrical power” – that is, “it relies on economic, political, or military superiority rather than equal cultural exchange”.

Firstly, however, I’m not sure that “cultural exchange” is ever entirely “equal”, or even what would qualify a “cultural exchange” as “equal”. A better adjective might have been “free” rather than “equal”.

Secondly, and more fundamentally, cultural exchange itself may “rely” on – that is, be influenced or motivated by – “economic, political, or military superiority”, to emulate or achieve that superiority. Indeed, military “superiority” is one of the clearest examples of cultural exchange for such a purpose, particularly if that superiority is based on some technological or organizational development.

Also, as critics of the concept have pointed out, it oversimplifies how imperial subjects or other people interact with “foreign” or imported culture – they often “reinterpret, resist, or localize imported culture rather than passively absorbing it.”

It also overlooks “counter-flows” – that is, the culture imported by an imperial nation from its subjects. For that matter, it overlooks the extent to which imperial nations also routinely practice cultural laissez-faire or tolerance when it comes to their subjects – to minimize disruption and resistance, avoid unnecessary drain on their resources, co-opt local elites, or even from genuine love or respect for local culture among other reasons.

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Empires (Special Mention: Revised) (11) Venetian Republic

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The Republic of Venice with its Domini de Terraferma and Stato da Mar – its main territories in Italy and overseas by Ariel196 for Wikipedia “Venice” licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

 

(11) VENETIAN EMPIRE 

 

Technically it’s the Venetian Republic – La Serenissima or the Most Serene Republic of Venice – as it was another imperial republic in the style of Rome, indeed with quite a few parallels between them.

Of course, the world had moved on from the days that an Italian city-state could dominate the peninsula and then the Mediterranean (and beyond) in the style of Rome, but Venice took a damn good swing at it, punching remarkably above its weight.

The parallels with Rome extend to a similarly legendary founding – the Republic dated its founding back to 697 AD, albeit predated by Venice itself reputed to have been settled by refugees from the Huns and Germanic invaders of the Roman Empire seeking the safety of its islands.

The Republic was founded as the Duchy of Venetia within the eastern Roman Empire’s Exarchate of Ravenna – its leader’s title of Doge originating from the Latin for dux (or duke) as an imperial provincial title. It became increasingly independent as the exarchate crumbled, until effectively achieving de facto independence because of an agreement between the Holy Roman Empire and the eastern Roman Empire.

Its independence corresponded with its rise as an imperial republic in its own right. Venice relied on the tried-and-true methods of a smaller state – particularly city and island states – to punch above its weight, namely naval power fuelled by wealth from maritime trade, as well as cunning and sharp practice in diplomacy. That wealth was also fuelled by its art, craft and manufacture – historian Geoffrey Blainey’s observation that Venice was like the Silicon Valley of its time, in things like glassmaking, has always stuck in my mind.

Indeed, while it resembled Rome’s classical (and imperial) republic, it also followed the classical Greek model of a maritime colonial empire with a focus on its naval power and trade, while in many ways pre-empting the European colonial – and neocolonial – empires of which it was a predecessor.

And like all empires, even maritime or mercantile ones, it was in the business of territorial expansion – “During its history it annexed a large part of north-east Italy, Istria, Dalmatia, the coasts of present-day Montenegro and Albania as well as numerous islands in the Adriatic and eastern Ionian seas. At the height of its expansion, between the 13th and 16th centuries, it also governed the Peloponnese, Crete and Cyprus, most of the Greek islands, as well as several cities and ports in the Mediterranean”.

Of course, its rise as imperial republic caused it to come into conflict with rival Italian city-states, notably Genoa, but also the eastern Roman empire. Venice had a weird love-hate symbiotic-parasitic relationship with the eastern Roman Empire – evolving from an imperial province and vassal in the empire’s reconquest of Italy, to ally and close associate of the empire effectively as its navy and trading house, and ultimately to rival and perfidious adversary in the Fourth Crusade.

In some ways, that symbiosis involved Venice as almost the inversion of Constantinople – the heart of a mercantile empire which waxed and rose, sucking from the blood of the latter as it waned and fell. Although ironically, Venice found its fortune to be little more symbiotic with Constantinople than it would have liked after all – as the rival declining eastern Roman empire was replaced by the new rival rising Ottoman Empire.

Even then, its remarkable to think that Venice as a city-state held its own going toe-to-toe with the Ottoman superpower for four centuries or so of Ottoman-Venetian Wars (that commenced even before the fall of Constantinople), albeit inevitably losing territory to the Ottomans.

The rise of the Ottoman Empire also indirectly prompted one of the primary factors behind the decline (and fall) of the Venetian Republic and the Mediterranean in general – the decline of Mediterranean trade relative to the Atlantic as the latter opened in the European Age of Discovery and conquest of the Americas. Even so, the Venetian Republic endured until 1797 when it finally fell to the French under Napoleon.

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mythology Horror (2) Ghosts

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The bedsheet ghost – that common visual representation of ghosts in Western popular culture. And what better illustration for one than a Scooby Doo villain – Phantom from “Hassle in the Castle”, Season 1 episode 3 “Scooby Doo, Where Are You?” (fair use)

 

 

(2) GHOSTS

 

Ghosts – shades, shadows, apparitions, haunts, phantoms or phantasms, poltergeists, spectres, spooks and wraiths – the stuff of folklore, as belief in ancestral spirits or spirits of the dead is nearly universal in world folklore or mythology.

And ghost stories or hauntings are nearly universal as the default plot or premise in horror. Even when the plot of horror fiction does not involve an actual ghost, it tends to involve haunted house or place in one way or another – giving rise to the so-called haunted house problem so that the plot can occur, or why don’t they just leave? (Usually the answer is some variant that they can’t).

The only reason ghosts aren’t in the top spot is because they are a subset, albeit a large one, of my top spot entry of the underworld.

Note their incorporeal nature, which distinguishes them from my next entry for the hungry, corporeal dead.

Not all ghosts are equal. There’s nice or benign ghosts – something you might expect for your own ancestral or familial spirits. And some ghosts are just a**holes. I guess being dead can do that to you. Japanese ghosts – those stringy-haired ghost girls – are particularly nasty, attacking people for no particular reason other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And then you have the weirder, otherwordly “ghosts”, that aren’t even people but things – haunted houses or locations (which are ghostly entities of themselves, apart from any individual ghosts that may be hanging around), ghost ships, ghost trains, and phantom vehicles.

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Types of Empire & Imperialism (Special Mention) (10) Gunboat Diplomacy

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C;lassic gunboat diplomacy, even more so for the depolyment of ships designated as gunboats – The Crisis at Zanzibar, British War-Ships engaged in the Bombardment of the Sultan’s Palace by artist Fred T. Jane for the Illustrated London News, 5 September 1896 (public domain image)

 

 

(10) GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY

 

“An aircraft carrier is 100,000 tons of diplomacy”.

Send in the boats!

Ah yes, a blunter and more prosaic phrase for the reality of imperialism than either civilizing mission or manifest destiny, although the diplomacy part of the phrase is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

While the point is typically to avoid the actual use of military force or at least more than a show of it, the diplomacy of gunboat diplomacy relies on the threat of superior military force to bring imperial power to bear on a weaker opponent, potentially as an imperial subject or supplicant.

Not surprisingly given the reference to gunboat, it was a phrase used particularly for the use of superior naval firepower as an instrument of nineteenth century European maritime empires or the United States.

“Gunboat diplomacy is the pursuit of foreign policy objectives with the aid of conspicuous displays of naval power, implying or constituting a direct threat of warfare should terms not be agreeable to the superior force. The term originated in the 19th century, during the age of imperialism, when Western powers would use their superior military capabilities, particularly their naval assets, to intimidate less powerful nations into granting concessions. The mere presence of warships off a country’s coast was often enough to have a significant effect, making the actual use of force rarely necessary.”

Not that gunboat diplomacy is limited to gunboats in the nineteenth century but has persisted through the twentieth century to the contemporary use of naval power, or the combination of naval and air power encapsulated in Kissinger’s quote about aircraft carriers as diplomacy, or indeed to air power – bomber or drone diplomacy as it were – or the use of special forces.

I would argue that gunboat diplomacy also has a long history before the nineteenth century – indeed for as long as boats have been combined with guns, or even beforehand where massed fleets or other attributed of pre-gunpowder navies could be deployed for shows of force or threats short of the actual use of force.

It would also extend to limited deployment and threats or shows of force on land. The Roman emperor Antoninus Pius reputedly engaged in what might be called legion diplomacy when he “apparently stood off a resurgent Parthian Empire (under Vologasius IV) by writing a letter warning that “encroachment on Roman territory would not be taken lightly”. The Roman Empire also offers the examples of punitive raids, or the “fortification diplomacy” of other states.

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Empires (Special Mention: Revisited) (10) Hunnic Empire

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Extent of Attila’s empire based on a map from Empires and Barbarians: The Birth of Europe by Peter Heather 2010 – map by Slovenski Volk for Wikipedia “Huns” licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

 

(10) HUNNIC EMPIRE

 

A classic nomadic empire founded by horse blitzkrieg of mounted nomadic tribes from the Eurasian steppes that should be ranked as the fourth great empire of late antiquity and menacing the other three – Persian Empire as well as eastern and western Roman empires – in turn.

(Although I tend to agree with the observation of Youtuber Tominus Maximus that the Huns generally hated the eastern Roman empire but liked the western Roman empire. Well, you know, until they didn’t.)

However, despite its classic status and notoriety, the Hunnic Empire remains somewhat nebulous because like most nomadic empires, they preferred riding to writing – so we are mostly reliant on what other people wrote about them.

Apparently according to tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River. Their origins remain uncertain, other than broadly sweeping across central Asia – with some theories resembling an extent almost as wide as the Mongols, particularly those theories linking them to the Xongniu and other nomadic peoples that menaced China, often stylized as Huns, such as in the Disney version of Mulan.

They are also often linked to other nomadic tribes, sometimes also stylized as Huns, that menaced the Persian Empire and even India. It’s not helped by the tendency, as with the Scythians, to identify or name nomadic tribes across Eurasia as Huns – both before and after the classical Hunnic Empire.

Classical sources have them suddenly appear in Europe or west of the Volga from 370 AD – where they triggered the Migration Period or at least the westward movement of Goths into the Roman Empire and bringing about the latter’s fall.

By 430 AD, they had “established a vast but short-lived empire on the Danubian frontier of the Roman Empire” – with various Germanic or other tribes “either under Hunnic hegemony or fleeing from it”. The Hunnic empire largely crystallized around the charismatic leadership of the most notorious Hun, Attila – and rapidly disintegrated after his death.

Under Attila, the Huns won not just peak empire but also the historical infamy of being extremely barbaric and ruthless towards their adversaries. Although I have to admit Attila being identified as the Scourge of God earns him badass points.

From their empire, the Huns raided the more robust eastern Roman Empire, invading the Balkans and threatening the capital Constantinople, with little to stop them until the emperor opted for the pragmatic policy of paying tribute for peace.

The Huns then invaded the western Roman Empire in 451, with Attila claiming the sister of the western Roman emperor as his bride and half the empire as his dowry – with some fairness, as she had swiped right on him in preference to her betrothal to a Roman senator.

 However, there the Huns encountered the general Flavius Aetius, often hailed as “the last of the Romans”. Ironically, Aetius had effectively risen to power by relying on the Huns – with whom he had previously been a court hostage – as his allies. Now he had to face off against his former allies as Attila invaded Gaul, drawing on the waning resources of an increasingly vestigial empire to field one of its last major military operations in alliance with the Visigoths and its other Germanic allies – and won, defeating the Huns at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains.

Or not, as historians dispute how conclusive a victory it was. Attila and the Huns withdrew from Gaul, only to invade Italy the following year – and there was little Aetius could do to stop them there, except for the Pope to ask Attila nicely if he would leave without sacking Rome.

Surprisingly, it worked. Attila left Italy – albeit probably more for lack of supplies or expectations of tribute as well as an eastern Roman campaign against the Huns in their homeland. He died the following year, aborting his plans for further campaigns against either empire – as with the Mongols, Europe was saved from invasion by a fortunately timed death (from Attila partying too hard celebrating his latest wedding to his hot new bride).

The Huns took one last shot at the eastern Roman Empire under one of Attila’s sons in 469, vanishing from history with their defeat.

 However, much about the Hunnic Empire remains mysterious, even the empire’s full territorial extent – some maps tentatively suggest their empire extended to the Baltic, but we just don’t know. Similarly, we can only speculate on why Attila agreed to leave Italy, setting aside papal mojo. We only have glimpses of fascinating aspects of the Huns such as their practice of cranial deformation, with their subsequent appearance no doubt adding to their fearsome reputation.

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mythology Horror (1) Underworld

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A particularly horrific scene, as depicted in William-Adolphe Bougeureau’s 1850 painting “Dante and Virgil in Hell” (publlic domain image)

 

 

(1) UNDERWORLD

 

Chthonic horror!

God is a hole in the heart of the world and he’s hungry – omnipotent, omniscient, omnivorous.

Yes, I know my top entry for mythology horror is a common denominator across mythologies – dare I say lowest common denominator in a different sense – rather than any specific mythology.

But you don’t get more horror in mythology than chthonic horror, the horror of the underworld.

Even when it isn’t literal hell or pandemonium, the underworld is a bleak and dark place, that hole in the heart of the world.

Even when its gods aren’t literal demons or devils, they are those hungry gods representing the force of death in a world of the dead. The underworld lies between death and destruction or between the proverbial devil and the deep blue sea – the adversarial forces of nature between predation and parasitism, between evolution and entropy. Or is that devolution (heh)?

And of course its denizens are the dead.

While there tends to be mythic horror in descent into the underworld, literally or metaphorically, particularly if one remains there for good or rather for evil (heh), mythic horror usually involves the underworld or its supernatural forces moving in the other direction, invading our own world. For that matter, that’s usually the default plot or premise of horror fiction, literally or metaphorically.

Hell, even the intrusion or invasion of mythic worlds other than the underworld into our own can be terrifying. “Be not afraid” as Biblical angels say to soothe the terror from their appearance.

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Types of Empire & Imperialism (Special Mention) (9) Civilizing Mission

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Yes, you can read the title – the poem by Rudyard Kipling as it was originally published, and the poem that has probably alone done most to undermine his modern literary reputation (public domain image)

 

 

(9) CIVILIZING MISSION – WHITE MAN’S BURDEN

 

Although associated with – or claimed by – European colonial empires, a belief of civilizing mission is the flipside of the belief in manifest destiny that is inherent to most empires, flipped that is from the “destiny” of the imperial nation to its “responsibility” for the “benefit” of its subjects.

Well, in theory anyway – almost every empire proclaims itself to be spreading civilisation or bringing some benefit to its subjects, and all but the most destructive have at least some merits in those claims.

That’s including those European empires. As destructive as they were, they did bring the development of trade and industry, transport and communication, and technology and science that ultimately was the reason they were able to have empires in the first place, however unevenly and for their own interests first. Not to mention social and political ideas, some of which such as nationalism and liberalism were ultimately to prove self-destructive to their empires.

Still, it can’t help but add insult to the injury of imperial rule for the rulers to claim they are doing so for the civilization of their subjects, particularly when killing, starving or enforcing the servitude of those subjects.

That’s even more so when it is preached as a “burden” for the imperial rulers, as Rudyard Kipling did in his poem “The White Man’s Burden”, its subtitle expressly addressed to the United States for the Philippines after the Spanish-American War, exhorting the United States to assume the same “burden” as the British did for their empire. It was astonishingly tone-deaf even for its time, as demonstrated by contemporary criticism such as that by Mark Twain – and probably is the one poem that has alone done most to undermine Kipling’s modern literary reputation ever since.

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Empires (Special Mention: Revised) (9) Greek – Athenian Empire & Spartan Hegemony

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Athens and its Delian League vs Sparta and its Peloponnesian League at the outset of the Peloponnesian War – map by Marysas (from E Levy) for Wikipedia “Delian League” under licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

 

(9) GREEK – ATHENIAN EMPIRE & SPARTAN HEGEMONY

 

Athenian empire vs Spartan hegemony.

We usually (and correctly) think of the Roman Empire as the imperial template in Western culture, but this can mislead us into overlooking the Greek imperial template in Western culture. No – I’m not talking the Macedonian empire of Alexander the Great, although that too was influential, but the classical Greek city states, particularly the opposing Athenian empire and Spartan hegemony of the Peloponnesian War.

Of course, similarly to the archetypal city-states of Sumerian civilization, their imperialism was on a small scale – city states ruling other city states or their colonies.

And it tended not to call itself a formal empire as such. Indeed, in this it was a remarkably far-reaching imperial template, not so much for imperialism but neo-imperialism. Where the Roman imperial template set the model for imperialism from the fall of the western empire through to the European maritime empires, the Greek imperial template set the model for neo-imperialism from the European maritime empires onwards.

The Athenian empire evolved from the Delian League, an alliance of Greek cities led by Athens against Persia after the Greek-Persian Wars, based on Athenian naval supremacy and named (in modern historiography) after the sacred island of Delos, “where congresses were held in the temple and where the treasury stood until, in a symbolic gesture, Pericles moved it to Athens in 454 BC”.

That last part of moving the Delian treasury to Athens marked the point where the heavy-handed control by Athens of the Delian League evolved into an Athenian empire, where Athens began to use the League’s funds for its own purposes and there were conflicts with or outright rebellions by less powerful League members.

Essentially members of the League were given a choice of either offering armed forces or paying taxes into the treasury. Most states chose the tax, which now doubled up as leaving them effectively disarmed while paying taxes or tribute to Athens. In the words of the classical historian Thucydides, ” it was correspondingly easy” for Athens “to reduce any that tried to leave the confederacy” – that is, crush members that tried to revolt or secede.

Thucydides dramatized just how heavy-handed Athens could be in the famous Melian Dialogue, often invoked by the so-called school of realism in international relations for its maxim that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer as they must”. Thucydides put that maxim in the mouths of his imagined Athenian emissaries when giving their ultimatum to the neutral island of Melos – surrender and join the League, paying tribute to Athens, or be destroyed.

One might well see the template from this Athenian “empire” or Delian League for the style or techniques of modern neo-imperialism or European maritime empire – even more so when one recalls that the Athenian state was democratic, in the style of so-called democratic empires, “a political state which conducts its internal affairs democratically but externally its policies have a striking resemblance to imperial rule”.

Interestingly, American democracy initially echoed classical Athenian democracy, in that both were also slave-owning societies and excluded women from politics.

Its opposing counterpart, Sparta, was authoritarian at heart but was also shy of formal empire with its Spartan hegemony. Particularly after its victory in the Peloponnesian War, it too could prove equally heavy-handed – establishing many of the pro-Spartan foreign governments throughout the Aegean and also establishing many Spartan garrisons.

Just as I tend to see the Peloponnesian War between democratic Athens and oligarchic Sparta underlying the grand ideological conflict in Western civilization, so too I am tempted to see the Athenian empire and Spartan hegemony resembling the rival United States and Soviet Union in the Cold War, except with victory reversed.

However, there was a deeper template, from which the Athenian empire and Spartan hegemony arose in part, and that was the long history of classical Greek colonization, a precursor of subsequent settler colonialism.

Essentially, Greek cities founded other cities on a prolific scale throughout the Mediterranean and Black Sea coastlines, except in the western Mediterranean where they came up against the Phoenicians and their colonies (in what would become Carthage and its territories), from 750 to 550 BC.

The Greek cities or colonies often became strong city states in their own right, independent of their founding city or cities and often even rivalling them in influence – as in Sicily and southern Italy, to the extent that the Romans called the area Magna Graecia or Great Greece.

I am not familiar enough with the history of Greek colonization to comment on the extent that it was imperial in terms of displacing or dominating any inhabitants in the area of their colonies. However, it certainly had an impact that is occasionally characterized as cultural imperialism – Greek cities spread Greek culture.

However, I would go further – that Western civilization as a whole is effectively a Greek colony.

An analogy that is commonly drawn in modern history is to cast the British and their empire as the Greeks to the Romans of the United States, albeit American imperialism might be styled as closer to that of the Delian League (and its original democratic polity as closer to that of Athens).

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mythology Horror (Preamble)

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This almost looks like a cheerful party, except for the dead babies – Francisco Goya’s “Witches’ Sabbath”, oil painting 1798 (public domain)

 

 

TOP 10 MYTHOLOGY HORROR

 

Horror is a genre of fiction that seeks to elicit fear or disgust.

That always prompts me to think of Greek dramatic tragedy and its quality of catharsis proposed by Aristotle, arousing intense feelings of fear and pity in its audience.

However, thinking about horror also prompts me to think that horror, or at least feelings or forms of horror, extend well beyond the genre of fiction labelled as such. Indeed, there is horror to be found throughout the subjects of my top ten lists, most obviously with the heart of horror genre fiction in my lists for film or fantasy and SF – but somewhat less obviously for poetry and literature, comics, television, music, and tropes, all of which are surprisingly prolific for feelings or forms of horror. More surprisingly prolific but even less obviously still is the horror to be found in science and philosophy or history.

Mythology on the other hand may not be so surprising for horror, given that it is easy to trace the origins of horror to mythology itself.

“The horror genre has ancient origins, with roots in folklore and religious traditions focusing on death, the afterlife, evil, the demonic, and the principle of the thing embodied in the person.” (Wikipedia, “Horror Fiction”)

Also, mythology was the usual subject of that Greek dramatic tragedy I referenced at the outset for its catharsis. I stand by that comparison between Greek tragedy and the genre of horror, at least as holding up in similar qualities of catharsis. And it wouldn’t take too much to tweak most Greek tragedies into horror films.

Hence, this is my Top 10 Mythology Horror list. Obviously, horror in mythology tends to be from supernatural sources, but then my own tastes in horror similarly lean towards dark fantasy or supernatural horror so it’s a good match. For that matter, horror films or horror in fantasy literature also frequently lean to adapting the horror in mythology.

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Adaptations of the Odyssey (Complete Top 10)

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Odysseus in the underworld – screenshot from the trailer for the 2026 Christopher Nolan film (fair use)

 

 

TOP 10 ADAPTATIONS OF THE ODYSSEY

 

Sing, Muse, of my Top 10 Adaptations of the Odyssey.

Yes, as pre-empted by the introduction to my Top 10 Odysseys (or Odyssey Iceberg), I have my Top 10 Adaptations of the Odyssey.

After all, it is the oldest work of Western literature (along with the Iliad as its prequel) and hence been around for almost three millennia as inspiration for prolific adaptations and re-imaginings – predominantly in literature but also on screen and in other media.

 

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

 

The edition my parents owned and hence the one I read – I think it may be the second edition (fair use)

 

 

(1) BERNARD EVSLIN –

THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES (1969)

 

 

Not surprisingly for an adaptation of the Odyssey written for children, I read this book as a child and it was my introduction to the Odyssey, preceding me reading the actual Odyssey by many years. This book is what lodged the Odyssey deep into my psyche and has remained there with it ever since, so much so that even upon reading or re-reading the actual Odyssey afterwards, it remains conflated with or filtered through this adaptation as my childhood version of it.

It helps that the book follows the original narrative closely, give or take what you’d expect in an adaptation for children. As the saying goes, what you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts. Evslin even arguably improves on the narrative conventions of Homer for the modern reader – substituting a linear narrative for the non-linear narrative of the original, telling the wanderings of Odysseus firsthand rather than Odysseus telling it to the Phaeacians as a story within the story, and adding or fleshing out details or dialogue from the original. The only jarring thing is the use of the Roman name Ulysses rather than the Greek name Odysseus, as the book otherwise uses the names from Greek mythology.

 

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

Profile of the poem as sold on Amazon Kindle (fair use)

 

 

 

(2) ALFRED LORD TENNYSON –

ULYSSES (1842)

 

“I mete and dole

Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me”.

 

Well, there’s a job description for you, surprisingly close to my actual job description.

Okay, technically it doesn’t adapt the original but is a sequel, invoking the same heroic spirit for one last sail into the sunset – which I can’t help but feel was an influence on my next entry.

However, after Evslin, it was my next invocation of the Odyssey as a child before reading the Odyssey itself.

Alfred Lord Tennyson – archetypal poet of Victorian literature and poet laureate – and his Ulysses – poem in blank verse and dramatic monologue. Dramatic monologue to whom is not clear, but by whom is of course the classical hero of Iliad and Odyssey, Odysseus, or as the Romans called him, Ulysses.

Companion poem to his earlier “The Lotus Eaters” also inspired by the Odyssey but complete opposite to the former poem’s anti-heroism – where “The Lotus Eaters” resists the heroic call to action for slacking off and, well, eating lotus (because we’re just so wasted, man), “Ulysses” accepts it and indeed issues it.

 

“Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world”

 

Ulysses is particularly effective – and emotive – as that last call to heroic action, literally riding (or sailing) off into the sunset in one’s own twilight.

 

“We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”.

 

 

Iconic poster image and shot from the trailer for the Nolan film (fair use)

 

 

 

(3) CHRISTOPHER NOLAN –

THE ODYSSEY (2026)

 

“In a time of apparent magic”

 

Well, you must have seen this coming. Christopher Nolan’s cinematic adaptation of the Odyssey is inescapable for inclusion in a top ten compiled in the same year as its release – even more so as Nolan himself observed, the Odyssey “had not been adapted into a large-scale production from a major Hollywood studio” and was hence “an odd gap in movie history”.

Also, I liked it.

It is by no means perfect and necessarily has omissions or changes to adapt the original epic into a single film – but by Athena, it lodged itself deep in my psyche and resonated with me afterwards. Not as deep or resonant as the original epic or my childhood version of it in top spot, but perhaps on a par with Tennyson’s poem – which Nolan’s film echoes in its ending.

Part of that resonance is because Nolan’s film is a distinctly contemporary or modern adaptation of the epic.

The “apparent magic” of the film’s intertitle is poised ambiguously between the psychological and the supernatural – floating as memories through a lotus haze and haunted by the ghosts of war.

Beyond that, there’s the reframing of the poem and the character of Odysseus “into a meditation on the moral consequences of war…using it to reframe the Trojan Horse and Odysseus’ journey as explorations of post-traumatic stress disorder, war guilt, moral injury and the breakdown of trust in civic norms”, albeit it got a little heavy-handed with its message of the Odyssey as part of the Late Bronze Age Collapse and the Sea Peoples.

 

 

 

Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus – one of the most famous paintings depicting a subject of classical mythology or indeed any subject, imitated and parodied ever since in popular culture (public domain image)

 

 

(4) BULFINCH’S MYTHOLOGY (1867)

 

Yes, technically this doesn’t adapt the original but includes a summary version of it as part of general compendium of classical (and other) mythology.

Named for its American author Thomas Bulfinch and published as a collection of three volumes after his death in 1867, Bulfinch’s Mythology still remains a classic reference (and handily in the public domain) – as indeed it was for me as my introduction as a child to the world of classical mythology. Well, technically that was the first volume – the Age of Fable – but it did include a summary version of the Odyssey, that along with Evslin and Tennyson, was my childhood version of the epic.

Anyway, its impact as an introduction to classical mythology remains profound – if, deep within my psyche, there is any mythology that tempts me to actual religion, it’s classical mythology – and its summary version of the Odyssey is part of that.

 

 

Cover 2017 Penguin paperback edition (fair use)

 

 

(5) ROBERT GRAVES –

THE GREEK MYTHS (1955)

 

Similarly to Bulfinch’s Mythology, this book by Graves is a general compendium of Greek myths, including the Odyssey.

However, The Greek Myths by Graves is distinct from Bulfinch’s Mythology in that it extends beyond mere summary to interpretation, albeit Graves’ idiosyncratic interpretation to his overarching “poetic theme” or monomyth of the Goddess, and hence arguably an adaptation.

Essentially, Graves’ study of Greek mythology comes in two parts, summary and interpretation.

The first is a conventional compendium of Greek mythology – literary retellings of the various myths from their sources – and it is this part that is the basis for the book as my favorite single volume study of Greek mythology, albeit somewhat dense in its prose style.

The second part – his interpretative notes or commentary – is where things get wilder, albeit all in good poetic fun. This is where Graves ‘decodes’ or reconstructs Greek mythology to his monomyth of the Goddess or prehistoric matriarchal religion – “Graves interpreted Bronze Age Greece as changing from a matriarchal society…to a patriarchal one under continual pressure from victorious Greek-speaking tribes. In the second stage local kings came to each settlement as foreign princes, reigned by marrying the hereditary queen, who represented the Triple Goddess, and were ritually slain by the next king after a limited period, originally six months. Kings managed to evade the sacrifice for longer and longer periods, often by sacrificing substitutes, and eventually converted the queen, priestess of the Goddess, into a subservient and chaste wife, and in the final stage had legitimate sons to reign after them”.

So there you go. Of course, the historical accuracy of Graves’ interpretation or commentary has been almost universally contested or considered to be idiosyncratic – “the interpretive notes are of value only as a guide to the author’s personal mythology”.

And that extends to his interpretation of the Odyssey, of which I’ll always remember his interpretation of recurring katabasis or descent to the underworld – death and rebirth. One scene that indeed strikes as a ritual burial of death and rebirth is that of the Phaeacians taking Odysseus – who is in a seemingly supernatural state of slumber – ashore on Ithaca, placing him and the treasures they gave him in a cave.

 

 

HarperCollins 1983 paperback edition (the edition I own) – my favorite cover art for the book!

 

 

(6) BARBARA WALKER –

WOMEN’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MYTHS & SECRETS (1983)

 

As the title indicates, this is a general encyclopedia of mythology, including classical mythology, including entries for subjects from the Odyssey – most notably for Penelope.

Like Graves and indeed borrowing from him as a reference, the entries are really interpretative notes or commentary – decoding or reconstructing mythology to the monomyth of the Goddess or prehistoric matriarchal religion.

Essentially, throughout all entries there is Walker’s monomyth of the archetypal Goddess throughout mythology and history – or rather prehistory (or perhaps herstory), as the Goddess was displaced, firstly into many goddesses, and secondly by male gods or God.

Or in this case, heroes or hero. There’re not many entries directly for the Odyssey – Odysseus himself does not get one – but there are brief entries for some of its female figures such as Circe, the Sirens, and above all, Penelope.

Teasing out Walker’s adaptation or interpretation of the Odyssey from such entries, primarily that for Penelope (which cites Graves’ The Greek Myths), Walker presents Penelope as yet another manifestation of the Goddess – essentially in the same role as Athena as patron of Odysseus, particularly as a goddess of fate spinning and unspinning the thread of his life (represented by the shroud of his father) such that he has a literally charmed life, escaping dangers and death.

 

 

O Brother, Where Art Thou? DVD cover (fair use)

 

 

(7) COEN BROTHERS –

O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? (2000)

 

“You seek a great fortune, you three who are now in chains. You will find a fortune, though it will not be the one you seek. But first… first you must travel a long and difficult road, a road fraught with peril. Mm-hmm. You shall see thangs, wonderful to tell…”

So says the Blind Railman, this film’s equivalent of the blind prophet Tiresias in the underworld.

Some might prefer this film adaptation of the Odyssey to that of Nolan – and I obviously regard it as the only other cinematic version worthy of a place in my top ten, albeit second to Nolan’s film.

My reason is that Nolan’s film is a more straightforward adaptation of the original epic. As entertaining as it is, O Brother is only loosely based on the original epic – “a loose comedic retelling of Homer’s ancient Greek epic poem, The Odyssey, set in 1930s Depression-era Mississippi.” Oh – and musical as well.

Indeed, part of the fun is spotting the parallels with the original epic. George Clooney’s Ulysses and Holly Hunter’s Penelope. John Goodman’s cyclops. The sirens – always the best part of the Odyssey and one of the highlights here. And so on.

The other highlight for me was Sheriff Cooley and his relentless pursuit of Clooney’s Ulysses, as well as the latter’s escape by divine fortune. In terms of the epic, Cooley represents Poseidon (or the forces of divine retribution or nemesis in general), but arguably also Hades and the underworld, merged with the Christian Devil.

 

 

Screenshot from the episode with Homer’s homecoming Odysseus (fair use)

 

 

(8) THE SIMPSONS –

D’OH BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?:

TALES FROM THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, SEASON 13 EPISODE 14 (2002)

 

The Simpsons did it.

Yes, it’s a good gag from a South Park episode (“Simpsons Already Did It”) but in the case the Simpsons did Homer’s Odyssey.

I mean, it was probably inevitable, given the name of its (adult) protagonist (and indeed, they used the title Homer’s Odyssey for another episode which did not adapt the epic).

And they did it pretty well – remarkably so as it was not even a whole episode, but one of three segments of an episode. Even so, it hit the main comedic satire or parody beats  of the Odyssey through a modern lens, with too many classic lines from which to choose.

If I have to choose, it’s a close call with Penelope musing whether Odysseus is the same “magnificent physical specimen as when he left” (complete with a photograph of a muscular fully-haired Odysseus), but I’d go with Odysseus blowing off Penelope after twenty years of war and homecoming.

“Quit suffocating me, I’m going to Moe’s”.

 

 

Cover of Scribner Book Company 2003 paperback reprint edition – the edition I own (fair use)

 

 

(9) JONATHAN SHAY –

ODYSSEUS IN AMERICA: COMBAT TRAUMA & THE TRIALS OF HOMECOMING (2002)

 

Companion and sequel of sorts to Shay’s Iliad, Achilles in Vietnam, this is not so much an adaptation of the Odyssey as the usage of it as a lens for combat trauma and the concept of “moral injury”.

I can’t find any source for this book as an influence on Nolan’s film but the themes of the film are too uncannily similar for it not to have been influenced by the book. It certainly has been an influence on my own planned adaptation of the Odyssey…but I’ve said too much.

I’ll let the Amazon blurb for the book speak for it:

“In this ambitious follow-up to Achilles in Vietnam, Dr. Jonathan Shay uses the Odyssey, the story of a soldier’s homecoming, to illuminate the pitfalls that trap many veterans on the road back to civilian life…Shay deepens our understanding of both the combat veteran’s experience and one of the world’s greatest classics. In Achilles in Vietnam, Dr. Jonathan Shay used the story of the Iliad as a prism through which to examine how ancient and modern wars have battered the psychology of the men who fight. Now he turns his attention to the Odyssey, the story of a soldier’s homecoming, to illuminate the real problems faced by combat veterans re-entering civilian society. The Odyssey, Shay argues, offers explicit portrayals of behavior common among returning soldiers in our own culture: danger-seeking, womanizing, explosive violence, drug abuse, visitation by the dead, obsession, vagrancy and homelessness…Shay shows how Odysseus’s mistrustfulness, his lies, and his constant need to conceal his thoughts and emotions foreshadow the experiences of many of today’s veterans.”

 

 

Cover mass market paperback edition – the edition I own (fair use)

 

 

 

(10) MARGARET ATWOOD –

THE PENELOPIAD (2005)

 

It’s only fair that we get Penelope’s tale of the twenty years of Odysseus’ absence (and more).

Margaret Atwood not only gives us this tale, narrated from the underworld after her death, but also gives voice to the maids hanged by Odysseus almost as a footnote to the original epic – or should I say, a Greek chorus?