The Reception of Classical Masculinity in Women's Historical Novels

Abstract

This chapter draws on the work of three women novelists – Marguerite Yourcenar, Mary Renault and Madeline Miller – in order to explore images and themes of masculinity in classical antiquity as they have been received in historical novels by women authors. It examines some of the precise ideas of Homeric, heroic masculinity that are likely to have informed the work of Yourcenar, Renault and Miller, particularly the importance of violence, sexuality and the classically accepted, monumental relationship of mortal men to the gods. The chapter looks closely at Yourcenar’s fictionalised memoir of Emperor Hadrian and the ways in which it proposes a certain literary monument to classical gods, heroes and political leaders. The novels, Fire From Heaven, The Persian Boy and Funeral Games, use various structures, formal strategies and narrative points of view to examine Alexander the Great’s life and legend, and all are exercises in reception of classical masculinity – that of Alexander and the mythical Achilles.