Category: Features

Written by: Lewis Twiby.

On 12 August 1883 the last known quagga died in captivity in Amsterdam Zoo; surveys could find no traces of quagga in the wild, confirming its extinction. Long thought to be a species of zebra, DNA tests in the 1980s found it to be a subspecies, once common across the plains of what would become South Africa. Unlike other infamous cases of animals being driven to extinction by human activity – most notably the moa of New Zealand and dodo of Mauritius – quagga had lived alongside humans for millennia. In fact, the name ‘quagga’ partially comes from the local Khoikhoi name. Instead the extinction of the quagga was deeply entwined with imperial culture and the formation of settler rule in South Africa.

From the early-1600s Dutch settlers created colonies on the southern coast of what would become South Africa. From 1795 the British took over the colony to secure shipping routes to India, and clashes began between the Dutch and British settlers. To avoid British rule the Dutch farmers began what has since been known as the ‘Great Trek’ after 1836; these ‘voortrekkers’ would later become a key part of Afrikaner national identity, especially as British rule tried to reassert itself over the voortrekkers. The white settlers claimed they were pushing into ‘free’ land where they could make a new start, however, this claim was at the expense of Africans. Although there was no intensive sedentary farming, that did not mean that the land was actually unclaimed. Various African peoples made claim to the lands, hosting a range of different states and economic structures ranging from pastoralists to small-scale farming to the expansionist Zulu Empire. These voortrekkers enslaved or displaced Africans from their land and helped destabilise the Zulu Empire to prevent them from being a threat.

The arrival of Europeans changed how the environment was treated. Although it is important not to fetishize pre-colonial land usage – wide-scale pastoralism had caused increased pressure on the land in Zulu and Xhosa communities – it is important to stress how land usage shifted dramatically. Just as in the American West, land areas of the southern African land were divided between individual farms (of varying sizes) which limited where wild animals could move. For herding animals, like the quagga, wide areas are needed so they have plenty of food to eat without destroying the local area – millions of zebra and wildebeest make the trek from the Serengeti in Tanzania to the Masai Mara in Kenya for this reason every year. Herds of quagga, therefore, tried to go on their regular grazing grounds but were faced with Boer farms. To prevent the quagga from competing with their own grazing herds, or from eating their own crops, farmers resorted to shooting stray herds of quagga. Quagga meat was also a good way to get quick food without killing off a possibly prized animal, and their skins could be sold for extra funds.

At the same time, the quagga became a prized animal for menageries back in the metropole. The quagga’s unique skin made it an interesting addition for any wealthy elite’s personal collection – Cusworth Hall in my own town of Doncaster even had quagga grazing on its grounds in the 1700s. When the first zoological gardens started emerging in the 1820s, such as London Zoo, quaggas were in high demand for their appearance and for colonial experiments. Naturalists hoped to breed quaggas with horses to create a new species that could be used in both Europe and Africa. There is also an underlying colonial ideology about why exotic animals were in demand for zoos and menageries. As argued by Harriet Ratvo, having a seemingly rare, unique, or exotic animal was part of a wider imperial power dynamic – if you could have an animal from a colonised region it showed by the power of empire and your own wealth. It showed Britain’s power to be able to move an animal across the world, and the owner’s importance by engaging in this power play.

However, many zoos were unequipped to look after exotic animals initially, and it was not uncommon for new animals to die within a year. London Zoo’s A.D. Bartlett, who oversaw the animal population during the late-nineteenth century, wrote how they had to invest a lot to look after elephants and rhinos because they were hard to get, but as monkeys were cheap to obtain, they did not have to worry in case they died. Initially the quagga was viewed this way. Their large herd sizes and apparent abundancy meant that they were seen as dispensable, but still sought after, animals. Furthermore, brutal capture and transport of animals meant that many more had to be caught than what was needed due to high mortality.

These factors mentioned are what drove the quagga to extinction. Demand to fill zoos in Europe, and policies of extermination to preserve farms in Africa, meant that quagga numbers quickly dwindled. As they were only found in southern Africa it meant that the population rapidly went extinct – although common, they were only common in one area. London Zoo’s single mare was photographed five times between the 1860s and 1870s, before she died, by the zoo’s chief photographer Frederick York. The rapid extinction of the quagga meant that these are the only photos of a living quagga. The last known wild quagga was shot in 1878, and when the last one died in captivity in 1883 the zoo requested hunters find another, not realising how quickly it had gone extinct. Albeit, locally all zebras were referred to as ‘quaggas’ which may have caused the confusion. Thanks to colonial settlement and exploitation the quagga had gone extinct.

Studying the quagga shows the various ways colonialism impacted colonised societies. Unfortunately, the quagga was not the only case of settler colonialism driving animals to extinction – passenger pigeons, thylacines, and almost the bison suffered the same fate. The quagga offers a warning for the future. Neo-colonialism means the natural world is being destroyed in order to fund the economies of the global north threatening both humans and nature. Colonialism very likely will drive orang-utans, macaws, and caimans, just to name a few, to extinction.

Image source: https://www.britannica.com/animal/quagga

Written by: Rosie Byrne

The AIDS Crisis has caused over 35 million deaths worldwide since its outbreak in the 1980s; it produced widespread fear because of its threat to society as an unknown disease. It appeared to be most prevalent amongst the homosexual community, primarily men, intravenous drug users, haemophiliacs and Haitians, due to its spread via sexual contact and via blood. This led to the conception of the ‘4H’ group of primarily affected individuals by the Centre for Disease Control (CDC). In order to prevent the transmission of the disease, these social groups were often the victims of misinformed assumptions and, in some cases, ostracization. This was a period of crisis, mainly due to the overwhelming fear that pervaded society: preconceived social attitudes merged with misconceptions and were heightened by mass media coverage that explicitly warned the public about the threat of the disease to the individual. 

Fear arose primarily because of the unknown nature of the disease: the public largely became aware of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s because increasing cases were presented to doctors that were inexplicable both in their cause and their treatments. It was recognised as a disease that weakened the immune system, which was indicated by illnesses like pneumonia or Kaposi’s sarcoma, a rare cancer with skin lesions that became associated with AIDS. Nevertheless, it was unclear how the disease was transmitted and individuals were not aware of it until symptoms presented, by which time it was largely too late. Therefore, it appeared to pose a threat to society because it was unknown how it could be contracted or how to recognise someone who had the disease without a diagnosis. 

Furthermore, social attitudes towards individuals perceived to be carriers of the infection encouraged their exclusion by society. The high rates of transmission amongst homosexuals, haemophiliacs, intravenous drug users and Haitians led to their association with the disease, whether they were infected or not. This was particularly evident with the refusal to readmit Ryan White to school in the United States of America as he had contracted HIV through contaminated Factor 8 that is used to treat haemophilia. Moreover, it must be noted that AIDS was originally known as GRID, or Gay-Related Immune Deficiency, as it was primarily identified with affecting the homosexual community, and it was thought to solely affect this social group. Its further description as a ‘gay plague’ indicated the way in which fear was employed during this period; the allusion to previous pandemics such as the Black Death and illnesses such as cholera and typhus only exacerbated societal fears during this period. 

High rates of transmission also considerably impacted perceptions about the way in which disease was spread and gave rise to many misconceptions about the contraction of HIV/AIDS. These social groups that were seen as primary sources of contagion were socially stigmatised to the point of avoidance because of public belief about AIDS, and this appears to continue: in a 2014 report, the British public thought that HIV was spread through kissing (16%), sharing a glass (5%), spitting (16%), a public toilet seat (4%), and coughing or sneezing (5%). It is evident that these fears were not completely unfounded; whilst the transmission of HIV via saliva is small, it was still a concern for public health. Particular concern in Britain was also drawn to Princess Diana’s insistence that she shake the hands of patients with AIDS without gloves when she opened the newly-established HIV/AIDS ward at London Middlesex Hospital in 1987.

This widespread fear was arguably advanced by the media and mass advertising campaigns to raise awareness and develop public knowledge about AIDS. The British government spent around £5 million on a mass media campaign that used promotional videos, films, and posters for public information in order to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. The most prominent imagery associated with these are the ‘iceberg’ and the ‘monolith’, both produced in 1987; they were films narrated by John Hurt, whose voiceover warned about the threat of AIDS to “man or woman”, reinforcing the overwhelming tagline of the campaign: “don’t die of ignorance”. The use of symbolism relating to death such as tombstones and white lilies that might be placed upon a grave encouraged widespread fear of a diagnosis of HIV as ultimately a death sentence. This was further emphasised by the soundtrack employed, that implied doom using church organs and melancholic music. It is notable that leaflets with the phrase “don’t die of ignorance” were sent to every house in the UK. Whilst the extent of promotional material arguably escalated public consciousness about the epidemic, it also fostered public fear and concern about the threat of AIDS. It must be noted that testimony from the 1980s in relation to the AIDS Crisis largely references public health campaigns that warned about the spread of the disease, and the fear that they felt as a reaction to such published material.

Improvements in medical research and subsequent treatments has meant that an HIV diagnosis is not a death sentence; around 100,000 people in the UK live today with HIV. Treatments such as post-exposure prophylaxis is used to reduce the viral load of HIV within the blood to undetectable levels, meaning that it does not develop into AIDS as it did in the 1980s, when it was incurable. Nevertheless, social stigma still continues as a result of surviving misconceptions about HIV/AIDS. This has been brought to light in several documentaries, especially that of Gareth Thomas, a Welsh professional rugby player who announced he was HIV positive but to untraceable levels on a BBC documentary in September 2019. As such, it is clear that the HIV/AIDS crisis has concluded, but its sociological effects still remain thirty years on.

Image: A 1985 protest in New York City, the hub of the AIDS epidemic and the corresponding art movement. Source: https://mashable.com/2016/10/26/aids-epidemic-study/

Written by: Prim Phoolsombat

The definition of genocide by the United Nations Genocide Convention is as follows: any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, such as: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

On 18 June 2019, California governor Gavin Newsom officially recognized and apologized for the systematic genocide of California’s Native Americans. Since Europeans first arrived in North America, the near total decline in indigenous populations is often attributed to Old World diseases spread beyond the control or responsibility of settlers. Epidemics seemed to conveniently destroy thousands of diverse tribes from coast to coast, leading to the popular image of unpopulated American land and a justification for a manifest destiny philosophy. The term “manifest destiny” was coined in 1845 by a newspaper editor to summarize the aggressive and divinely ordained expansion of colonizers westward and their duty to spread democracy and capitalism as they went. It was in the name of “God’s will” that the first California government ordered ethnic war on Native Americans — a calculated campaign comparable to that of the Tutsis in Rwanda, the Dzungars in Central Asia, and other well-known genocides.

Crimes against California’s Native Americans began in 1769 with the Spanish occupation. Father Junipero marched from Mexico to San Diego with an army to construct missions that would eventually reach San Francisco. Prior to his arrival, the Pacific coast was a well-populated, well-resourced, and culturally diverse area, with total population estimates ranging between 100,000 and 700,000. The various tribes spoke 80 different languages and had such ample access to wild foods that farming was not necessary. Father Junipero’s campaign immediately raped, kidnapped, and enslaved native people to work for the missions. Whether in the Santa Barbara or San Diego missions, the natives attempted to revolt and failed in each location due to armed Spanish forces. Executions and abuse were routine in addition to thousands of native deaths from smallpox and other Old World diseases. Their bodies filled mass graves — no natives were given burials.

Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, the coastal missions were secularized in 1834, and Spain officially recognized Mexico as an independent state in 1836 after a decade of war. A decade later, however, the Mexican-American War began, and California became a state in 1850. The Gold Rush began simultaneously, and the Californian population swelled up with 300,000 new residents. The first governor of California, Peter Hardeman Burnett, said “that a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct” in 1851. He started a lasting policy that compensated anyone for proof of a dead Native American.

Coupled with friction over land and mining, workers began shooting Native Americans on a daily basis. Whole villages were pillaged over minor conflicts — the Pomo tribe of 800 was slaughtered by federal cavalry on the basis of two murdered slave owners that tribe members were rebelling over. Not only did California compensate for murder, but the federal government acted on it as well, in addition to funding over twenty California militia campaigns against Native Americans. A number of gangs were formed between miners for the purpose of killing Native Americans to protect their self-interests. It is estimated that 80% of the Native American population was decimated during this time. Between the 1850s and 1870s, conservative estimates begin at 4,500 deaths and range up to 100,000 deaths.

The Anti-Vagrancy Act of 1855, also known as the Greaser Act, legalized the arrest of those subjectively believed to be “vagrants.” Though this act mostly targeted Mexicans, it was also used against Native Americans and Asian immigrants. The California Act for the Government and Protection of Indians was enacted in 1851. With its remarkably misleading name, the legislation reflects the fifth act of genocide in the UN definition — “Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” Although the state of California was admitted into the union as a “non-slave” state, this act allowed for the indenturing of “vagrant” native children to Whites in order to “save them from their savage upbringing”, convert them religiously, and exploit them for labor. They could also be sold as punishment, and their only way out was through bond or bail.

Attempts at reparations have been made, though very poorly. Congress established the Indian Claims Commission in 1946 amid growing sentiments that Native Americans deserved reparations after all their services in World War II, where 13% of Native American men enlisted and provided military advantages such as speaking native languages to communicate — a code Axis intelligence could never break. The Commission ultimately gave out an average of $1000 to each Native American across 176 tribes, but most of the money was deposited in government- managed, and consequently mis-managed, trust accounts.

Governor Newsom’s apology is the state’s first time acknowledging its actions in the genocide. His executive order establishes a council that will create a report detailing tribe narratives and tribe-state relations by 2025. While tribe leaders have appreciated these steps, no further action has been taken on their critical asks such as land reparations or water and fishing rights. The full gravitas of the genocide, its consequences for Native Americans today, and the actions that should be underway to properly compensate are sparsely a part of the public consciousness, much as it has been since the Spaniards first occupied California.

Photo credit: California Gov. Newsom’s Office.

Written by: Prim Phoolsombat.

Before its demolition in 1994, Kowloon Walled City occupied only six-and-a-half acres in Kowloon Province, Hong Kong and had the world’s highest population density ratio. With a chaotic reputation for opium dens, brothels, and crime syndicates, it’s complex history as a political no-man’s-land between Chinese and British authorities throughout the twentieth century has rendered it a famed, almost fantastical site of cultural memory. It is highly romanticised as a stand-alone phenomenon of anarchy, despite the city’s tight-knit community being very much integrated with British Hong Kong.

In fact, the dark, modern perception of Kowloon residents are based on stereotypes encouraged by British colonial authorities who wanted the city destroyed. Even though colonial conflicts caused the city’s poor conditions, and crime rates went down, the city’s reputation is still thought to be the fault of its residents’ choices. Seen by some as an extreme example of what is to come in cities globally (from overpopulation, late capitalism and/or organically developing “anarchies”), enclaves like the Walled City teach us the consequences of colonialism and demonizing communities for political power.

The humble beginnings of Kowloon Walled City can be traced back to the Song Dynasty (860-1279) with a customs station. Then, during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) in 1841, the British occupied Hong Kong and the Treaty of Nanking was signed in 1843. The first construction of a recognizable Walled City came in 1846, when the Qing fundraised to construct a small fort with walls and canons. The city became valuable to the Qing as a good site to shore up on coastal defense technology. In 1898, Hong Kong’s New Territories were leased to the British, putting the city in British territory.

From then onwards, a back and forth ensued for the next fifty years; China wanting to retain control over Kowloon City, and the British wanting to destroy it. After strong resistance from both parties, the city entered a state of political purgatory where neither authority controlled it. After World War II, British authorities banned opium dens, brothels, and other vices in Hong Kong. These businesses moved swiftly into Kowloon Walled City, as it was seldom patrolled, sparsely populated, and under ambiguous jurisdiction.

The city’s reputation, population, and physical prowess formed rapidly between the 1950s and 1980s, especially as refugees from the Cultural Revolution fled to Hong Kong. Unregulated construction led to compact, topsy-turvy high-rises. However, buildings were limited to thirteen or fourteen stories so airplanes could land at nearby Kai Tak International Airport, which was partly built with Kowloon’s stone walls. Rent was cheap without taxes and buildings were connected by dark, narrow alleys. Within them lay a maze of schools, illegal factories, charities, illegal food and butcher shops, family homes, and criminal headquarters.

From an ivory tower, the city seemed to be a blemish on British Hong Kong’s modernising, Western excellence. However, the unfavourable coverage ignored the necessary dependence of the city on Hong Kong’s demands to sustain its businesses. The customers who sought Kowloon’s prostitutes, the drug suppliers who perpetuated Kowloon’s opium dens, the punters who played in the gambling dens — they came from Hong Kong. There were no consequences for the taxi companies openly advertising these vices to transport Hong Kongers to and from the city. The residents were also the victims of police brutality and corruption. A landmark case in 1959 by a Hong Kong judge declared that criminals captured in Kowloon city were subject to Hong Kong law. Police activity increased and officers would blackmail residents with demands under threat of arrest.

Additionally, the city’s lack of hygienic infrastructure became associated with the residents as further proof of inherent “dirtiness” — more justification for its eradication from the British. Because the city did not belong to Hong Kong, it was not connected to water. Kaifong (街坊) associations (local councils formed by residents) formed as more residents and refugees came, and along with charity groups, they routed water into the city. However, the city was constantly dripping. Indeed, the city was described as having a micro-climate, where visitors and factory workers entering the hot and humid bottom floors always used umbrellas to shield from the leaky, makeshift pipes above. The precious roof-top spaces became cool gathering places at night, as well as play areas for children, trash dumps, and was a place for pigeons to be raised.

In 1984, reunification was set for 1997. Despite evidence by the 1980s that crime rates in Kowloon Walled City were no higher than in other areas of Hong Kong, it was declared in 1987 that the city was to be destroyed. It had to be destroyed before the turnover — one government official working on the project explained that if it was not then the Chinese government’s media could easily portray Kowloon Walled City as being a “nice” result of British colonialism.

The quirks and darker aspects of the city drew swaths of curious tourists before demolition. Already, the city was turning into cultural memorabilia for outsiders while residents scrambled to ensure compensation before eviction, especially in the face of Hong Kong’s soaring property value. After demolition, a park was built on top with Qing architecture and drainage systems, revising the space to represent clean, pre-colonial Chinese cultural greatness and ignoring the reality of the residents. The park was praised by British and Chinese authorities, avoiding the recognition Kowloon Walled City deserved as being the result of their conflicts.

Today, the memory of Kowloon is artificially reconstructed in themed casinos, arcades, video games, manga, cyberpunk fantasies, and more. Those seeking an authentic experience of an anarchy or a hedonistic community will find only exaggerated features of the Kowloon that was subject to power struggles outside of residents’ control. The ugly truth of the Walled City is not simply it’s criminal spaces and lack of infrastructure, but the transfer of responsibility for those features from colonial governments to the people who called Kowloon home.

Written by: Tristan Craig

‘Woman discovers Renaissance masterpiece in kitchen,’ declares The Guardian on 24 September 2019. This was announced upon the surfacing of a rare painting by thirteenth-century Florentine artist, Cimabue, in the home of an elderly woman in northern France. Christ Mocked, one of only eleven known wood panel paintings attributed to the artist, was found hung inconspicuously above the stove of the anonymous woman’s home. Here it had remained – unassumingly and undisturbed – for many years. The arrival of this artwork into public knowledge has garnered much intrigue; however, there remains a great deal of mystery surrounding this discovery – especially how it came to be hung on the wall of a kitchen in Compiegne. I hope in this article to shed a little more light on this once lauded artist. His fall from celebrity has seen him almost erased from the artistic canon in contemporary scholarship, and I write this article in the hopes that this exciting discovery will help restore some of his artistic legacy.

Cimabue was born Bencivieni di Pepo in 1240 in Florence, Italy. Both a painter and mosaicist, he was credited by Giorgio Vasari in his seminal 1550 text, The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects as being the artist ‘who spread first light upon the art of painting’. This accolade helped to cement Cimabue’s reputation as a forerunner in propelling the Italo-Byzantine style forward, which in itself was heralded as a welcome return to the high artistic style of Classical antiquity. He was amongst the first to explore perspective and naturalism in painting. He especially focused on enhancing the largely stylised iconography of his predecessors, with such examples found in the frescoes of The Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi. Whilst many have been extensively damaged over the centuries, the surviving frescoes reveal his fantastically developed style and skill for figurative depiction.

A Changing Fashion

It would be inappropriate to discuss the life and work of Cimabue without giving mention to the artist – of arguably greater renown – believed in some scholarly circles to have been taught by the master, Giotto di Bondone. Giotto received great fame both as a painter of frescoes, a number of which adorn the walls of The Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi alongside Cimabue, and as an architect. His artistic talent earned him the title of ‘caput magister’, or ‘Headmaster’, at Florence Cathedral with his accomplishments including the design of the campanile in 1334. Why Giotto has come to overshadow Cimabue is largely due to his enormous renown in life rather than the mastery of his craft – something immortalised by Dante in his epic Divine Comedy. In Purgatorio, Canto XI, he introduces the Italian painter, Oderisi da Gubbio, who laments the fleeting fame of artists, remarking that ‘Cimabue thought / To lord it over painting’s field; and now / The cry is Giotto’s, and his name eclips’d’. With a declining reputation amongst his contemporaries and with so few artworks comparative to Giotto, it is perhaps of little wonder why Cimabue receives such limited recognition today.

It will take some time and several expert opinions before we are able to say with certainty whether or not this is indeed the work of the medieval Florentine artist. Additionally, it is made only more difficult by how few of his works have survived. Whilst there is little doubt that the artwork bears an unmistakable resemblance in style and content to other Cimabue wood panels, a more nuanced analysis will be required before it can be considered indubitable and not the work of a follower. How it came to end up in the ownership of this family – who believed the artwork to be a substantially less valuable Russian icon painting – is perhaps more difficult to discern and will invite a great deal of speculation. Mirroring the 2014 discovery of a painting by Caravaggio in the attic of an apartment in Toulouse, there are a number of theories as to how the Cimabue could have come to rest on a kitchen wall. The socio-economic upheaval of revolutionary France, coupled with a growing veneration of classicism as the epitome of ‘high art’, would have seen a medieval artist such as Cimabue fall out of favour. The lack of a signature on the artwork aided its fall into obscurity – and into the hands of an unwitting dealer.

Restoring an Artistic Legacy

If experts are able to confidently agree that this ‘tatty old artwork’ – as coined by Metro News Online – is indeed a Cimabue, then this discovery is an immensely important one. Whilst Cimabue might not be the household name that Caravaggio or Giotto are, the fact that so few of his works exist adds great significance to this find. His crucial role in art history at the transition from the homogeneity of iconography to the elaborate sensibilities of the Renaissance, ought not to be neglected. Yet, Cimabue is repeatedly omitted from prominent academic works. Perhaps this is due primarily to a lack of attributable works, or perhaps the debate surrounding the validity of Vasari’s account has further diminished his reputation as the teacher of Giotto. Perhaps Giotto simply propelled the Byzantine style further forward than Cimabue ever did, often exemplified by a comparison of the Santa Trinita Madonna of Cimabue and Giotto’s Ognissanti Madonna. Let us set aside the writing of Vasari and Dante, and the questionable manner in which the press has chosen to relate this find (choosing to erroneously refer to the late medieval artist as ‘Renaissance’ – but therein lies another article). Instead, let us focus on restoring the reputation of Cimabue to artistic canon and how the discovery of an unassuming icon painting in a small French kitchen might just help us do that.

Image: Christ Mocked, Cimabue. Image from https://news.artnet.com/market/rare-cimabue-painting-discovered-kitchen-france-fetch-6-million-auction-next-month-1660327

Written by: Lisa Doyle

Myths from the past permeate modern society and culture to an extent that most people are not aware of. When using the word ‘mythology’, I am, in fact, referring to stories. Stories that have been told and re-told across generations. The mythological stories of Ancient Greece are the ultimate examples. Of course, many people are aware of Zeus, the god of thunder, and of heroes such as Heracles and Jason. What may not be as apparent, however, is the fact that these narratives are still being told in some shape or form today. This is the purpose of mythology, that tales are retold again and again, and are very much a part of a process of reiteration.

There are some issues that become evident when one reads Greek mythology, and those issues are namely ethical. The misogyny in these stories is plentiful. But that has changed in modern retellings of these tales, and the way women are treated in these narratives has been altered. Literary examples include Colm Tóibín’s House of Names, in which he recounts the myths of the House of Atreus, specifically allowing us to read Clytemnestra’s perspective. Madeline Miller’s Circe also foregrounds a female mythological character as we come to understand the legitimate reason for Circe’s eccentric behaviour (if that is the appropriate word for someone who enjoys turning men into animals). The explanation provided by Miller, that Circe is a victim of sexual assault, is nowhere alluded to in the Odyssey; the epic poem which tells her story.

Multiple examples of mythological influences also abound from the world of film. They include O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a film by the Coen Brothers based on the myth of Odysseus from Homer’s Odyssey, and of course ‘Thanos’, the memorable villain from  the Marvel universe. Thanos, a character fixated on death, is based on ‘Thanatos’, the Greek personification of death. Finally, the Spike Lee film Chi-Raq is based on a play from the fifth century BC – Aristophanes’ Lysistrata – in which the all-female protagonists decide to  withhold sex from the men of the city in an effort to stop their participation in an ongoing war.

All of this leads me to Stephen Fry. He has published two volumes on Greek mythology in recent years, Mythos and Heroes. Fry’s work is both entertaining and important for a number of reasons. Throughout his book he constantly reminds the reader that it is in fact acceptable to be confused by the hoard of Greek names which these myths present. As Danny DeVito says in Hercules, ‘Odysseus, Perseus, Theseus- a lot of ‘euses’. By doing so, Fry is making Greek mythology more accessible, and less intimidating, to the reader. As he narrates these myths, he uses a casual, conversational approach, and the characters in his book adapt the same manner. As well as including helpful footnotes to orient the reader and explain etymology, a healthy injection of humour makes the reading of these books all the more enjoyable. Notable examples include the goddess Hera telling Zeus that he has a string of drool dribbling from his chin onto his lap, and Heracles referring to his failed attempt to retrieve the golden apples of the Hesperides as ‘fruitless’.  In the volume Heroes, Fry does an excellent job of rendering the personalities of heroes like Jason, Heracles and Bellerophon with such characteristics as to make them much more relatable and familiar to the modern reader. As we recognise qualities in the obstinate youths on the page, we become more connected with the story.

It is a remarkable achievement to produce a piece of work both accessible to those who are reading myths for the first time, and enjoyable to those who study Classics. Classics can be quite a ‘stuffy’ subject, so it is of paramount importance that we continue to relate these stories, which form the very foundations of Western culture, in an approachable and inspiring manner. As Stephen Fry writes in his introduction to Mythos, his focus is not on explaining these stories but telling them.

Image: Photograph of Stephen Fry, https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/stage/review/2018/06/12/stephen-fry-tells-great-stories-in-mythos-men-at-shaw-festival-but-just-what-is-he-trying-to-say.html