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Clytemnestra’s Bind. The House of Atreus
Wilson (S.) Pp. 272, map. London: Neem Tree Press
Ltd., 2023. Paper, £10.99 (Cased, £14.99). ISBN:
9781911107590
Jodie Reynolds
Greenhead Sixth Form College, Huddersfield, UK
JReynolds@greenhead.ac.uk
‘When men plunge a family
into self-destruction, women
must find a way to break the
curse.’Clytemnestra’s Bind is a
fabulous feminist retelling of
part of the House of Atreus
myth –part one of a trilogy,
with the next instalment due
later this year. The basic story-
line of what happens to
Clytemnestra and her family
is well known to anyone with
an interest in the classical world
and there is no attempt to
radically alter the main points
of the traditional story arc. In
deciding to stick fairly faithfully
to much of the original
material, Wilson is able to focus her tale on the impending and
inescapable horror of what is to come for the characters in
her story.
I was completely gripped by the narrative, which is told from
the first-person perspective of Clytemnestra herself. Often quite an
unlikeable character in the original source material, here Wilson
considers the reasons behind her less admirable actions. Her affair
with Aegisthus in her husband’s absence is one which she tries to
resist but is finally forced to give into after years of abuse and ill
treatment at Agamemnon’s hands. The story begins with the
recounting of the tale of Atreus’abominable behaviour –serving
up Thyestes’own sons to him in a greasy, gristly soup. We are
constantly reminded of this original sin of the House of Atreus and
it becomes clear that nothing can stop the inexorable advance of
fate. Initially Clytemnestra, having suffered appallingly when
Agamemnon comes to take control of Mycenae, tries her best to be
a good wife and to raise her children well. However, she is unable to
prevent the events which begin to unfold and Wilson’s talent is
such that reading this book is like watching a car crash in slow
motion. You know what is going to happen and you are powerless
to stop reading just as the characters are powerless to prevent the
inevitable.
Wilson’s characters are well rounded, from the adorable and
loyal Iphigenia, to the troubled Electra and the monstrous bully
Agamemnon. I also enjoyed the way in which the scenes were set,
with lovely descriptions of the citadel of Mycenae with its famous
Lion Gate and engaging accounts of the clothing and objects used.
There is some violence and there are scenes which some readers
may find distressing. However, these are not gratuitous in nature
and will not come as a surprise to anyone versed in Greek Tragedy.
The book would be suitable for Sixth Form students and adults
alike and I, for one, am eagerly looking forward to part 2 which
focuses more on Helen and her decision to leave Sparta with Paris.
doi:10.1017/S2058631024000801
Aristophanes: Lysistrata
Robson (J.), Pp. xiv þ184 ills. London: Bloomsbury
Academic, 2023. Paper, £17.99. ISBN: 978-1-350-
09030-9
Chloë Barnett
Bishop Luffa School, Chichester, Hampshire, UK
thenoblercat@gmail.com
One of the Bloomsbury Ancient Comedy
Companions, James Robson’s short book
runs to just under 150 pages, excluding
notes, an excellent ‘further reading and
works cited’list and the index.
Overtly intended for ‘anyone and every-
one interested in exploring what the
Lysistrata has to offer’, Robson has suc-
ceeded in his aim. Using transliterated
technical terms which are always carefully
explained, the text is lucid, not patronising,
and highly accessible for any A level student. Disappointingly,
there is however, no glossary to allow for revision or clarification.
The book starts with a helpful ‘Timeline of Ancient Events’from
the murder of Hipparchus (514 BCE) to the death of Aristophanes in
386 BCE. There are also maps showing the Aegean world in 432 BCE
and the city of Athens in the late fifth century BCE.
The meat of the book comprises five chapters covering: ‘Lysistrata
in Context’;‘The Action of the Play’;‘Places and Politics’;‘Laughter,
Language and Logic’;and‘Lysistrata in the Modern world’.
The prose is clear and elegantly explores the controversies on
staging as well as placing Lysistrata firmly in the context of Old
Comedy and its historical and political background; all of which
could be very helpful to a student studying the Greek Theatre
component of the OCR A level Classical Civilisation.
‘The Action of the Play’functions as a non-linguistic
commentary and would prove useful to any teacher covering the
Greek text and looking for a broader overview as Robson analyses
the play in some detail. Unless studying the play in depth (as
additional material), this section would be of less use to the A level
student of Greek Theatre under the current OCR Classical
Civilisation specification.
Robson periodically repeats information, which could be very
helpful for a teacher setting a specific section for study. It makes
reading the book occasionally less fluid, but broadly, I think the
benefits outweigh the aesthetics in this case.
There is also a helpful rundown of the scholarship, particularly
in ‘People, Places & Politics’that gives an overview of some of the
underlying ideas and debates on the political aspects to Lysistrata
as well as explorations of the putative relationship between the
contemporary Priestess of Athena ‘Lysimache’and Lysistrata.
Robson’s analysis of humour includes an extensive section on
200 Book Reviews
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specific and explicit sexual language which might well restrict this
book in A level teaching.
I found myself most fascinated, though, by Robson’s chapter
‘Lysistrata in the Modern World’which explores the reception of
Lysistrata from the Victorian era to modern performances. This
chapter vividly demonstrates the cultural relationships and
distortions the play was subjected to right up to today, and
includes the fact that an arrest warrant was drawn up in 1930s
America for the arrest of Aristophanes himself!
If you have been searching for a single volume exploring
Lysistrata in some depth that won’t upset the budget, this is your
book. It is true that Stuttard’s 2010 collection of eight essays
provides an excellent exploration of different facets of the play, but
as with all essay collections, it leaves gaps. Robson’s volume has the
benefit of being clear, short, readable and comprehensive.
doi:10.1017/S2058631024000096
Exploring Vergil
Williams R. Pp. 79. Self-published, 2023. Paper,
£13.65. ISBN: 979-8397052757
Steven Hunt
Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
sch43@cam.ac.uk
Williams is a US school teacher
who has written numerous
books for teaching K-12 stu-
dents. This booklet is designed
for students at the higher end of
their Latin studies. While it
does not fit the requirements of
the AP Latin examination or
the UK A Levels, it could
perhaps be used as a bridge to
those qualifications or as an
alternative to them. The book-
let presents a number of inter-
esting ways to approach the
text, including comprehension
questions, essay ideas, scansion practice and some creative writing
and performance activities.
The booklet is 79 pages, of which pages 15 to 34 are extracts from
Virgil’sAeneid, Books I, II and IV. These books are, of course, the
most famous and perhaps accessible of the whole epic, and suitable
for the students involved. The booklet has 11 parts. After a brief
Introduction, there is a a summary of the whole of the Aeneid in
English. Section III is one of the more intriguing parts: here Williams
suggests students and teacher make dramatic reading dialogues
based on the readings from the texts. An example is given, between
Juno and Aeolus. Further suggestions of dialogues are given (eg
Venus and Cupid, Hector and Aeneas) and I could see these being
something that students could develop in the course of reading the
original texts as a way of brining the story to life with the sort of
creative responses that only teenagers might be able to bring.
Section IV is a list of Figures of Speech and how to recognise
them. This section flows into three extracts which Williams has
chosen because they offer students opportunities to interpret the
passages for their content and their poetic technique (Book I, 81-
91, where Aeolus releases the winds; Book II, 234-245, where
Aeneas tells of how the Trojans took the Wooden Horse into Troy;
Book IV, 522-532, where Dido realises that Aeneas is leaving).
Section V is all about characterisation, with nine extracts from
Books I, II and IV (Ilioneus, Dido, Androgeos, Priam, Aeneas and
Dido). The extracts are between 15 and 30 lines and manageable in
two or three lessons. Williams suggests that students read,
comprehend and translate the passages, with a focus on the
actions and behaviour of the characters involved. For each extract,
5-10 questions are suggested to support the student’s enquiry.
Finally, Section VI contains a number of essay-based questions.
These draw on the same extracts from the unit and there are also a
number of broader questions about the collection altogether.
Section VII contains some famous Virgil quotes. Section VIII talks
about rhythm and metre. Section IX is described as ‘Poetry to
Poetry’. What this envisages is that students start to compose their
own short extracts in Latin, using the ideas and vocabulary that
they have encountered in the earlier parts of the booklet. I think
this is the most challenging section, and would require a lot of work
from the teacher, I imagine, to maintain accuracy –although I have
to say that it is an innovative approach which follows SLA
principles in the sense that only after masses of language input
would one attempt language output, and that the language output
activity should follow the input activity. And finally, there is a
vocabulary list, using standard dictionary format.
In all, this is an interesting mix of things. I quite like the way that
it has different texts which are chosen to focus on specific teaching
and learning activities: translation, content comprehension and
personal responses to poetry and characterisation. The extracts
from Books I, II and IV are the most well-used and suitable for
students at this stage in their learning. Rather than looking at every
single aspect of a short extract, this approach means that students
can appreciate the whole narrative, with deeper dips into shorter
sections. This is aided by having the whole story at the start:
students can ‘slot in’the extracts to the overall storyline. This
approach does not really fit the US or UK examinations, where
close reading and understanding of a short passage and not much
outside it is required; but it may be suitable for those not taking
those examinations, or as a bridging activity from coursebooks to
original literature. The more creative activities - dramatic dialogues
and poetry writing –are ways of making the text come alive for
students and may be interesting to pursue as an ongoing
homework or out of class activity over a period of weeks. They
also work as means for factual recall of the story and vocabulary.
In my view, while the booklet does not conform to what usually
happens in examination preparation classes, Williams’sequencing
of activities and suggestions for creative interpretations based on
more traditional readings give one much food for thought about
lesson design more generally.
doi:10.1017/S2058631024001223
The Journal of Classics Teaching 201
https://doi.org/10.1017/S2058631024000096
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