The Modern Cyclops

The period from the eighteenth century till today has witnessed the most innovative explorations of Cyclopean myths since antiquity. Indeed, in visual art, reimaginings of the Cyclopes have arguably been more innovative over the past two-and-a-half centuries than at any time in the past, including antiquity. So far as literary retellings are concerned, the case for the parity of the modern with the ancient—let alone the case for the superiority of the modern—is more difficult to sustain. Nevertheless, some major modern writers have magnificently reappropriated the figure of the Cyclops, and the variety of modern literary takes on these myths is startling. Showing how all this is so is the project of this final chapter. Earlier literary examples include Raspe (on Baron Munchausen), Vico, and Victor Hugo (treated in particular detail); their contemporaries in visual art include James Barry, Flaxman, the Romantics Füssli and Böcklin, and the Symbolists Moreau and Redon. Closer to today, modern artists such as Paolozzi, Oppenheim, and the Abstract Expressionist Baziotes receive attention. In literature, a range of significant figures is discussed, not least Joyce and Ellison. Also covered are developments in cinema, where, even if it can be hard to claim aesthetic quality for many of the screen Cyclopes who appear, their role in forming popular consciousness can hardly be doubted.

Gods

The subject of the Cyclopes’ relationships with the gods—and the possible status of the Cyclopes themselves as gods—all this constitutes a nest of paradoxes. Here, above all, one has to investigate the matter text by text, context by context, in order to make the appropriate distinctions. Hesiod’s Cyclopes are different from Homer’s, and Euripides’ Cyclopes are different again—not to mention the fascinatingly idiosyncratic portrayal in Nonnus. Among the questions addressed in this chapter are the Cyclopes’ (im)mortality; their genealogy; their combined distance from the gods and their dependence on them, or support for them; and their partial likeness to satyrs.

Landscape

Where did the Cyclopes live, and where did they work? The answers are surprisingly complex. Some of the complexities derive from the fact that the Cyclopes are linked with distinct types of work—building, metalworking, herding—each of which relates differently to the natural setting. Then there are divergences between genres: epic, satyr play, pastoral, vase painting, and wall painting each has its own characteristic ways of evoking landscape; moreover, needless to say, individual narratives also exploit particular nuances. Next, various topographical features appear in myths of the Cyclopes, including cave, sea, seashore, mountain, volcano, island, pastureland, and city, the last mentioned being enclosed by that indispensable boundary, a wall; the interplay between all these features complicates the overall picture. Finally, there are significant diachronic shifts, involving especially the various geographical locations in which chronologically disparate sources place the pastoral ogres. In this chapter Aguirre and Buxton try to tease out these intricacies, and to investigate how they impact on wider issues about Cyclopean mythology.

A Story

This chapter sets the scene for the rest of the book. After a brief summary of the Polyphemus episode from the Odyssey, Aguirre and Buxton go on to classify Odysseus’ monstrous opponent as an ‘ogre’. They stress that their argument will go well beyond the scope of the Odyssey narrative, since it will also dwell at length on the Polyphemus and Galatea relationship, as well as on the role of the Cyclopes as metalworkers and builders. The authors then highlight three aspects of their own approach to the topic. First, context: they will situate each literary or artistic representation within its cultural context, since only in that way can the meanings of any cultural item be appropriately decoded. Second, themes. The whole of Part I of the book, dealing with antiquity, is organized by theme, so that with each successive chapter a reader will be able to build up an increasingly complex picture of the impact of any given text or image. Third, representativeness. The authors do not aim at exhaustiveness in their treatment, above all in relation to the postclassical reception of Cyclopean myths. Rather, they aim to include what we consider to be the most significant later reworkings of this constellation of myths.

From the Medieval to the Baroque

This chapter is the first of the authors’ two substantial investigations into the post-classical reception of Cyclopean mythology. The account begins in the European Middle Ages, with representations of ‘races’ of Wild Men, some of whom are one-eyed. A more explicit echo of the classical Cyclopes occurs in numerous allegorical readings of the Ulysses–Polyphemus and Polyphemus–Galatea–Acis encounters. For all the apparent implausibility of such readings, it is important to realize that in allegory myths constitute a site for the allegorist’s display of interpretative prowess. The myths’ continuing relevance, and indeed their very survival, are thereby enhanced rather than reduced. The next section of the chapter looks at some virtuoso painted Polyphemuses from major Renaissance artists; after that the argument turns to some early modern one-eyed ogres, and then to the blacksmiths, returning to the theme of fire. There follows a detailed look at some Cyclopes sculpted in grottoes—a development of the ancient motif of the cave. The chapter concludes with studies of some major literary reworkings within the framework of European pastoral, ranging from the poetry of Dante (Latin eclogues) Marino, and Góngora, through baroque opera, to the contrasting Spanish dramas of Juan Pérez de Montalbán and José de Cañizares.

Physique

Choose a dozen members of the general public and ask them which physical feature they associate with a creature called ‘Cyclops’. They will all give the same answer: he has just one eye. But in the ancient sources monocularity is by no means the only aspect of a Cyclops’ appearance to attract attention. Other attributes regularly mentioned are hugeness, hairiness (often associated with ‘wildness’), and ugliness. In this chapter Aguirre and Buxton look at each of these characteristics in turn. In each case they begin by situating the characteristic cross-culturally, then analyse its representation in Graeco-Roman antiquity, and finally investigate its relevance to texts and images relating to the Cyclopes. Given the attention that has been paid, in previous scholarship, to the symbolism of the single eye, the authors devote a good deal of space to that topic—not forgetting that there are many examples of Cyclopes with two or three eyes.

Contexts and Overlaps

In this final chapter of Part I of the book, Aguirre and Buxton draw together some strands of the argument relating to the portrayal of the Cyclopes in Graeco-Roman antiquity. First, they seek to demonstrate the importance of context—for example, medium and genre—as a decisive shaper of representation. This applies also to cases where the Cyclops tends to be absent, as in tragedy. Another shaper of representation is narrative voice: the authors show this using narratological examples from the Odyssey, the Aeneid, Theocritus, and Ovid. In the second part of the chapter they turn to the differences and overlaps between the three ‘types’ of Cyclopes: builders, metalworkers, pastoral ogres. One hitherto underestimated overlap concerns fire, a theme to which Aguirre and Buxton attempt to restore its due weight. Taken in combination with ideas of marginality, working with the hands, and primordiality, the notion of fire plays a major role, over time, in forging links between the homonyms, banishing the sense that all that the diverse Cyclopes share is a name.

Names

A perennial source of interest in the Cyclopes, and those mythologically connected with them, has concerned names: for example, Polyphemus, Odysseus, and Galatea, not to mention the word ‘Cyclops’ itself. Such individual investigations cannot be separated from wider questions relating to the ‘speaking names’ of classical mythology; that question in turn involves the crucial distinction between ancient and modern concepts of etymology. This chapter sets some particular issues relating to Cyclopean names against this wider background. After examining successively ‘Cyclops’, ‘Polyphemus’, several other named Cyclopes, ‘Galatea’, and (very briefly) ‘Acis’, Aguirre and Buxton look at issues of naming raised by the Outis episode in Odyssey book 9.

Lifestyle

How did the Cyclopes live? First, subsistence and diet. On these matters the ancient sources report virtually nothing about the builders and the metalworkers, but about Polyphemus and his kin they have much to say. Aguirre and Buxton investigate in particular questions relating to pastoralism, the eating of cheese, and cannibalism (or, better, anthropophagy); they set these matters into context against the background of wider Graeco-Roman thought and practice. After subsistence and diet, they turn to other aspects of social behaviour, whether among the Cyclopes, or between the Cyclopes and others. Among the main themes discussed here are cooperation and hospitality. In the final part of the chapter the authors put together the principal findings of Chapters 4 and 5 in order to address a more general issue: were the Cyclopes thought of as ‘monsters’? Needless to say, this requires prior consideration of the wider definitional question: ‘what is monstrosity?’

Love and Song

Absent from the Odyssey, and only embryonic in Euripides’ Cyclops, is the motif of Cyclopean sexuality. It is only with the arrival of Galatea, and subsequently (in Ovid) her suitor Acis, on the mythological scene, that the love life of Polyphemus takes centre stage. In this chapter Aguirre and Buxton chart the emotional triangle that links Polyphemus with the nymph he adores, and sets him in furious wrath against Acis. The authors look at the possible origin for the Polyphemus/Galatea stand-off in the poetry of Philoxenus, and go on to examine the erotic variations on the motif in classical poetry and art. Finally they listen to the songs that the Cyclops sings to his beloved—the first occurrence of the motif of Cyclopean music, which will resound through postclassical poetic and visual imagery.