Mercedes Aguirre, Richard Buxton - Cyclops, Changing Perceptions of an Ogre

Greek myths have always been powerful resources for thinking and feeling: they are ‘good to think with’. We shall illustrate this with the example of Polyphemus, the best known of the one-eyed, anthropophagous, pastoral giants known as the Cyclopes.   In the Odyssey Polyphemus is outwitted and blinded by Odysseus; in later Greco-Roman narratives he is the naive suitor of an unresponsive sea-nymph. Already in antiquity, myths about the Cyclopes raised issues relating to monstrosity, vision, and cannibalism. Cyclopean society was in part ‘ideal’, in part a negation of the values of culture. Since antiquity, the Cyclopes have been a continuing cultural presence, in grottoes, operas and films; in Hugo, Joyce and Walcott; in Moreau, Redon and Paolozzi. A modern tendency has been to focus exclusively on the image of the eye. But Cyclopean tradition is far richer than that.   Our talk will suggest some of the pathways and multiple meanings in that tradition. Mercedes Aguirre, Universidad Complutense, Madrid; and Richard Buxton, University of Bristol gave this talk on 28 April 2015.