Arcadian Days: Gods, Women, and Men from Greek Myths

"Breathtakingly successful." --Michael Dirda, Washington Post

A bold and dynamic retelling of five great male-female pairings from the Greek myths: Prometheus and Pandora, Jason and Medea, Oedipus and Antigone, Achilles and Thetis, and Odysseus and Penelope.

Award-winning historical novelist and playwright John Spurling draws on his lifelong love and knowledge of Classical Greek drama and poetry to reanimate five great male-female storylines from the Greek myths.

The Greek myths, refined by the great poets and playwrights of ancient Greece, distil the essence of human life: its brief span, its pride, courage, and insecurity, its anxious relationship with the natural world--earth, sea, and sky, represented by powerful gods and monsters.

Taking inspiration from the incomparably beautiful and intense poetry of Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, John Spurling--a lifelong classicist and an award-winning playwright--spins five myths for contemporary readers. These captivating tales center on male-female pairs--Prometheus and Pandora, Jason and the sorceress Medea, Oedipus and his daughter Antigone, Achilles and his mother Thetis, Odysseus and Penelope--who, in the course of their stories, destroyed dynasties, raised and felled heroes, and sealed the fates of men.

Author: John Spurling
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 03/07/2023
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 1.30d
ISBN13: 9781639363186
ISBN10: 1639363181
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology
- Fiction | Classics
- Fiction | World Literature | Greece

About the Author
John Spurling is an award-winning author and a prolific playwright with thirty plays performed on stage, radio, and television, including at the National Theater in London. He is the author of The Ten Thousand Things (winner of the Walter Scott Prize) and Arcadian Nights: Greek Myths Reimagined. John was born in Kisumu, Kenya, then later educated at St. John's College, Oxford. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. For more information, please visit www.johnspurling.com