Hermann Hesse praised the “legends of classic antiquity” of his Swabian compatriot Gustav Schwab: In this book “we can change harmless and steadfastly from the handles and stabilizers of the philologists in the land of the Greeks and Trojer and read from the ancestor of Achilles as if about the misfortune of Ikarus in good German without grades and comments”. Better than the Ploetz, every Latin student should know the work, a “completely unaffected, noisy, comfortable immortality”. Over generations, Schwab formed the basis of processing of the rich substance for the reading youth. A century later the Hungarian philologist and religious scientist Karl Kerényi prepared “The Mythology of the Greeks” in two volumes, expressly “for adults” and trained to the then popular psychological interpretations of these original stories. While Schwab begins with Prometheus and thus play the people a central role from the start, Kerényi follows the epic systematic Hesiod: both worlds only populate the genders of the gods with their sometimes grotesque birth stories and genealogies. Formed by ancient authors, scientifically redesigned in modern times and repeatedly literally reorganized for our time, mostly authors. Last but not least, long ignored perspectives, experiences and suffering of women come into view more. But while Natalie Haynes recently focused on the Greek goddesses in this sense, Sarah Iles Johnston, a professor of classical philology at Ohio State University, goes much more conventional. Fabric circumference and chronological structure of your book are a little reminiscent of Kerényi, striking updates or pop cultural references hardly occur. The perspective mentioned has also been reluctant: With every reported rape, it “tried to convey the shock and agony of the affected woman or goddess”. Should have a hundred forty one in number, with two to four pages, also suitable for readers with a short attention span. Dialogically created passages enliven the uniform narrative flow, and a son of the author, as a professional illustrator, contributes illustrator in the style of woodcuts, as an alternative to frequent reproductions of ancient vases and other works of art. Exemplary illuminates Johnston further antique contexts, where they appear to be necessary. The author attributes the effect and presence of the myths in antiquity to three factors: the plurimediality of their presentation, the episodic character of the stories and their interference, which can be better captured in network diagrams than in family trees. In our time, on the other hand, it is primarily important to hit the right tone. From the history of the drama around Oedipus in the dark Theben, Johnston describes a consequent desire: the young Chrysippos “moved with great grace and skin, browned by the sun and frightened with oil, shone like gold. Laios was overlooked. Back and asked the gods to make Laios to his act. Whether this has been successfully created for young people or adults will have to be rejected. The Greek myths rewritten. From the English by Heike Schlatterer. With illustrations by Tristan Johnston. CH BECK Verlag, Munich 2025. 558 p., Fig., Born, 36, – €.
