On not domesticating Penelope in “the poet’s version”

In this article we explore what it means to use the term domestication when it comes to analysing tales of Penelope, from her first appearance in Homer’s Odyssey to the most recent reinterpretations of her voice. Taking as our starting point recent metaphors of domestication formulated in postcolonial translation studies, our article outlines the embedded theme of domesticity and the push and pull of the home in the ancient Greek epic itself, then explores how this dynamic relates to the domesticating effects of translation when Penelope’s story is told in different languages, ancient and modern. We reflect on how an appeal to divergent sonic worlds can provide a degree of “foreignization” in settings of Penelope’s voice: in Ovid’s Heroides 1, and in Margaret Atwood’s turn-of-the-millennium novella The Penelopiad. In wrapping up we glance at the creation of Penelope’s sound world in a new musical setting that has been developed through contemporary practice-based research.