Penelope as a Tragic Heroine

Attention to the ways in which Homeric epic is shaped by its engagement with choral lyric reveals continuities between epic and tragedy that go beyond tragedy’s mythical subject matter and the characteristics of tragic dialogue: both poetic forms rework the circumstances of choral performance into fictional events. This point can be illustrated through the figure of Penelope in the Odyssey who, like many tragic heroines, is in effect a displaced chorus leader. Penelope’s situation and her relations with her serving women, especially with the twelve disloyal maids whose punishment takes the form of a distorted choral dance, anticipate the circumstances of the tragic stage, in which individual characters act and suffer in the constant presence of choral groups.