"Which version of a story we choose to tell, which characters we place in the foreground, which ones we allow to fade into the shadows: these reflect both the teller and the reader, as much as they show the characters of the myth. Considerations of culture and bias have been central to the recent wave of mythic retellings focused on women,"
"The tale, as Apollonius tells it, is an adventure epic about Jason and his men, who make the treacherous voyage to Colchis aboard the Argo, in order to bring the Golden Fleece to Iolcus. We remember above all the Argonauts' might (Heracles is part of the crew for a time), their enterprise and their luck, favoured as they are at many a turn by gods and goddesses."
Mythic narratives function as mirrors of society, with choices about perspective revealing cultural values and biases. Recent retellings have shifted focus toward women previously sidelined in classical epics. The traditional Argonautica frames Jason and his male companions as active heroes undertaking dangerous voyages and supernatural trials. Jason succeeds in Colchis with Medea's help, yet many other women in the story remain forgotten. Reimagined versions recenter those sidelined figures and present a mosaic of smaller, intimate stories about abandonment, heartbreak and rancour that complicate the single heroic narrative.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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