with Will Brockliss
Today’s guest is Dr. Will Brockliss, Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Among his many works, Dr. Brockliss has written Homeric Imagery and the Natural Environment (2019) and a chapter on “Typhoeus, Agent of Disorder” for The Oxford Handbook of Monsters in Classical Myth. Surprisingly, though, Typhoeus is not his favorite monster!
Pablo Picasso. Minotauromachy (La Minotauromachie). 1935. Image from MoMA (Museum of Modern Art), NYC, under Fair Use policy. https://www.moma.org/collection/works/60110.
What first got you interested in monsters?
At age 7, I was lucky enough to have as my teacher a classical myth enthusiast—a Canadian emigrée called Flo Evans. Flo introduced us to the stories of Perseus and I was soon delving into tales of the monsters he faces. Quite apart from getting me started on monsters, Flo’s teaching was my first contact with the classical world and a big part of why I’m a classicist today. After that, I took every opportunity to study the Greeks, the Romans, and their monsters.
What is your favorite monster from classical myth?
The Minotaur has been a particular favorite of mine from a young age. I spent many hours playing the second in the Cretan Chronicles series of role-playing books, in which the hero—who, strangely, is Theseus’ brother Altheus rather than Theseus himself—has to penetrate the Cretan Labyrinth and slay the Minotaur. Perhaps I was missing some vital booster to Altheus’ chances, but the impressive credentials of the Minotaur seemed to mean that there was no way for Altheus to succeed, beyond my rolling an improbable series of double sixes. Maybe that teaches you something about life. Or about monsters.
What was it about the Minotaur that caught your interest?
Well, if you follow Mary Renault’s retelling of the Minotaur story in The King Must Die, which I read about the same time as the Cretan Chronicles), then it might have as much to do with how the Minotaur, with his human body and bull’s head, can reflect disfiguring illness, since Renault’s Minos suffers from leprosy. I’m not sure that’s right, but I am at least attracted to interpretations of monsters as explorations of human vulnerability, as opposed to the means of exotic escape from the human condition.
Are there any modern adaptations of your ancient monster(s) that you find especially interesting and useful, or especially inaccurate and misleading?
Even though both The King Must Die and the Cretan Chronicles sparked my interest in monsters, Greek myth, and the Minotaur in particular, I have to admit that both works are inaccurate and misleading—but still fascinating and highly entertaining!
I’m also intrigued by the rendering of the Minotaur—and some other, unspecified folks—in Picasso’s Minotauromachy. I’ve discussed it several times with students of my Ancient Monsters course, and I’m not sure it’s becoming much clearer to me what’s going on in the picture. Rather, I feel I’m just being drawn deeper into the labyrinth depicted there.
What do you think accounts for the ongoing appeal of ancient monsters in the modern world?
Perhaps we don’t dream enough to come up with our own monsters, or perhaps we dream too much: we are continually haunted by these revenants from past imaginaries.
Will Brockliss is Bradshaw Knight Professor of the Environmental Humanities and Director of The Center for Culture, History and Environment at the University of Madison Wisconsin.