Was the 'Odyssey' Written by a Woman? (1893)
The Odyssey was always regarded as a companion piece to the Iliad, supposedly written by the Greek poet Homer. In the course of translating it, Butler developed the radical notion that the Odyssey was instead the work of a ‘brilliant, high-spirited’ young woman originating from Trapani (ancient Drepanum) in Sicily.
In 1893 Butler presented this theory in a lecture at the Somerville Club, where he insisted that ‘the real obstacle to a general belief that the Odyssey was written by a woman is not anything that can be found in the poem itself, but the long prevalence of an opinion that the Odyssey was written by the same person who wrote the Iliad. … If people would read the poem slowly, intelligently, & without commentary, forgetting all past criticism until they have looked at the matter with their own eyes, I cannot think they would have much doubt that they were reading a woman’s masterpiece not a man’s.’