ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the divergent adaptations of Briseis in contemporary women’s writing, in particular the iterations of Briseis in Emily Hauser’s For the Most Beautiful (2016), Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls (2018) and Women of Troy (2021), Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles (2011), and Natalie Haynes’s A Thousand Ships (2019). This analysis is contextualised within the proliferation of contemporary feminist adaptations of Greek myth, and feminist classical reception. Interrogating how the ancient Briseis can be utilised in contemporary feminist discourses surrounding consent and romance literature, this chapter examines why Briseis remains such a popular figure in contemporary rewritings of classical myth. In asking whether Briseis can consent, it uncovers insights into the expectations for portraying consent in post-#MeToo literature. By using Briseis’s adaptations as a case study, a discussion is opened on how twenty-first-century readers deal with the omnipresent theme of rape in Greek myth.
