The Essay

Oscar-winning writer Frederic Raphael a new essay exploring some of couples who have become archetypes in classical myth and literature - including Odysseus and Penelope and Orpheus and Eurydice. Frederic looks at the complex relationships between men and women in classical Greece - at Helen, Menelaus and prince Paris, and of the soldier Odysseus who went the distance to get his wife back. He also re-examines the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and offers a new interpretation of that fatal look back.