The God Beneath the Sea
Encyclopedia
The God Beneath the Sea is a children's novel
based on Greek mythology
, written by Leon Garfield
and Edward Blishen
with illustrations by Charles Keeping
. The God Beneath the Sea was awarded the 1970 Carnegie Medal
, and was runner-up for the 1970 Kate Greenaway Medal
. The novel was published in 1970 by Longman
, and republished in America with illustrations by Zevi Blum in 1971 by Random House
.
The novel begins with the new-born Hephaestus
(the titular god beneath the sea) cast from Mount Olympus
by Hera
. He is raised in a grotto by Thetis
and Eurynome
, and the two goddesses tell the infant Hephaestus various Greek creation myths. The novel continues with myths of the Olympians and the age of gods and mortals, and concludes with Hephaestus returning to Olympus, having been cast down for a second time after reproaching Zeus
.
Garfield, Blishen and Keeping collaborated on a sequel entitled The Golden Shadow (1973), which covers the myths of the heroic age.
inviting Hephaestus back to Olympus at Hera's bequest, and Hephaestus claiming Aphrodite
for his wife. Part two tells the myths of Prometheus
and Pandora
, and part three tells various myths of gods interacting with mortals. The novel concludes with the Olympians unsuccessfully attempting to overthrow Zeus, and Hephaestus returning to Olympus from Lemnos, having been cast down from Olympus for a second time after reproaching Zeus
.
emerging from Chaos
, then tell of the birth of the Cyclopes
and Hecatonchires, and the overthrowal of Uranus
by his son Cronus
. They tell of Cronus' ascension to the throne with his queen Rhea
, and his descent to madness after the Furies torment him nightly with prophecies that he, like his father, would be overthrown by his son.
Hephaestus grows uglier and more violent with age. Thetis and Eurynome give him a hammer, anvil and forge to vent his fury and discover he is a gifted smith. Hephaestus' most beautiful creation is a brooch depicting a sea nymph and her lover; he threatens to destroy the brooch unless Thetis tells him who he is and how he came to live in the grotto. The goddesses resume their tales: Rhea and Zeus
conspire to overthrow Cronus. The avenging children of Cronus defeat and imprison the Titans, sparing Rhea, Prometheus
and Epimetheus
.
The gods fashion their home on Olympus
, and Zeus seduces Hera by transforming himself into a cuckoo. Their child is hideous and misshapen, and Hera throws the child out into the sky. At the revelation of his parentage, Hephaestus breaks the brooch, and half is washed to sea. His desire for vengeance are tempered by the realization of Zeus' immense power. The narrative then shifts from Hephaestus and the goddesses to recount concurrent events amongst the Olympians, including the arrival at Olympus of Apollo
, Artemis
, Athene and Hermes
.
Pregnant again, Hera overlooks Zeus' infidelities, resolving to remain calm to avoid another monstrous child. Hera gives birth to her second son, Ares
, and the immortals come to Olympus to honor the newborn god. Zeus commands Hermes to find a gift for Ares. Hermes finds the lost half of Hephaestus' broken brooch and returns it to Zeus as a gift. Zeus creates Aphrodite
in the image of the brooch's nymph. Hermes then reunites the broken half of the brooch with the other half, which is worn by Thetis.
Hera, struck by the beauty of the brooch, demands to know who fashioned the brooch, then dispatches Hermes to fetch Hephaestus. Hermes returns Hephaestus to Olympus; Hephaestus forgives Hera and asks Zeus for Aphrodite as a wife. Ares demands a birthright from Zeus, and Zeus makes him god of hatred, discord and war.
Zeus commands Hephaestus to make a woman. The Olympians bless her with gifts, and Zeus names her Pandora
. Hermes gives Pandora to Epimetheus as a wife. Zeus punishes Prometheus by chaining him to a pillar in the Caucasus
, where a vulture eats his liver daily. At night his wounds heal, so that his punishment can begin anew the next morning.
Pandora eventually finds Prometheus' hidden jar
. Opening it, she releases malignant furies on mankind: madness, old age, vice and sickness. All that is left in the jar is a chrysalis that works as a healing balm. Hermes consoles the despairing Prometheus that hope was left behind for mankind, "for who knows what may unfold from a chrysalis?"
, who makes a sea vessel to survive the storm with his wife, Pyrrha
. They land at Mount Parnassus
, and after praying they repopulate the earth by casting stones over their shoulders. The stones transform to people when they land.
The novel then tells of Persephone
's abduction by Hades
, and Demeter
's search for her. After learning of Persephone's abduction from a shepherd, Demeter swears to Zeus that she will withdraw her blessings from the earth unless Hades returns Persephone. Zeus agrees to let Persephone return if she has not tasted the food of the dead. Ascalaphus
, a gardener in the underworld, remembers that Pandora ate seven pomegranate seeds in Hades, and Demeter turns him into a screech-owl
. Rhea intercedes and Demeter agrees to let Persephone live with Hades for three months of the year.
The novel tells myths of Autolycus
, the son of Hermes and Chione
, and Sisyphus
. Autolycus steals the cattle of his neighbor Sisyphus; Sisyphus gains revenge by raping Autolycus' daughter Anticleia. Autolycus sends Anticleia to Ithaca to marry Laertes
, who raises Odysseus
, the son of Sisyphus and Anticleia, as his own. Sisyphus spies Zeus ravishing the daughter of the river god Asopus
and tells Asopus where he had seen them in return for a gift of an eternal spring. He tricks death by trapping Hades in his own manacles. Hades is freed by Ares, but Sisyphus escapes death a second time by deceiving Persephone. At last Hermes takes Sisyphus to Tartarus
, to be condemned to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity.
Meanwhile, Hera and the Olympians conspire to imprison Zeus in a net while he is distracted raining thunderbolts on Asopus. Thetis fetches Briareus to free him. Zeus punishes Hera by hanging her in the sky, and sets Poseidon and Apollo the vain task of building the doomed city of Troy
. Hephaestus, seeing Hera's punishment, berates Zeus, and Zeus throws Hephaestus for a second time from Olympus. Hephaestus lands on the isle of Lemnos
and is nursed to health by the locals. He returns to Olympus and is greeted by Hermes. At the novel's conclusion, Autolycus muses in a letter to his daughter that his grandson Odysseus may one day visit the new city of Troy.
quality" of the stories as they were told to them.
They aimed to restore the power the myths had had for the Greeks themselves, and for the authors as children. They decided to tell the myths, not as separated stories, but as "a fresh and original piece of fiction," a single, continuous account of the origin of the world, the origin of man's struggle against his surroundings and man's struggle with his own nature. They hoped while writing the book to present the myths as "a total coherent account of the human situation, the human predicament, and human opportunities." One of the main difficulties they encountered was selecting a sequence of myths from "the enormous expanse" of Greek mythology to form a single story that would increase the power of the work.
The authors shared a concern with developments in children's literature
and society's attitudes towards children. They felt that senior children's literature had been moving closer to adult literature, and felt the book had taken them "further than [they'd] ever been taken before" towards that end. They felt it necessary to address "meaningful violence" and "the strongest of human passions" in the novel, because these were "the preoccupations with which our children are, we know, at the moment filled."
Blishen and Garfield based their writing on four source texts: E. V. Rieu
's translations of the Iliad
and the Odyssey
, the Metamorphoses
, and Robert Graves
' The Greek Myths
. The authors' primary source text was Graves' The Greek Myths, because of the simplicity of his writing. They also borrowed from Ovid
and many musical sources, including Handel
.
as "an utter bore."
After Garfield told Keeping he was using Robert Graves as a source, Keeping read The Greek Myths and found them "quite disgusting" and "completely devoid of any love. This is all lust, rape, revenge and violence of every possible kind." Keeping looked for a deeper significance and philosophy in the stories, finding links to the Bible
and other stories from other cultures and religions, and "some basic human passions." In attempting to "cover all the ground [Garfield and Blishen] covered with fifteen drawings", Keeping felt he had "to take a group of shapes that would project what this meant to me."
Keeping decided not to use Greek costume as he was concerned readers would react the same way he used to: "What does it mean? What does it do? Am I just delving into the past?" He also avoided modern dress as "this would be old fashioned within another fifteen years", deciding in the end to dispense with "any form of recognizable costume" while avoiding "anything that is appertaining to our particular moment in time." He used "a figurative art
. There's nothing else in it... except people, their emotions and their reactions to emotions."
Keeping called his completed illustrations for The God Beneath the Sea "a set of drawings much to my disgust not all awfully good." He saw them as violent and cruel illustrations of violent and cruel people, and attempted to visually project this by taking "a symbolic line, so if you look at them you will find there's a symbolic overtone in them." At the time of the book's publication, Keeping was looking forward to working with the authors on the sequel The Golden Shadow, as he hoped "to redeem some of the mistakes of the first one."
for children's literature and was shortlisted for the 1970 Kate Greenaway Medal
for illustration in children's literature. It was considered a controversial book at the time of its publication, with critical opinion divided on its merits. Reactions were particularly divided over the novel's prose style; John Rowe Townsend
observed that "The authors were asking English prose to do something it has never been at ease with since the seventeenth century, and many reviewers thought that the Garfield-Blishen attempt at high flight ended like that of Icarus
." Robert Nye
felt the authors had "fallen into the trap of making everything impossibly vivid [...] thereby losing many of the subtleties that matter." Alan Garner
in the New Statesman
criticized the novel's prose as "overblown Victoriana
, 'fine' writing at its worst, cliché-ridden to the point of satire, falsely poetic, groaning with imagery and, among such a grandiloquent mess, intrusively colloquial at times." Rosemary Manning
wrote in the Times Literary Supplement that the writing is "lush, meandering and self-indulgent," and "larded with ... lazy adjectives ... and weighed down under laborious similes."
Positive reviewers saw the book's writing style as reinvigorating Greek myths for modern readers. History Today
praised the book's "poetic writing" and "sense of the terror and mystery of the universe." A review in The Spectator
called it "a remarkable book" that "should evoke a response from anyone clogged within the classics, wanting to see the poetry afresh." Ted Hughes
reviewed the book positively, noting the authors' attempt to "crack the Victorian
plaster" of "moralizing dullness... concentrated on the Ancient Greeks". For Hughes, the novel made the myths "vividly new"; the authors "stripped away the pseudo-classical draperies and produced an intense, highly coloured, primitive atmosphere." The Classical Journal
stated the novel's chief strength was "a liveliness and vigor, of both style and action."
The novel's narrative structure was singled out by reviewers with similarly divided verdicts. For Manning, the novel's opening, "an excellent device ...to allow the book to start dramatically", and subsequent moments of pace and tension, are ruined by chronic over-writing. Nye felt the use of the two falls of Hephaestus as a framing device
"makes sense of what comes in-between", but for Nye "it is a savage sort of sense, depending to a large extent on melodrama". History Today claimed the choice to retell the myths as a continuous narrative resulted in "a brilliant poetic fantasy"; Hughes said of the novel's series of stories, "[t]heir zest sweeps you along. It is a real feat, to make everything sound so first hand." Contemporary Review
observed a "slight decline in narrative cohesiveness" in the second half of the book, after the "fine ... reworking of the earlier myths" but felt it "detracts little from the effectiveness of dramatic and narrative motifs ... which help tie together the disparate myths so well." The Spectator claimed "the narrative is handled with dramatic, and comic, awareness of the epic voyage into our creative origins."
Philip Pullman
cites The God Beneath the Sea as an inspiration for his fantasy literature. A 2001 article in The Guardian
named The God Beneath the Sea the ninth best children's book of all time, calling it "[v]isceral, overpowering, defiantly undomesticated" and "the best ever rendering of the Greek myths in modern English."
, a reviewer in The Times
singled out the illustrations for The God Beneath the Sea and its sequel The Golden Shadow as "probably the most striking evidence of Keeping's forceful presence".
The novel's American publishers replaced Keeping's work with illustrations by Zevi Blum. Blum's illustrations were less well-received by critics, with one describing them as "MGM-style drawings, which substituted for drama a soft coyness and prurience."
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
based on Greek mythology
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
, written by Leon Garfield
Leon Garfield
Leon Garfield was a British writer of fiction. He is best known for his historical novels for children, though he also wrote for adults...
and Edward Blishen
Edward Blishen
Edward Blishen was an English author. He is perhaps best known for three books: A Cack-Handed War , a story set in the backdrop of the Second World War, The God Beneath the Sea , a collaboration with Leon Garfield that won the Carnegie Medal and "Roaring Boys",an honest account of teaching in a...
with illustrations by Charles Keeping
Charles Keeping
Charles William James Keeping was a British illustrator, children's book author and lithographer. He first came to prominence with his illustrations for Rosemary Sutcliff's historical novels for children, and he created more than twenty picture books...
. The God Beneath the Sea was awarded the 1970 Carnegie Medal
Carnegie Medal
The Carnegie Medal is a literary award established in 1936 in honour of Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and given annually to an outstanding book for children and young adults. It is awarded by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals...
, and was runner-up for the 1970 Kate Greenaway Medal
Kate Greenaway Medal
The Kate Greenaway Medal was established in the United Kingdom in 1955 in honour of the children's illustrator, Kate Greenaway. The medal is given annually to an outstanding work of illustration in children's literature. It is awarded by Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals...
. The novel was published in 1970 by Longman
Longman
Longman was a publishing company founded in London, England in 1724. It is now an imprint of Pearson Education.-Beginnings:The Longman company was founded by Thomas Longman , the son of Ezekiel Longman , a gentleman of Bristol. Thomas was apprenticed in 1716 to John Osborn, a London bookseller, and...
, and republished in America with illustrations by Zevi Blum in 1971 by Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
.
The novel begins with the new-born Hephaestus
Hephaestus
Hephaestus was a Greek god whose Roman equivalent was Vulcan. He is the son of Zeus and Hera, the King and Queen of the Gods - or else, according to some accounts, of Hera alone. He was the god of technology, blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metals, metallurgy, fire and volcanoes...
(the titular god beneath the sea) cast from Mount Olympus
Mount Olympus
Mount Olympus is the highest mountain in Greece, located on the border between Thessaly and Macedonia, about 100 kilometres away from Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. Mount Olympus has 52 peaks. The highest peak Mytikas, meaning "nose", rises to 2,917 metres...
by Hera
Hera
Hera was the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow and the peacock were sacred to her...
. He is raised in a grotto by Thetis
Thetis
Silver-footed Thetis , disposer or "placer" , is encountered in Greek mythology mostly as a sea nymph or known as the goddess of water, one of the fifty Nereids, daughters of the ancient one of the seas with shape-shifting abilities who survives in the historical vestiges of most later Greek myths...
and Eurynome
Eurynome (oceanid)
Eurynome was a deity of ancient Greek religion worshipped at a sanctuary near the confluence of rivers called the Neda and the Lymax in classical Peloponnesus. She was represented by a statue of what we would call a mermaid...
, and the two goddesses tell the infant Hephaestus various Greek creation myths. The novel continues with myths of the Olympians and the age of gods and mortals, and concludes with Hephaestus returning to Olympus, having been cast down for a second time after reproaching Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
.
Garfield, Blishen and Keeping collaborated on a sequel entitled The Golden Shadow (1973), which covers the myths of the heroic age.
Plot
The God Beneath the Sea is divided into three parts. Part one begins with the image of the infant Hephaestus plummeting from Olympus to the ocean. Thetis saves the baby and takes him to the grotto she shares with Eurynome. They raise the baby, telling him stories of Greek myths and giving him a hammer and anvil to play with. Part one concludes with HermesHermes
Hermes is the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology and a guide to the Underworld. Hermes was born on Mount Kyllini in Arcadia. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of the cunning of thieves, of orators and...
inviting Hephaestus back to Olympus at Hera's bequest, and Hephaestus claiming Aphrodite
Aphrodite
Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
for his wife. Part two tells the myths of Prometheus
Prometheus
In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan, the son of Iapetus and Themis, and brother to Atlas, Epimetheus and Menoetius. He was a champion of mankind, known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals...
and Pandora
Pandora
In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman. As Hesiod related it, each god helped create her by giving her unique gifts...
, and part three tells various myths of gods interacting with mortals. The novel concludes with the Olympians unsuccessfully attempting to overthrow Zeus, and Hephaestus returning to Olympus from Lemnos, having been cast down from Olympus for a second time after reproaching Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
.
Part I
In Part I, "The Making of the Gods", Thetis and Eurynome tell Hephaestus stories of the Titans and Olympians, in hopes of quelling his restless nature. They begin with the myths of the TitansTitan (mythology)
In Greek mythology, the Titans were a race of powerful deities, descendants of Gaia and Uranus, that ruled during the legendary Golden Age....
emerging from Chaos
Chaos (cosmogony)
Chaos refers to the formless or void state preceding the creation of the universe or cosmos in the Greek creation myths, more specifically the initial "gap" created by the original separation of heaven and earth....
, then tell of the birth of the Cyclopes
Cyclops
A cyclops , in Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, was a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of his forehead...
and Hecatonchires, and the overthrowal of Uranus
Uranus
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It has the third-largest planetary radius and fourth-largest planetary mass in the Solar System. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus , the father of Cronus and grandfather of Zeus...
by his son Cronus
Cronus
In Greek mythology, Cronus or Kronos was the leader and the youngest of the first generation of Titans, divine descendants of Gaia, the earth, and Uranus, the sky...
. They tell of Cronus' ascension to the throne with his queen Rhea
Rhea (mythology)
Rhea was the Titaness daughter of Uranus, the sky, and Gaia, the earth, in Greek mythology. She was known as "the mother of gods". In earlier traditions, she was strongly associated with Gaia and Cybele, the Great Goddess, and was later seen by the classical Greeks as the mother of the Olympian...
, and his descent to madness after the Furies torment him nightly with prophecies that he, like his father, would be overthrown by his son.
Hephaestus grows uglier and more violent with age. Thetis and Eurynome give him a hammer, anvil and forge to vent his fury and discover he is a gifted smith. Hephaestus' most beautiful creation is a brooch depicting a sea nymph and her lover; he threatens to destroy the brooch unless Thetis tells him who he is and how he came to live in the grotto. The goddesses resume their tales: Rhea and Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
conspire to overthrow Cronus. The avenging children of Cronus defeat and imprison the Titans, sparing Rhea, Prometheus
Prometheus
In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan, the son of Iapetus and Themis, and brother to Atlas, Epimetheus and Menoetius. He was a champion of mankind, known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals...
and Epimetheus
Epimetheus (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Epimetheus was the brother of Prometheus , a pair of Titans who "acted as representatives of mankind" . They were the inseparable sons of Iapetus, who in other contexts was the father of Atlas...
.
The gods fashion their home on Olympus
Mount Olympus
Mount Olympus is the highest mountain in Greece, located on the border between Thessaly and Macedonia, about 100 kilometres away from Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. Mount Olympus has 52 peaks. The highest peak Mytikas, meaning "nose", rises to 2,917 metres...
, and Zeus seduces Hera by transforming himself into a cuckoo. Their child is hideous and misshapen, and Hera throws the child out into the sky. At the revelation of his parentage, Hephaestus breaks the brooch, and half is washed to sea. His desire for vengeance are tempered by the realization of Zeus' immense power. The narrative then shifts from Hephaestus and the goddesses to recount concurrent events amongst the Olympians, including the arrival at Olympus of Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
, Artemis
Artemis
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
, Athene and Hermes
Hermes
Hermes is the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology and a guide to the Underworld. Hermes was born on Mount Kyllini in Arcadia. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of the cunning of thieves, of orators and...
.
Pregnant again, Hera overlooks Zeus' infidelities, resolving to remain calm to avoid another monstrous child. Hera gives birth to her second son, Ares
Ares
Ares is the Greek god of war. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. In Greek literature, he often represents the physical or violent aspect of war, in contrast to the armored Athena, whose functions as a goddess of intelligence include military strategy and...
, and the immortals come to Olympus to honor the newborn god. Zeus commands Hermes to find a gift for Ares. Hermes finds the lost half of Hephaestus' broken brooch and returns it to Zeus as a gift. Zeus creates Aphrodite
Aphrodite
Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
in the image of the brooch's nymph. Hermes then reunites the broken half of the brooch with the other half, which is worn by Thetis.
Hera, struck by the beauty of the brooch, demands to know who fashioned the brooch, then dispatches Hermes to fetch Hephaestus. Hermes returns Hephaestus to Olympus; Hephaestus forgives Hera and asks Zeus for Aphrodite as a wife. Ares demands a birthright from Zeus, and Zeus makes him god of hatred, discord and war.
Part II
In Part II, "The Making of Men", Prometheus makes men out of clay and the substance of Chaos to inhabit the earth, fearing that Zeus will give the earth to one of his children as a plaything. At Zeus' behest, Hermes commands Prometheus to destroy his creations. Instead, Prometheus teaches his creatures to sacrifice and worship Zeus. Prometheus offers Zeus the choice of two portions as sacrifice; Zeus mistakenly chooses the poorer portion, and in retribution forbids mankind the use of fire. Prometheus steals fire for them in defiance of Zeus. He continues to watch over mankind, finding strange impurites in the substance of Chaos he'd used to create them. These he scrapes away and hides in a sealed jar.Zeus commands Hephaestus to make a woman. The Olympians bless her with gifts, and Zeus names her Pandora
Pandora
In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman. As Hesiod related it, each god helped create her by giving her unique gifts...
. Hermes gives Pandora to Epimetheus as a wife. Zeus punishes Prometheus by chaining him to a pillar in the Caucasus
Caucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
, where a vulture eats his liver daily. At night his wounds heal, so that his punishment can begin anew the next morning.
Pandora eventually finds Prometheus' hidden jar
Pandora's box
Pandora's box is an artifact in Greek mythology, taken from the myth of Pandora's creation around line 60 of Hesiod's Works and Days. The "box" was actually a large jar given to Pandora , which contained all the evils of the world. When Pandora opened the jar, all its contents except for one item...
. Opening it, she releases malignant furies on mankind: madness, old age, vice and sickness. All that is left in the jar is a chrysalis that works as a healing balm. Hermes consoles the despairing Prometheus that hope was left behind for mankind, "for who knows what may unfold from a chrysalis?"
Part III
Part III, "Gods and Men", begins with the tale of Lycaon turned to a wolf by Zeus after treating him with disrespect. Zeus begins a deluge. Prometheus shouts a warning to DeucalionDeucalion
In Greek mythology Deucalion was a son of Prometheus and Pronoia. The anger of Zeus was ignited by the hubris of the Pelasgians, and he decided to put an end to the Bronze Age. Lycaon, the king of Arcadia, had sacrificed a boy to Zeus, who was appalled by this savage offering...
, who makes a sea vessel to survive the storm with his wife, Pyrrha
Pyrrha
In Greek mythology, Pyrrha was the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora and wife of Deucalion.When Zeus decided to end the Bronze Age with the great deluge, Deucalion and his wife, Pyrrha, were the only survivors...
. They land at Mount Parnassus
Mount Parnassus
Mount Parnassus, also Parnassos , is a mountain of limestone in central Greece that towers above Delphi, north of the Gulf of Corinth, and offers scenic views of the surrounding olive groves and countryside. According to Greek mythology, this mountain was sacred to Apollo and the Corycian nymphs,...
, and after praying they repopulate the earth by casting stones over their shoulders. The stones transform to people when they land.
The novel then tells of Persephone
Persephone
In Greek mythology, Persephone , also called Kore , is the daughter of Zeus and the harvest-goddess Demeter, and queen of the underworld; she was abducted by Hades, the god-king of the underworld....
's abduction by Hades
Hades
Hades , Hadēs, originally , Haidēs or , Aidēs , meaning "the unseen") was the ancient Greek god of the underworld. The genitive , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades". Eventually, the nominative came to designate the abode of the dead.In Greek mythology, Hades...
, and Demeter
Demeter
In Greek mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains, the fertility of the earth, and the seasons . Her common surnames are Sito as the giver of food or corn/grain and Thesmophoros as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society...
's search for her. After learning of Persephone's abduction from a shepherd, Demeter swears to Zeus that she will withdraw her blessings from the earth unless Hades returns Persephone. Zeus agrees to let Persephone return if she has not tasted the food of the dead. Ascalaphus
Ascalaphus
In Greek mythology, two people share the name Ascalaphus/Askalaphos .#Son of Acheron and Orphne. Askalaphos was the orchardist of Hades. He told the other gods that Persephone had eaten a pomegranate in Hades. He was punished by being changed into an owl...
, a gardener in the underworld, remembers that Pandora ate seven pomegranate seeds in Hades, and Demeter turns him into a screech-owl
Screech-owl
Screech owls or Screech-owls are typical owls belonging to the genus Megascops. Twenty-one living species are known at present, but new ones are frequently recognized and unknown ones are still being discovered on a regular basis, especially in the Andes...
. Rhea intercedes and Demeter agrees to let Persephone live with Hades for three months of the year.
The novel tells myths of Autolycus
Autolycus
In Greek mythology, Autolycus was a son of Hermes and Chione. He was the husband of Neaera, or according to Homer, of Amphithea...
, the son of Hermes and Chione
Chione (daughter of Daedalion)
In Greek mythology Chione was the daughter of Daedalion. She was very beautiful, and had countless suitors, including the gods Apollo and Hermes. Apollo waited for nightfall and then approached her in the guise of an old woman. Hermes put her to sleep and raped her...
, and Sisyphus
Sisyphus
In Greek mythology Sisyphus was a king punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity...
. Autolycus steals the cattle of his neighbor Sisyphus; Sisyphus gains revenge by raping Autolycus' daughter Anticleia. Autolycus sends Anticleia to Ithaca to marry Laertes
Laertes
In Greek mythology, Laërtes was the son of Arcesius and Chalcomedusa. He was the father of Odysseus and Ctimene by his wife Anticlea, daughter of the thief Autolycus. Laërtes was an Argonaut and participated in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar...
, who raises Odysseus
Odysseus
Odysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
, the son of Sisyphus and Anticleia, as his own. Sisyphus spies Zeus ravishing the daughter of the river god Asopus
Asopus
Asopus or Asôpos is the name of four different rivers in Greece and one in Turkey. In Greek mythology, it was the name of the gods of those rivers.-The rivers in Greece:...
and tells Asopus where he had seen them in return for a gift of an eternal spring. He tricks death by trapping Hades in his own manacles. Hades is freed by Ares, but Sisyphus escapes death a second time by deceiving Persephone. At last Hermes takes Sisyphus to Tartarus
Tartarus
In classic mythology, below Uranus , Gaia , and Pontus is Tartarus, or Tartaros . It is a deep, gloomy place, a pit, or an abyss used as a dungeon of torment and suffering that resides beneath the underworld. In the Gorgias, Plato In classic mythology, below Uranus (sky), Gaia (earth), and Pontus...
, to be condemned to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity.
Meanwhile, Hera and the Olympians conspire to imprison Zeus in a net while he is distracted raining thunderbolts on Asopus. Thetis fetches Briareus to free him. Zeus punishes Hera by hanging her in the sky, and sets Poseidon and Apollo the vain task of building the doomed city of Troy
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
. Hephaestus, seeing Hera's punishment, berates Zeus, and Zeus throws Hephaestus for a second time from Olympus. Hephaestus lands on the isle of Lemnos
Lemnos
Lemnos is an island of Greece in the northern part of the Aegean Sea. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Lemnos peripheral unit, which is part of the North Aegean Periphery. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is Myrina...
and is nursed to health by the locals. He returns to Olympus and is greeted by Hermes. At the novel's conclusion, Autolycus muses in a letter to his daughter that his grandson Odysseus may one day visit the new city of Troy.
Development and themes
Blishen and Garfield began work on The God Beneath the Sea after discovering that Greek mythology had had a similar impact on them as primary school children. In Blishen's words, "these stories seemed to illuminate, to make clear, what was going on around me in my small and unimportant life. They were about love... They were about the desire for power, about jealousy, about triumph and great defeat." Garfield suggested they "write the stories for today's children" and remove the "upholstered VictorianVictorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
quality" of the stories as they were told to them.
They aimed to restore the power the myths had had for the Greeks themselves, and for the authors as children. They decided to tell the myths, not as separated stories, but as "a fresh and original piece of fiction," a single, continuous account of the origin of the world, the origin of man's struggle against his surroundings and man's struggle with his own nature. They hoped while writing the book to present the myths as "a total coherent account of the human situation, the human predicament, and human opportunities." One of the main difficulties they encountered was selecting a sequence of myths from "the enormous expanse" of Greek mythology to form a single story that would increase the power of the work.
The authors shared a concern with developments in children's literature
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
and society's attitudes towards children. They felt that senior children's literature had been moving closer to adult literature, and felt the book had taken them "further than [they'd] ever been taken before" towards that end. They felt it necessary to address "meaningful violence" and "the strongest of human passions" in the novel, because these were "the preoccupations with which our children are, we know, at the moment filled."
Blishen and Garfield based their writing on four source texts: E. V. Rieu
E. V. Rieu
Emile Victor Rieu CBE was a classicist, publisher and poet, best known for his lucid translations of Homer, as editor of Penguin Classics, and for a modern translation of the four Gospels which evolved from his role as editor of a projected Penguin translation of the Bible...
's translations of the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
and the Odyssey
Odyssey
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
, the Metamorphoses
Metamorphoses (poem)
Metamorphoses is a Latin narrative poem in fifteen books by the Roman poet Ovid describing the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar within a loose mythico-historical framework. Completed in AD 8, it is recognized as a masterpiece of Golden Age Latin literature...
, and Robert Graves
Robert Graves
Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
' The Greek Myths
The Greek Myths
The Greek Myths is a mythography, a compendium of Greek mythology, by the poet and writer Robert Graves, normally published in two volumes....
. The authors' primary source text was Graves' The Greek Myths, because of the simplicity of his writing. They also borrowed from Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
and many musical sources, including Handel
HANDEL
HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....
.
Development of the illustrations
Charles Keeping drew fifteen illustrations for The God Beneath the Sea. His work was widely acclaimed by critics, but Keeping himself was dissatisfied with the illustrations. He was not enthusiastic about working on the book when approached by Garfield, as he disliked the Greek myths. The myths had been presented to him in school "in the most boring fashion" and as an art student he found Greek art "cold and dispassionate." He saw the customary method of illustrating Greek myths in a stylized mimicking of Greek vase paintingPottery of Ancient Greece
As the result of its relative durability, pottery is a large part of the archaeological record of Ancient Greece, and because there is so much of it it has exerted a disproportionately large influence on our understanding of Greek society...
as "an utter bore."
After Garfield told Keeping he was using Robert Graves as a source, Keeping read The Greek Myths and found them "quite disgusting" and "completely devoid of any love. This is all lust, rape, revenge and violence of every possible kind." Keeping looked for a deeper significance and philosophy in the stories, finding links to the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
and other stories from other cultures and religions, and "some basic human passions." In attempting to "cover all the ground [Garfield and Blishen] covered with fifteen drawings", Keeping felt he had "to take a group of shapes that would project what this meant to me."
Keeping decided not to use Greek costume as he was concerned readers would react the same way he used to: "What does it mean? What does it do? Am I just delving into the past?" He also avoided modern dress as "this would be old fashioned within another fifteen years", deciding in the end to dispense with "any form of recognizable costume" while avoiding "anything that is appertaining to our particular moment in time." He used "a figurative art
Figurative art
Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork—particularly paintings and sculptures—which are clearly derived from real object sources, and are therefore by definition representational.-Definition:...
. There's nothing else in it... except people, their emotions and their reactions to emotions."
Keeping called his completed illustrations for The God Beneath the Sea "a set of drawings much to my disgust not all awfully good." He saw them as violent and cruel illustrations of violent and cruel people, and attempted to visually project this by taking "a symbolic line, so if you look at them you will find there's a symbolic overtone in them." At the time of the book's publication, Keeping was looking forward to working with the authors on the sequel The Golden Shadow, as he hoped "to redeem some of the mistakes of the first one."
Literary significance and reception
The God Beneath The Sea was awarded the 1970 Carnegie MedalCarnegie Medal
The Carnegie Medal is a literary award established in 1936 in honour of Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and given annually to an outstanding book for children and young adults. It is awarded by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals...
for children's literature and was shortlisted for the 1970 Kate Greenaway Medal
Kate Greenaway Medal
The Kate Greenaway Medal was established in the United Kingdom in 1955 in honour of the children's illustrator, Kate Greenaway. The medal is given annually to an outstanding work of illustration in children's literature. It is awarded by Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals...
for illustration in children's literature. It was considered a controversial book at the time of its publication, with critical opinion divided on its merits. Reactions were particularly divided over the novel's prose style; John Rowe Townsend
John Rowe Townsend
John Rowe Townsend is a British children's author and academic. His best-known children's novel is The Intruder, which won a 1971 Edgar Award and the best-known academic work is Written for Children: An Outline of English Language Children's Literature , the definitive work of its time on the...
observed that "The authors were asking English prose to do something it has never been at ease with since the seventeenth century, and many reviewers thought that the Garfield-Blishen attempt at high flight ended like that of Icarus
Icarus
-Space and astronomy:* Icarus , on the Moon* Icarus , a planetary science journal* 1566 Icarus, an asteroid* IKAROS, a interplanetary unmanned spacecraft...
." Robert Nye
Robert Nye
Robert Nye FRSL is an English poet who has also written novels and plays as well as stories for children. His bestselling novel Falstaff published in 1976 was described by Michael Ratcliffe as 'one of the most ambitious and seductive novels of the decade,' and went on to win both The Hawthornden...
felt the authors had "fallen into the trap of making everything impossibly vivid [...] thereby losing many of the subtleties that matter." Alan Garner
Alan Garner
With his first book published, Garner abandoned his work as a labourer and gained a job as a freelance television reporter, living a "hand to mouth" lifestyle on a "shoestring" budget...
in the New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
criticized the novel's prose as "overblown Victoriana
Victoriana
Victoriana refers to items or material from the Victorian period , especially those particularly evocative of the design style and outlook of the time....
, 'fine' writing at its worst, cliché-ridden to the point of satire, falsely poetic, groaning with imagery and, among such a grandiloquent mess, intrusively colloquial at times." Rosemary Manning
Rosemary Manning
Rosemary Joy Manning was a British author of both adult and children's books. Her best-known adult book was The Chinese Garden and she was also well-known for her popular Dragon children's series...
wrote in the Times Literary Supplement that the writing is "lush, meandering and self-indulgent," and "larded with ... lazy adjectives ... and weighed down under laborious similes."
Positive reviewers saw the book's writing style as reinvigorating Greek myths for modern readers. History Today
History Today
History Today is an illustrated history magazine. Published monthly in London since January 1951, it is the world's leading, and possibly oldest, history magazine. Its successful mission has always been to present serious and authoritative history to as wide a public as possible...
praised the book's "poetic writing" and "sense of the terror and mystery of the universe." A review in The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
called it "a remarkable book" that "should evoke a response from anyone clogged within the classics, wanting to see the poetry afresh." Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Edward James Hughes OM , more commonly known as Ted Hughes, was an English poet and children's writer. Critics routinely rank him as one of the best poets of his generation. Hughes was British Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death.Hughes was married to American poet Sylvia Plath, from 1956 until...
reviewed the book positively, noting the authors' attempt to "crack the Victorian
Victorian morality
Victorian morality is a distillation of the moral views of people living at the time of Queen Victoria's reign and of the moral climate of the United Kingdom throughout the 19th century in general, which contrasted greatly with the morality of the previous Georgian period...
plaster" of "moralizing dullness... concentrated on the Ancient Greeks". For Hughes, the novel made the myths "vividly new"; the authors "stripped away the pseudo-classical draperies and produced an intense, highly coloured, primitive atmosphere." The Classical Journal
The Classical Journal
The Classical Journal is published by the Classical Association of the Middle West and South , the largest and oldest regional classics association in the United States and Canada.- The Classical Journal Print Edition :...
stated the novel's chief strength was "a liveliness and vigor, of both style and action."
The novel's narrative structure was singled out by reviewers with similarly divided verdicts. For Manning, the novel's opening, "an excellent device ...to allow the book to start dramatically", and subsequent moments of pace and tension, are ruined by chronic over-writing. Nye felt the use of the two falls of Hephaestus as a framing device
Framing device
The term framing device refers to the usage of the same single action, scene, event, setting, or any element of significance at both the beginning and end of an artistic, musical, or literary work. The repeated element thus creates a ‘frame’ within which the main body of work can develop.The...
"makes sense of what comes in-between", but for Nye "it is a savage sort of sense, depending to a large extent on melodrama". History Today claimed the choice to retell the myths as a continuous narrative resulted in "a brilliant poetic fantasy"; Hughes said of the novel's series of stories, "[t]heir zest sweeps you along. It is a real feat, to make everything sound so first hand." Contemporary Review
Contemporary Review
-Foundation:It was founded in 1866 by Alexander Strahan and a group of intellectuals anxious to promote intelligent and independent opinion about the great issues of their day. They intended it to be the church-minded counterpart of the resolutely secular Fortnightly Review, which was founded by...
observed a "slight decline in narrative cohesiveness" in the second half of the book, after the "fine ... reworking of the earlier myths" but felt it "detracts little from the effectiveness of dramatic and narrative motifs ... which help tie together the disparate myths so well." The Spectator claimed "the narrative is handled with dramatic, and comic, awareness of the epic voyage into our creative origins."
Philip Pullman
Philip Pullman
Philip Pullman CBE, FRSL is an English writer from Norwich. He is the best-selling author of several books, most notably his trilogy of fantasy novels, His Dark Materials, and his fictionalised biography of Jesus, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ...
cites The God Beneath the Sea as an inspiration for his fantasy literature. A 2001 article in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
named The God Beneath the Sea the ninth best children's book of all time, calling it "[v]isceral, overpowering, defiantly undomesticated" and "the best ever rendering of the Greek myths in modern English."
Illustrations
In contrast to the writing's mixed reception, critics were unanimous in acknowledging the power of Charles Keeping's illustrations. In an otherwise scathing review, Garner called them "a singular vision of what Classical myth must have been. Two drawings especially – Cronos and Prometheus – are more terrible and beautiful than Goya." Manning stated that Keeping's "contributions are magnificent... From this book, it is Keeping's interpretation of the 'enormous violent energy' of the Greek myths that will be remembered." The Spectator called the illustrations "totems of potency"; Contemporary Review said the "bold, forceful and imaginative illustrations" added to the "dramatic presentation of the myths." Hughes saw the illustrations as "relating the stories to the primitive roots of myth, rather than to the civilized commentators, taking the stories from scholarship and handing them back to imagination." Writing on the occasion of Keeping's nomination for the 1974 Hans Christian Andersen AwardHans Christian Andersen Award
The Hans Christian Andersen Award, sometimes known as the "Nobel Prize for children's literature", is an international award given biennially by the International Board on Books for Young People in recognition of a "lasting contribution to children's literature"...
, a reviewer in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
singled out the illustrations for The God Beneath the Sea and its sequel The Golden Shadow as "probably the most striking evidence of Keeping's forceful presence".
The novel's American publishers replaced Keeping's work with illustrations by Zevi Blum. Blum's illustrations were less well-received by critics, with one describing them as "MGM-style drawings, which substituted for drama a soft coyness and prurience."