MADELINE MILLER’S NOVEL CIRCE IN THE FOCUS OF LITERARY ANTHROPOLOGY

Abstract

The article researches the novel Circe (2018) by the American writer M. Miller from the perspective of literary anthropology. An attempt is made to analyze what literary anthropology is, what its approaches or methods of interpreting the text are, and what it focuses on. At the same time, an analysis of the novel Circe is carried out, in which one can see and explore the anthropological experience through the eyes of the characters-gods, in particular, the main character Circe (Kirke), on whose behalf the narration is conducted. The novel is a reinterpretation of classical plots of ancient mythology, in particular Homer’s Odyssey. For helping Prometheus, Circe is punished. Father Helios banishes his daughter to the island of Aeaea, where she will eventually face loneliness, experience many transformations, learn to live and improve her gift as a sorceress, accept the challenges of love with a simple person, and go through the path of self-acceptance. And he will also meet Hermes, Daedalus and Icarus, Jason, Odysseus, Penelope and Telemachus. And give birth and raise the son of Telegon, learn all the joys and worries of motherhood. Through the prism of literary anthropology, the issue of man, his experience, human existence in the novel Circe was analyzed for the first time. Textual and hermeneutic methods were also applied. As a result of the study, it was found that in this novel M. Miller presented a representation of the experience of human existence through the eyes of a goddess, which creates the effect of strong highlighting of anthropological features.Such optics allows us to consider in detail the human essence and experience. Special attention is paid to the issues of self-acceptance, human mortality, the fragility of its existence, bodily problems, and the challenges of motherhood. Literary anthropology, which is interested in man, the category of experience, the acquisition of “self-experience”, at the same time does not give us specific methods, but sets a broad focus of vision and trajectory of movement, and therefore provides more freedom in interpreting the text.