Descending into Hades is a long-accepted trope of epic writing and one from which heroes return in a state of affirmation. G.’s volume seeks to present the ‘realm of darkness and invisibility par excellence’ (p. 12) as an alternative poetic space wherein the traditions and characters of the epic genre are rewritten, re-spoken and discussed anew. In this realm, the integral value of kleos is no longer the defining heroic impulse, with personal narratives of loss taking the centre focus. G. acknowledges Hades as a storehouse of the epic tradition filled with the shades and their vaporous stories that are dying to be told; ‘[t]hose stories, however, are not like those that unfold under the Homeric sun’ (p. 14). Examining both the Iliad and the Odyssey across seven chapters, this volume brings to life these accounts and defines the gloomy realm of Pluto as a revisionist poetic space.

Tempering criticism from the 1960s through to recent scholarship, many of the subsections within chapters begin by outlining the critical reception of certain episodes or the interpretation of a character's actions. In doing so, G. implies the ethereal nature of the space. This begins from the introduction, which delineates previous spatial approaches to Homer's work – especially where mnemonic techniques are linked to the oral tradition to form a feeling of enargeia – to demonstrate the importance of seeing. The space of Hades, in being unreachable and invisible to the gods, is denoted as defying the basic rules of epic storytelling. A-idês is, under Homer's manipulation, a tabooed place, but in Iliad 23 and Odyssey 11 opportunities are provided for epic heroes to reflect on their position within the tradition. G.’s aim, then, is to show how the poet ‘exploits Hades in the Iliad and the Odyssey as a poetic resource that allows him to explore the epic past in ways that consciously diverge from the traditional narrative of the Muses’ (p. 21).

Despite the relative lack of material in the Iliad about the underworld, in Part 1 G. neatly suggests that, in place of its literal absence, a conceptual awareness of the underworld is present throughout the epic in the guiding principle of kleos. In Chapter 1 G. tackles the paradox of discussing the role of Hades, the realm of darkness, in the Iliad, a poem that depicts the world of light. In the Iliad Hades functions as an unknown and concealed space for both men and immortals, and therefore proffers a challenge to Homer's poetic gaze. Chapter 2, however, offers Patroclus’ spectral visitation to Achilles in Iliad 23 as a dream that forms a liminal space akin to the ‘Nekyia’ of Odyssey 11. In this scene, the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus is explored in a manner that will be later used for greater effect in the Odyssey: the former relates his life through personal experience, not glory, thereby initiating the schema of the poetics of Hades.

Across the remaining five chapters, Part 2 takes the structure of Odyssey 11 to order its analysis, beginning in Chapter 3 with Odysseus’ wanderings and how, as the episode in the underworld draws nearer, the divine presence of the gods and the illumination of light decrease. The result for Odysseus’ narration of his journeys is a performance free of mortal or divine constraints in Book 11 and a poetic experiment for Homer with the epic tradition. Chapter 4 discusses the first three encounters in the ‘Nekyia’ and their introduction of certain tenets of the poetics of Hades. In Elpenor, who links the journey to and arrival at Hades, readers identify a familiar character giving their own version of a story, whereas Teiresias demonstrates the lack of Olympian presence in the underworld and attests to the truths of the shades. Anticlea emphasises the emotional quality of the interactions in Hades. This feminine focus continues in Chapter 5, which identifies some of the Hesiodic influences of poetic form in the ‘Catalogue of Heroines’. G. realises the importance of the verb idein, which, in being used to introduce each of the fourteen heroines, cumulatively forms a space for sustained reflection on the limits of the epic genre. G. carefully delineates the traditions Homer is working within before demonstrating how these feminine narratives break away from such, often taking a more personalised approach to the genre, and showing an en masse revision of these shady stories.

Taking a pause with the ‘Intermezzo’, G. argues in Chapter 6 that this brief interlude confirms that in the female-centric narratives Odysseus has pleased the royal court. Odysseus’ task going into the final section of Book 11 is to rewrite the Trojan War, and from the ‘Intermezzo’ audiences are now prepared to accept the alternative personal narratives of the heroes in the ‘Catalogue of Heroes’. Chapter 7 examines the transformation of the past through the stories of Agamemnon, Achilles and Ajax, in which the heroic ideals of the Iliad are retold with an emphasis on remorse and self-pity for the first two characters. Achilles offers the most radical example of the poetics of Hades, whereas Ajax demonstrates the potential danger of being silent in Hades: Odysseus now controls the perpetuation of the story of his suicide. The poetics of Hades, then, is best realised in this final chapter, which highlights how emotion is the guiding force of this invisible realm. In his conclusion, G. offers a summary of the preceding chapters.

Greater pains could have been taken to further connect Homer to previous and consequent traditions of the underworld. B. Louden recently offered some connections across biblical and classical texts to Homer's epic, and the links with Virgil's Aeneid are obvious (B. Louden, Homer's Odyssey and the Near East [2011], pp. 197–221). That said, not to include at least references to more of these works (Hesiod is discussed at length in Chapter 5), implies a separate underworld that is not appropriate to the epic tradition. In Chapter 2, for example, G. looks to Achilles’ dream of Patroclus to challenge the seclusion of Hades, arguing for the oneiric scene as a ‘liminal poetic space that replicates the conditions of confinement in Hades, and exploits its poetic resources’ (p. 49). It is a shame that this utilisation of dreams in relationship with the underworld is not furthered by reference to later traditions that manipulate the same trope. At points in the monograph the constant signposting becomes a repetitive distraction from the actual material discussed and the argument being developed. In focusing solely on Homer, G.’s monograph remains well focused if repetitive, though its clear, effective and detailed readings are impressive. The final line, however, makes the work feel ruefully incomplete: ‘This perspective bears crucial affinities with the voice and outlook of Greek lyric poets such as Stesichorus but also looks ahead to the subjective, emotionally intense, and self-consciously alternative poetics of Greek tragedy’ (p. 213). In making this final reference to other works with little prefacing, and without the frame of implying any potential further studies to be done on the Homeric tradition of the underworld, this final line of ascent into wider links mars the circular impulse of the monograph.

G. emphasises throughout the importance of seeing in the underworld. This monograph has rendered visible this subterranean compendium of narratives, consistently (and successfully) arguing for the importance of this episode within the epic tradition for its alternative perspectives. In his summative portrayal of a poetics of Hades in both the Iliad and Odyssey, G. realises how this long-discussed and evasive ersatz realm continues to be of vital importance. Further heroic descents across literary history are clearly needed to continue such detailed work in making this gloomy realm available to those that sit in the sun.