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“O Cyclops, Cyclops:” The Artistic Monster from Classic Poetry to Cartoons

In the ninth book of Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus tells of Poluphemus the Cyclops in a

way that is typical of a hero describing his first encounter with an inhuman or monstrous enemy.

The warrior spots the “outsize man” sleeping near his cave and describes him as one that “lived

apart with the mind of an outlaw./ He’d grown amazingly huge, hardly resembling/ a bread-

eating man at all, more like a wooded mountain/ crag that’s high and alone, away from the

others” (Homer, 187-92). Odysseus seems determined that his listener should understand this

creature as solitary, inhuman, and inextricable from the uncultivated landscape in which he

dwells. For Lord Alkinoos, to whom Odysseus tells his tale, or for any modern reader, these

characteristics will likely fit comfortably within an understanding of what makes a figure

monstrous. Because of the monster’s separation from human civilization and the fact that he is

more a feature of the scenery than a reasoning being with his own motives, the listener of this

story cannot expect the Cyclops to be an actor in the drama any more than a storm that wrecks a

ship or a rock face that must be scaled could be considered an actor. Instead, the Cyclops’ role

within Odysseus’ story, and within Homer’s text, will not break the limits of an obstacle, which,

once overcome, glorifies the hero’s strength and, of course for Odysseus, his cunning.

As Odysseus goes on to tell of his adventure within the Cyclops’ lair, the monster

achieves his literary purpose as a problem to be solved, and his violent behavior while doing this

helps securely place him within Odysseus’ earlier definition of monstrosity, as Poluphemus

alternates between tending to his flocks and brutally killing and eating Odysseus’ men two at a

time while he has them trapped in his cave. However, because Odysseus frames the Cyclops in

his story as a violent, uncivilized monster, the chores that occupy half of Poluphemus’ time stand

out from his otherwise beastly actions in the text. Indeed, in the background of Odysseus’ story

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of triumph and hardship, the monstrous obstacle has his own life completely separate from the

action of the hero’s tale. Additonally, the duties that Polyphemus performs, milking, herding and

even making cheese, suggest a level of civilization that pushes against the picture that Odysseus

paints of the Cyclops as a solitary mountain living among the trees.

With this alternative vision of Poluphemus lurking in the shadows of the tale, we might

question why we only get the violent cannibal version. Much of the answer lies in perspective;

because the story is told from Odysseus’ point of view, we have no access as readers to the

Cyclops that exists when Poluphemus leaves the men in the cave to perform his chores.

However, the question of purpose is just as important. The lack of the Cyclops’ perspective is

essentially a lack of interest, for Homer’s poem, in creating a more relatable version of the

monster. This is understandable considering The Odyssey is the story of Odysseus, and the

existence of the monster must remain subject to advancing that hero’s narrative. But the

challenge that the peripheral, civilized Cyclops presents to the comfortable definition of a

monster poses questions about how elements of civilization change our perspective of the

monster figure and how authors use that changed figure within their work. I will explore these

questions by focusing on the Cyclops as he appears in Theocritus, Virgil and Ovid, all of whom

challenge the definition of monstrosity by creating a Cyclops who sings. Finally, I will examine

a contemporary rendering of the Cyclops in American television to see what elements of this

conversation about the level of access a monster can have to civilization, especially in the form

of art and song, while still retaining the role of monster.

Theocritus’ Cyclops appears in the Idylls as the subject of the eleventh poem, and the

third-person view of Polyphemus provides a glimpse of the monster doing something that hardly

fits with any concept of monstrosity, namely singing. In this poem, which takes place before the

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arrival of Odysseus on Polyphemus’ island, a poet describes the Cyclops to a doctor named

Nicias in order to prove that the only cure for unrequited love is inspiration from the Muses. The

poet uses Polyphemus as an example for this argument because of the story that the Cyclops uses

song to attempt to woo the sea nymph, Galatea. The poet then recites Polyphemus’ song, which

constitutes the majority of the poem. The Cyclops’ use of song serves as a complication to the

definition of monstrosity found in Homer because it contradicts the image of the Cyclops as

uncivilized, which is created in the interchangeable relationship between the monster and the raw

nature in which he lives. The use of song goes much farther in undoing this definition than the

Cyclops’ civilized chores in The Odyssey, as song is an artistic outlet, which excludes the

practical connotations of cheese-making and shepherding. Moreover, the ability to craft emotion

into an artistic product does not fit into the literary purpose of advancing another character’s

story. Instead, a singing Cyclops would seem to have his own motives and conflicts and,

therefore, has greater value within the scheme of the text than that of an obstacle.

But does the fact that the Cyclops can sing mean that he is no longer a monster?

Although Theocritus provides a much more artistic version of Polyphemus in the Idylls, the

Cyclops remains a figure in exile, and this loneliness does just as much as the violence in Homer

to paint Polyphemus as separated from the civilized world. In fact there is a similarity between

Homer’s Polyphemus and Theocritus’ in that fact that in both texts the Cyclops is monstrous

partially because of where he lives. In Theocritus, much of Polyphemus’ attempt to woo Galatea

takes the form of either trying to convince her to join him in living in the woods and hills or in

disparaging the world she occupies, which is the sea. Polyphemus sings, “‘Oh please, come. You

will see that life is just as good/ if you leave the grey-green sea behind to crash on the shore,/ and

at night you will find more joy in this cave with me’” (Theocritus, 42-44). Although Polyphemus

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seems to have crossed a boundary in using song to express himself, his song only affirms his

placement in a world that leaves him removed from the more pleasing society of his beloved.

Even Polyphemus’ attempts to describe Galatea seem to require him to first imagine that the

barrier set up between their two, exclusive worlds has broken down: Polyphemus describes her

as “whiter to look at than cream cheese, softer than a lamb,/ more playful than a calf, sleeker

than the unripe grape” (20-21). In the description of Galatea, Polyphemus imposes aspects of his

own rural surroundings onto her. It is as if in order to be his lover, she must be completely

absorbed in the environment in which he lives. And her unwillingness to do that, along with his

inability to swim and enter her world, allows the environment, specifically Polyphemus’

untamed natural surroundings, to serve as the source of the Cyclops’ monstrosity in the Idylls

where violence and perspective served in The Odyssey.

Instead of singing making Polyphemus less of a monster, it actually acts as an indication

of his monstrosity; the Cyclops’ song provides him with a more emotional presence in the text,

but it ultimately takes the form of a lament that tells the reader precisely what makes this figure

monstrous, namely his exile in raw nature. The character’s monstrosity may not be undone by

making him artistic, but Polyphemus’ artistry does change the way that the monstrous figure

functions within the poem. H.M. Richmond provides a possible purpose for Polyphemus to serve

in the poem through the monster’s art rather than through his ability to be in a hero’s way.

Richmond places Polyphemus’ song within a genre of pastoral poetry in which “the

unpolished countryman addresses his intended mistress in uncouth but forthright speech—

attempting to translate into terms of rural resources those costly temptations to indulgence of

which a metropolitan lover might dispose. Flowery meads are offered for carpets, spring water

for wine, pretty baby animals for playthings, and so on” (Richmond, 230). Richmond reads

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Polyphemus’ song as a tool for navigating the roles in which he finds himself and his lover. This

adds another function to the Cyclops’ song besides affirming his monstrosity; he also uses the

song in an attempt to overcome his monstrosity, or at least permeate the barrier that keeps him

exiled from more delicate, refined society. Although Polyphemus does not succeed in changing

his own or his lover’s perception of himself, the use of song to struggle to do so gives the

monster figure a literary purpose that is reserved for the human hero in Homer’s text: in

Theocritus’ Idylls, Polyphemus exists as a didactic figure, which the reader can observe and learn

from.

By looking at “Idyll XI” as a text about struggling to either overcome or occupy the

unpleasant role of monster, Polyphemus’ didactic purpose in the text becomes salient. In

particular, the final verse to Polyphemus’ song, in which he abandons his pursuit of the Galatea

begins to make more sense. Polyphemus abruptly loses confidence in his ability to win Galatea

and directs his song with a chastising tone to himself, singing “O Cyclops, Cyclops, where have

your wits flown away?” He then uses a rustic aphorism to convince himself to “milk the ewe at

hand” rather than “chase the one who runs away” (72-75). The pastoral language that points

Polyphemus back to his chores as a shepherd in his admonition to himself insists that he ought to

give up reaching into realms outside of his solitary, rural world. Even his decision to refer to

himself as “Cyclops” instead of by his name implies his surrender to the monstrous role that

makes Galatea’s love an impossible goal. But rather than end with the last stanza of

Polyphemus’ song, the narrator poet delivers a brief summary of the lesson that the Cyclops has

learned: “So by singing the Cyclops shepherded his love,/ And more relief it brought him than

paying a large fee” (80-81). This small addition seems to simply restate Polyphemus’ lesson,

especially in its similar pastoral imagery, using “shepherd” as a verb to reiterate the Cyclops’

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unbreakable ties to his lonely environment. However, giving the last word to the third-person,

human narrator, who is relating the entire song for the benefit of Nicias, takes the lesson within

the text away from Polyphemus and offers it to Nicias the human doctor. Instead of Polyphemus’

song serving the Cyclops alone, the function of the monster who conveys his struggle through

song is to instruct the human audience.

For Theocritus, the singing Cyclops appears to achieve its main literary purpose when the

struggle that Polyphemus conveys through song is translated into a moral that benefits the

audience. Polyphemus serves this purpose again in the sixth poem of the Idylls, in which two

pastoral poets, Damoetas and Daphnis, take turns making a song out of Polyphemus’ famous

courtship of Galatea. As in “Idyll XI,” this poem’s subject is Polyphemus’ song, which is

prefaced and concluded with the presence of a human poet. However, even the treatment of

Polyphemus’ song as a subject in “Idyll VI” indicates that the interest of the two poets is not in

reverence to Polyphemus’ song or the struggle that the song communicates. Instead, these two

poets toss the subject back and forth, seemingly just as a way to pass the time. Again, the literary

value of the singing Cyclops is not in the struggle of the monster but in how the human observers

can make use of that struggle. The way the cowherds use the artistic, monstrous figure for their

benefit is apparent once each of them has finished delivering a version of Polyphemus’ song:

Damoetas ended his song with a kiss for Daphnis.

He gave him a pipe and received a flute in return.

Damoetas began to play on the flute, and Daphnis on the pipe,

And at the sound the calves began straight away to frisk

On the soft grass. There was neither victory here, nor defeat. (41-45)

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Dwelling for a moment on the figure of the enamored, artistic Cyclops has allowed these two

human men to strengthen their friendship. Additionally, the gifts they choose to exchange imply

the monstrous figure’s use in the progress of art in general; each man is inspired to give the other

a musical instrument that aids in the completion of their duties. In this way, the Cyclops

contributes to the advancement of humanity, not simply by being an obstacle and being killed,

but by facilitating artistic inspiration. Although the monstrosity in the Cyclops’ features and exile

keep him from being a sympathetic character, whose struggles have literary value on their own,

Theocritus’ use of the artistic monster allows the monstrous figure to exist as a more complicated

character than we have seen in Homer, while offering the same glorification to the non-

monstrous figures in the text.

Virgil complicates this change in the representation of monstrosity from Homer to

Theocritus in his attempt to write a poem with essentially the same subject as “Idyll XI.” Virgil’s

second poem in his Eclogues focuses on another rustic lover, trying to use song to woo a mate

that is well out of his league. It is the same premise of “Idyll XI,” and Corydon, who is

Polyphemus’ equivalent in Virgil’s work, uses many of the same persuasive tactics as

Polyphemus to court his beloved, who is now a young man named Alexis. The key difference

between the two poems is in the fact that Corydon is a physically normal human male. Though

Corydon lacks the inhuman aspect of monstrosity, he is still exiled and made unpleasant to the

object of his affection by his bonds to the bucolic world. And Virgil’s fidelity to Theocritus in

the structure and content of “Eclogue II” creates a Corydon that is nearly identical to

Polyphemus despite the lack of physical monstrosity. Indeed, Corydon seems to try to permeate

the same environmental barriers that keep him as untouchable as Polyphemus: Corydon sings to

his beloved, “…I am despised by you. You don’t search out my sort—/ how rich in sheep or how

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awash in snowy milk./ A thousand lambs of mine are ranging Sicily’s hills…” (Virgil, 19-21).

Part of Virgil’s project in “Eclogue II” appears to be a retelling of Theocritus’ poem, but why

would this project include editing out the main character’s physical monstrosity? The monstrous

figure in this poem appears to serve nearly the same literary purpose as Polyphemus in “Idyll

XI,” but the hesitation towards overt monstrosity suggests a change in the purpose for which his

text uses the artistic, monstrous figure.

Indeed, Eleanor Winsor Leach notices this pull towards changing the function of the

artistic monster in Virgil’s text when she describes it as “imitative [of Theocritus], but the

imitations reveal a questioning rather than an acceptance of their models” (Leach, 428). One of

the most relevant contrasts Leach finds between Theocritus’ monster figure and Virgil’s is in her

analysis of lines 60 through 68 of “Eclogue II,” in which Corydon makes a very Polyphemus-like

attempt to cast his woods in a more appealing light for both Alexis and himself:

Corydon's analogy is witty and well contrived, but false. …Corydon the shepherd is not

really like the gods who were only temporary sojourners in nature. The allusion to Trojan

Paris suggests a desire to be a kind of hero in disguise. By comparing himself to gods and

to animals, Corydon actually avoids a direct contemplation of his own place in nature.

His order is playful and figurative, and again an escape from reality. (439).

On the one hand, Leach notices Corydon’s effort to overcome the restrictions of his rural

surroundings, and this is very similar to Polyphemus’ effort in “Idyll XI.” But Leach points out

that Corydon clings to the delusion that he does not fit into the surroundings that make him

monstrous to Alexis (Leach, 440). This delusion suggests a key departure from Theocritus’ use

of Polyphemus: Corydon does not seem to learn the lesson about submission to his role that

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Theocritus develops for the Cyclops. Instead, Corydon’s refusal to blend into nature causes this

monstrous, artistic human to function more complexly in the text than as a simple, moral figure.

Along with changing the exiled, lonely, artistic figure to a human, the text seems

unwilling to allow Corydon to serve the same didactic purpose that Polyphemus serves in “Idyll

XI.” In other words, because the monster figure is a human, his function in the text appears

expanded to include an ongoing struggle against the environment that makes him monstrous. The

continuation of this struggle exists in the conclusion of “Eclogue II,” in which Corydon does not

berate himself for wasting time on impossible goals. Instead, that reprimand comes from the

narrating poet, who echoes the lesson Polyphemus learns in saying, “Ah Corydon, Corydon,

what mindlessness carries you off?/ ...why don’t you rather at least prepare to finish weaving/

something use requires from withies and soft rush?” (Virgil, 69-73). Here the narrator adopts

almost the same lament that Polyphemus sings once the Cyclops loses confidence in his ability to

win Galatea. But Corydon does not actually participate in this didactic element of Virgil’s poem,

and the conflict that the shepherd introduces with his song remains unresolved. In this lack of a

comfortable moral ending, Virgil’s singing monster exists as a more complex character than

Polyphemus, which may explain why this reprise of Theocritus’ poem stars a human. Corydon’s

song cannot be easily absorbed as a lesson by its listeners, providing instead an interest in

Corydon as a character rather than a moral. By allowing Corydon to serve a more complex

literary function, Virgil’s text implies that the singing monster who is human has more literary

value than the overtly monstrous Cyclops.

In Ovid’s version of the doomed courtship, the singing monster is once again

Polyphemus the Cyclops, but Ovid’s poem seems to take up the preference for humanity found

in Virgil by facilitating more interest and sympathy for the non-monstrous characters in the poem

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than in the lovesickness of the Cyclops himself. In book thirteen of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a

narrator recites Polyphemus’ song, which is the case in both Theocritus and Virgil, but in this

case the narrator is Galatea herself, who remembers the song sung to her and tells another sea-

nymph about the unwelcome courtship. Galatea prefaces her recitation by introducing

Polyphemus with insults and mockery. She calls him a “savage,” and makes fun of the way he

was “suddenly taking pains with his appearance, trying to cultivate/ the art of pleasing, using a

rake to comb/ his shaggy mop, resorting to a sickle/ to trim his beard” (Ovid, 761-771). Much of

Galatea’s description of Polyphemus echoes the features of monstrosity that appear in Virgil and

Theocritus: he is uncivilized, ugly and emblematic of an unpleasant, rustic lifestyle. However,

rather than creating this description through Polyphemus’ song, Galatea paints Polyphemus as a

monster before the reader even has a chance to hear any of the Cyclops’ art. This narrator’s bias

ensures that the only role the tuneful monster plays in this text will be subject to the beautiful

sea-nymph’s intentions for her narrative. In fact, Galatea does not plan to present Polyphemus as

the main character of her story. The critical aspect of the plot for Galatea is the fact that

Polyphemus murders her lover, Acis, once the Cyclops finishes his song. Though this

presentation of the monster’s song is reminiscent of Theocritus, the role that the monster’s art

plays in Ovid’s text is reduced to that of a negative experience in the lives of two non-monstrous

characters.

Through the course of his song in Metamorphoses, Polyphemus appears to face the same

struggle of being unable to break his shackles to the uncivilized, rustic environment, which aids

in forming his monstrosity and his inability to access Galatea. However, Ovid’s Polyphemus

does not accept his inevitable separateness from Galatea. In fact, any acceptance of his role,

which would imply a process of inner conflict and rumination, is replaced by a violent outburst

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in which Polyphemus threatens to kill Acis: Polyphemus sings, “Let [Acis] give me a chance,/

He will find me as strong as I am big,/ I will tear his guts out, I will pull him to pieces” (864-

866). This is a Polyphemus who is defined by his violent actions more than by his ability to sing,

which appears only supplementary to his greater purpose of taking the object of his desire.

Additionally, his actions in the poem define his rustic monstrosity just as much as his artistry.

Once Polyphemus issues the threat, Galatea describes his attack of Acis as being “like a bull in

rut,” and Polyphemus murders her lover using a boulder that he rips from a mountain (874-887).

Both of these descriptions place Polyuphemus as an indelible aspect of the rural world around

him; he is more an animal than a man, and he uses raw materials as weapons. However, in using

a piece of his own environment to kill Acis, Polyphemus is blindly destructive of his own natural

surroundings, making the reasonable acceptance of his role within nature impossible. Ovid’s

poem does use the monster’s access to song to develop Polyphemus into a certain type of

character, which is also what Ovid’s predecessors do with the story of the hopeless, monstrous

lover. But Ovid’s Cyclops is just as much a singer as he is a chaotic murderer.

Ovid’s Polyphemus does not exist as a vital tool within the text, as the artistic monsters

do in both Theocritus and Virgil. Despite his use of civilized expression through song, the

Polyphemus that Galatea describes appears to function more like the Cyclops is Homer’s text;

both of these monstrous figures exist as characters only to provide a deadly opposition to a non-

monstrous character. The song itself, rather than being used to benefit a human audience or

create a lesson for the reader, is appropriated by Galatea in order to present the conflicts of

characters like herself and Acis, who then occupy the more vital roles within the text as

sympathetic and relatable figures. In this way, Ovid’s text seems to dissolve some of the literary

power that song gives to the artistic monster in Theocritus’ and Virgil’s renderings. In fact,

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Polyphemus’ placement within the scheme of Metamorphoses reaffirms this demotion. As Alan

H. F. Griffin observes about the context of the Cyclops’ song in Metamorphoses,

[Ovid] arranges his material like the brackets of an algebraic formula. The

first bracket opens with the story of Aeneas, the second with the story

of Scylla and the third with the story of Galatea. Each of these brackets

is carefully closed in sequence. At the end of the story of Galatea Ovid

returns to Scylla and concludes her legend before continuing with the

account of Aeneas' journey. (Griffin, 191)

The singing Cyclops only exists as a small factor in a “formula” that is designed to advance a

narrative about the hero Aeneas, and the content of that song is ultimately subject to that hero

figure. Because Polyphemus is not the central feature of the text in which he appears, he is less

able to function as the kind of didactic or complex character that appears in Theocritus and Virgil

respectively.

Griffin also points out that the introduction of Acis as a handsome, acceptable love

interest for Galatea presents another sympathetic character to contrast with Polyphemus. Griffin

observes that Acis is “an Ovidian innovation: he does not appear in any of Ovid's predecessors.

Ovid gives us a triangular love tangle with much more explosive emotional potential than

Theocritus' two poems. In Idyll 6 the lovesick Cyclops only has to deal with a coquettish 'come

hither' approach on Galatea's part, and in neither Idyll 6 nor Idyll 11 is there any mention of

another boyfriend” (192). In Griffin’s reading, Acis serves as the source of drama in the Cyclops

episode, and any internal conflict or characterization of Polyphemus, which Theocritus heavily

emphasizes in the Idylls, is secondary to the presence and death of this young, handsome boy.

The depreciation of Polyphemus’ role in favor of a human character helps define the literary

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purpose that the singing monster serves in Ovid’s text. Just as the Polyphemus story in

Metamorphoses only serves the purpose of advancing the narrative of Aeneas, Polyphemus’ song

within that story only serves the drama that centers on Acis, the climax and conclusion of which

develop through the boy’s death. This is far from the narrative relevance that Polyphemus has in

Theocritus. And even Virgil’s text, though it does show a preference for humanity in its creation

of the main character, allows the monstrous artist to serve a vital and complex role. In Ovid’s

text, Polyphemus’ artistry does not diminish his monstrosity any more than the Cyclops’ ability

to harvest milk and make cheese diminishes his monstrosity in The Odyssey. Indeed,

Polyphemus in Metamorphoses serves the same role of obstacle that he does in The Odyssey.

However, the retention of this role despite his access to art and emotion makes a much more

powerful statement about the role of monsters in literature in general: in Ovid’s poem, monsters,

even those that display civilized behavior such as song, do not have the same literary relevance

as human characters. By putting the narration in Galatea’s hands and inventing Acis as the

source of dramatic conflict in the poem, Ovid’s text insists that Polyphemus alone is not enough

to produce the literary complexity and interest that these non-monstrous characters create.

It is interesting that as the representation of the Cyclops has progressed from Homer to

Ovid, the latter poet seems to prefer the violent, troublesome version of the monster developed

by the former. And as contemporary artists have taken up creating their own versions of the

Cyclops, some appear to gravitate even more towards the Homeric template, favoring

antagonistic renderings that act as minor complications in a larger narrative. In an episode of the

American animated television program, Adventure Time, a Cyclops character is introduced in a

pastoral landscape reminiscent of Theocritus’ “Idyll VI and XI.” But the audience is led to the

monster through the journey of the program’s main character, whose name, Finn the Human,

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leaves little room for reading any amount of monstrosity in his behavior. In this episode, titled

“Another Way,” Finn searches for a Cyclops living in “The Forest of Trees,” whose magical

tears can cure any wound. Finn intends to use those tears in order to cure the toes that he and his

companion Jake the Dog broke on a previous adventure that is mentioned but not part of any

earlier episode.

The Cyclops’ part in this miniature drama echoes the kind of obstacle role that appears in

Homer and Ovid: Finn is a human hero on a quest, which acts as the primary narrative of the

episode, while the Cyclops is, at best, a resource for Finn to harvest in the completion of his

quest for his own benefit and the benefit of his friend. The episode constructs Finn as the

character whom the audience should root for, and the happy ending can only be reached if he

causes the monster to cry. Finn’s encounter with the Cyclops affirms the definition of

monstrosity that appears in Homer. In fact, the episode seems to draw on Odysseus’ comparison

of Polyphemus to a lonely mountain crag, as the Cyclops in Adventure Time turns out to be the

grassy cliff on which Finn has been standing. The monster is so camouflaged in nature that Finn

is unable to detect the Cyclops’ presence for several minutes. Even the way the Cyclops is

drawn, with grass for hair and trees growing out of his back, recalls the fusion of the monster

with nature that keeps Polyphemus exiled from humanity in each of the classical representations

above. And this contemporary Cyclops is just as violent as Homer’s Polyphemus, immediately

accusing Finn of trying to make him cry in order to collect his magical tears, and when Finn

shows reluctance towards fighting, the Cyclops throws the first punch, confirming the violent,

unreasonable aspect of his monstrosity.

However, this monster does not engage in any behavior that could be considered civilized

or artistic, so why, other than being a modern version of Homer’s Polyphmeus, does he add to

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the conversation about the representation and function of artistic monsters in literature? Although

the monster is not an artist, the Cyclops scene in Adventure Time occurs in a distinctly pastoral

landscape, and one character does sing a lament that explores the struggle of behaving in a way

that civilized society does not accept. But rather than the monster exploring this struggle through

song, it is Fin the Human who expresses himself in this way. Before Finn realizes that the cliff is

actually the monster, he climbs to its peak and sings a brief song of apology to those he has hurt

in his obstinate quest for the magical tears; indeed, Finn does act with monstrous violence

towards several innocent characters as he makes his way to the forest. By shifting this process of

seeking comfort and acceptance through song to the human hero, the Adventure Time episode

carries on the trend from Ovid of taking the power of artistry away from the monster and

focusing it on the relatable, non-monstrous figure. The ability to sing in each of the classical

texts has, in varying degrees, allowed the monster access to self-evaluation and even the

possibility of comfort in acceptance of the lonely natural world. In Adventure Time, that process

of evaluation and acceptance, along with the moral lesson that Finn arrives at through the song,

is only accessible to the human character. In fact, the Cyclops reveals himself and attacks Finn

immediately after the conclusion of Finn’s song, as if the monster finds the act of singing and

artful reflection infuriating.

As the human figure adopts the artist role, which only exists in the monstrous characters

in the classical texts, he is able to use the power that song grants more successfully than any

singing Cyclops. Even when the Cyclops has access to self-reflection through song, his artistry

can, at best, win him an acceptance of the lonely, uncivilized role he occupies in nature, far away

from the woman he sings for, who is a prize that no monstrous figure, regardless of skill or

physical attractiveness is able to obtain. When Finn the Human takes on the role of the artistic

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hero, he is able to easily navigate between the world of nature and civilization. After Finn uses

his song to heal his misgivings about his quest and uncover the monster’s hiding place, he easily

tricks the monster to come close enough that he can punch the Cyclops’ eye and causes him to

cry. Finn then pulls off the monster’s head, which remains living, and uses its tears to heal all the

people that Finn hurt on his quest to find the Cyclops before bringing it back to his home to heal

Jake’s broken toe. In Finn’s bringing the Cyclops’ head back to his home, Finn takes an element

of the rustic world, which seemed so inexorably tied to the natural environment that it could not

be distinguished from a grassy cliff, and makes use of it in the world of domestic safety and

civilization. In other words, Finn successfully crosses the barrier between natural and civilized.

This is a barrier that has formed the center of the conflicts surrounding each version of the

Cyclops’ so far, and none of the monstrous artists are able to use their song to accomplish the

same feat. But once the ability to sing is transferred to a human, that human figure easily serves

the literary purpose of combining the two worlds, leaving the monstrous figure to be thrown

aside the same way Finn discards the Cyclops’ still living head, with no promise of a future

reunion to its body and no promise of any more purpose in the narrative once its small function

in a grander project is complete.

Just as each poet from Homer to Ovid relies on the work of the poet before him to change

the representation of the Cyclops, the Adventure Time episode’s similarity in setting, narrative

and the use of song to the Greek and Roman texts provides a new voice in the conversation of

how art and monstrosity are used together in the same text to challenge the definition and

function of both. In all of these works, the question of who wields the access to art decides which

characters can serve a more complex function within the narrative. But as texts like Theocritus’

“Idyll XI” provide more complex literary functions to a monster, it becomes harder and harder to

Seth Reid 17

distinguish that monster as an essentially monstrous figure. In other words, the more artistic the

Cyclops, the harder it is to say he belongs in exile and to hope for his demise at the hands of

some handsome hero. I believe it is this challenge to the function of a monster in a narrative that

pushes poets like Virgil and Ovid to take that artistry and apply its benefits to human characters,

which makes the Cyclops easier to manage as an unwanted being. As this same pressure to keep

monstrosity and artistry separate exists in contemporary representations of monsters, which we

see in Adventure Time, the question of “who commands art?” easily becomes the same as “who

is the protagonist?” The equality of these two questions opens up limitless possibilities in

portraying exiled, unwelcome figures through their inability to access art. This gives the poet or

animator power in deciding what constitutes art and who deserves to be restricted from that art,

and reading the decisions that authors make with that power sheds light on what kinds of figures

they, and the culture from which they are writing, are willing to marginalize for the sake of

making these distinctions.

Seth Reid 18

Works Cited

“Another Way.” Adventure Time. Cartoon Network. Atlanta. 23 Jan. 2012. Television.

Griffin, Alan H.F. “Unrequited Love: Polyphemus and Galatea in Ovid's Metamorphoses.”

Greece & Rome 2nd ser. 30.2 (1983): 190-97. JSTOR. Web. 14 May 2013.

Homer, Edward McCrorie, and Richard P. Martin. The Odyssey. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP,

2004. Print.

Leach, Eleanor W. "Nature and Art in Vergil's Second Eclogue." The American Journal of

Philology 87.4 (1966): 427-45. JSTOR. Web. 7 June 2013.

Ovid, and Rolfe Humphries. Ovid Metamorphoses. N.p.: Indiana UP, 1995. Print.

Richmond, H.M. "Polyphemus in England: A Study in Comparative Literature." Comparative

Literature 12.3 (1960): 229-42. JSTOR. Web. 14 May 2013.

Theocritus, Anthony Verity, and R. L. Hunter. Idylls. New York: Oxford UP, 2002. Print.

Van, Sickle John, and Virgil. Virgil's Book of Bucolics, the Ten Eclogues Translated into English

Verse: Framed by Cues for Reading Aloud and Clues for Threading Texts and Themes.

Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 2011. Print.