“Edward Teach” (arr, matey!), known by other names elsewhere on the internet, wrote a book that I only just heard of, “Watch What you Hear: Penelope’s Dream Dream of Twenty Geese.” It is a wild ride, and is impressive to me – what I’ve read of it – though in a somewhat uneven way. The man seems to have a knack for asking provocative questions.
The dips into Greek – and he doesn’t hold himself back – can be flawed.
One might think “twelve” geese would at least have better fit the narrative and still preserve the meter, e.g “χῆνές μοι κατὰ οἶκον ἐείκοσι” could have been “χῆνές μοι κατὰ δόμον δυώδεκα”, associating to the 12 ships of Odysseus, the 12 axes the eagle would “chew” through, the 12 princes of Ithaca, or the 12 shameful women Odysseus later hangs.
But meter aside, it’s still a fair question. Why not δυώδεκα? And he does far better later on with this verse, noticing the present tense ἔδουσιν and ἰαίνομαι and their narrative significance, compared to the aorist dream description.
It’s hard to call the book one with a “thesis”, but I’ll quote the provocative (that word again) starting point: “The eagle’s interpretation cannot be correct because the dream gave it. It is a defense.”
So obviously the dream says what it says for the narrative purpose of the story teller, not the psychological mechanisms of the fictional Penelope. But if you are willing to suspend disbelief on that point (and Teach makes it far too easy if you are not careful) it’s a pleasure to see all of the dream analytical tools on display. It’s like watching a craftsman from another century at work (which any psychoanalyst today is).