Marcel Detienne's 'Apollon le couteau à la main' Reimagines the Greek God

In his essay 'Apollon le couteau à la main,' Marcel Detienne presents an unconventional portrait of Apollo, diverging from the traditional image of moral superiority, wisdom, and self-control. Instead, Detienne depicts Apollo as a butcher, a throat-cutter who revels in blood, an equarrisseur, a gravedigger, and a lover of remains and waste. The writer-historian revisits myths through actual wanderings on the sites where these ancient gods lived, challenging the clichéd view propagated by Hellenistic historians. The essay was published in artpress in November 1998.