DOCSLIB.ORG

Sense and Sensibility

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Sense and Sensibility Sense and Sensibility An examination of the intertextual relationship between Virgil’s Dido and Valerius Flaccus’ Hypsipyle Universiteit van Amsterdam Classics and Ancient Civilizations: Ancient Studies Vera Talens [email protected] 10764194 Supervisor: Mark Heerink Second Assessor: Piet Gerbrandy 12-08-2020 ‘In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his hip, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford.’ Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford Statement of authenticity I hereby declare that this dissertation is an original piece of work, written by myself alone. Any information and ideas from other sources are acknowledged fully in the text and notes. (place, date) (signature) Index Introduction 1 Valerius Flaccus Composition of the Argonautica Interpretations of the Argonautica: Valerius Flaccus’ literary models Existing scholarship Research goal Chapters Methodology: intertextuality and close reading Methodology: gender Chapter One: Hypsipyle and Dido as rulers 10 Introduction Hypsipyle as a ruler Dido as a ruler Pietas and furor Dido as the Other Conclusion Chapter Two: Relationships with the hero 27 Introduction The development of the relationship The influence of the gods Hypsipyle and contemporary ideas of womanhood Conclusion Chapter Three: Interpreting Hypsipyle 44 Introduction Medea and Dido Furor Pietas An elegiac threat? Genre Conclusion Chapter Four: Lemnos, Hypsipyle and Roman politics 53 Introduction The Flavian political climate Dedication of the Argonautica Pia Hypsipyle and Pius Aeneas Conclusion Conclusion 62 Bibliography 66 Preface After being introduced to Valerius Flaccus during a course earlier this year, I became intrigued by the character of Hypsipyle. Hershkowitz described her as the ‘Sense to Dido’s Sensibility’.1 As a fan of Jane Austen, Hershkowitz’ words made me very curious to learn more about Hypsipyle. It is often said that the two heroines are alike, but how exactly, and to what extent does the intertextual relationship shape our understanding of Hypsipyle and the way we should read the Lemnos episode? In undertaking this thesis, I took something of a gamble: throughout both my Bachelor and Master degrees I consistently favoured prose over poetry. But in this thesis I nevertheless stayed close to home (literally, thanks to COVID-19) by looking at epic from a gender perspective, a method I have frequently used in both my degrees. I would like to offer my thanks to my supervisor Mark Heerink for the excellent help and the many Skype calls over the past months. I also want to thank my family and friends for patiently listening to me consistently telling them that my thesis was ‘really almost finished now’. Vera Talens Zaandam, 12-08-2020. 1 Hershkowitz (1998) 146. Introduction Research goal The main purpose of this thesis will be to research to what extent the Lemnos episode and in particular the character of Hypsipyle and her relationship with Jason are influenced by the presence of the Aeneid intertext and especially the character of Dido. I will examine both texts with gender as a methodological tool. Dido and Hypsipyle are both sole female rulers of foreign nations and, in that sense, transgress the boundaries of Roman views on gender. Do their gender and their foreign background impact the writer’s colouring of the respective characters, and if so, to what extent, and how does this influence the way the text could be read? My interest in the topic was sparked by Hershkowitz’ 1998 monograph on Valerius Flaccus, in which she discusses the influences of Dido on the characterisation of Hypsipyle, describing Dido as ‘the Sense to Hypsipyle’s Sensibility’,2 but the fact that the questions ‘how’ and ‘why’ remain mostly unanswered has led me to write this thesis in the hopes of being able to answer this question. Other researches have also linked the two characters together, but without examining the relationship in detail. That is what I hope to achieve in this thesis. Chapters In the first chapter, my aim will be to examine the political role that Hypsipyle and Dido play in their respective epics. They are both women of royal descent who have sole reign of their own realms. This is remarkable in a world where a rigid division between the private and public sphere ensured that only men were awarded leadership positions. That is not to say that there were no female leaders: Cleopatra and Boudicca come to mind. However, it is 2 Hershkowitz (1998) 146. 1 important to note that these were considered un-Roman. How do Dido and Hypsipyle transgress these gendered boundaries and to what extent are they othered as either or both woman and foreigner? Are they considered successful leaders? In the second chapter I will be comparing and contrasting the relationships that Hypsipyle and Dido have with Jason and Aeneas respectively. To what extent is the development similar and which forces play a role in that? I will first describe the development more or less chronologically, and then I will go back to examine it further from different angles. For Dido and Aeneas, an important factor in the relationship’s development is divine intervention. Is this also the case for Jason and Hypsipyle or does the relationship develop organically? Besides this, how do contemporary notions of womanhood and romanitas play into the description of the relationship, as well as the characterisation of both heroines? In the third chapter, I will concern myself with trying to answer the main question that arises from comparing and contrasting Dido and Hypsipyle: why does Valerius Flaccus evoke the Dido intertext so clearly, whilst also often inverting Hypsipyle’s characterisation. If Hypsipyle is made out to be something of an anti-Dido, what does the invocation of Virgil do to the interpretation of the Lemnos episode and perhaps, by extension, to the Argonautica in its entirety? I will also be looking at Medea and how she fits within this discussion, as there is also a clear intertextual relationship between Dido and Medea. The fourth and final chapter will be a continuation of the third. Here, I will try to situate the Argonautica within its contemporary political context of Vespasian’s reign. The Lemnos episode is coded as Roman, with its emphasis on regime change and political restoration after civil war and the invocation of Aeneas as an important intertext for Hypsipyle. Can reading the Lemnos episode tell us how the epic in its entirety could or should be read? 2 Methodology: intertextuality and close reading In this thesis I will be looking at Hypsipyle from an intertextual standpoint. As a tool, comparison between texts is as old as classical literature itself, but more recent is the understanding that we can do something with similarities (and following on that: differences) between two or more texts and that an allusion to an earlier work can greatly alter the meaning of a text.3 Intertextuality as a concept poses that a text has inherent meaning because it forms a part of a matrix of earlier and contemporary texts that inevitably construct each other’s meaning.4 Interpretation of meaning happens at the reader’s end, who has their own individual matrix of understanding in which a text is read. Hinds argues that because of this, no text will ever be read in the same way twice.5 In order to establish intertextual relationships between two texts, in my case Virgil’s Aeneid and Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, I will employ close reading of given passages, as well as looking at broader thematic echoes of the Dido episode that can be found in the Hypsipyle episode. Methodology: gender A framework that is important to my research is gender, especially with an intersectional approach. Intersectionality, a term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, is a theoretical framework with which we can examine degrees of privilege and oppression created by the intersection of different socio-political aspects of an individual’s identity, for example race, class, sexuality or gender.6 3 Fowler (1997) 14. 4 Fowler (1997) 14-15. 5 Hinds (1998) 47. 6 Crenshaw (1989) 3 Sociologists generally agree that there is a difference between sex and gender: sex being a biological reality based on reproductive organs, whereas gender is a socially constructed set of values that we associate with biological sex.7 From birth, we are taught to be in accordance with the traits that come with our gender.8 Not only does the perceived gender binary between men and women serve to distribute power, it also paints as transgressive those who do not adhere to the set of traits assigned to their gender.9 Those who transgress boundaries of gender are seen as Others. In this sense, gender becomes a tool of social stratification. The answer to the question why should we use gender as a tool for researching ancient texts and societies seems obvious to me: to attempt to unearth women’s voices and realities from underneath a wealth of male- dominated writing, both contemporary and in scholarship through the centuries after. We question normativity and the ‘status quo’: how do pervasive gender norms characterise individuals and groups in our texts and what does it mean for those characters to transgress the boundaries of gender? But there is another reason why, especially now, critical evaluations of classical texts and their subsequent treatment and reception are vital.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 1 IPHIGENIA in TAURIS by Euripides Adapted, Edited, and Rendered Into
    IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS by Euripides Adapted, edited, and rendered into modern English for the express purpose of dramatic performance by Louis Markos, Professor in English and Honors Scholar-in-Residence/Robert H. Ray Chair in Humanities Houston Baptist University (Houston, TX) Dramatis Personae IPHIGENIA, daughter of Agamemnon ORESTES, brother of Iphigenia PYLADES, friend of Orestes THOAS, King of the Taurians HERDSMAN MESSENGER ATHENA CHORUS of captive Greek women who serve Iphigenia SCENE Before the temple of Artemis in Tauris. (Iphigenia, dressed as a priestess, enters and stands before the altar.) IPHIGENIA From Asia Pelops came to the shores of Greece; His son was Atreus and from him came Two greater sons, skilled in the arts of war. The eldest, Agamemnon, rules Mycenae While Menelaus holds the throne of Sparta. For Helen’s sake they raised a mighty fleet And set their sails for Troy. But Artemis, Beloved sister of the god Apollo, Sent vexing winds to wrestle with their sails And strand them on the rocky shore of Aulis. Eager to conquer Troy and so avenge His brother’s bed, my father, Agamemnon, Ordered Calchas, prophet of the host, To seek the will of Zeus and to proclaim The cause of their misfortune–and the cure. “O King,” he spoke, “You must fulfill the vow You made to Artemis: to offer up The dearest treasure that the year would bring. 1 The daughter born to you and Clytemnestra— She is the treasure you must sacrifice.” I was and am that daughter—oh the pain, That I should give my life to still the winds! The treacherous Odysseus devised The plot that brought me, innocent, to Aulis.
    [Show full text]
  • Orpheus and Mousikê in Greek Tragedy
    Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2016 Orpheus and mousikê in Greek Tragedy Semenzato, Camille Abstract: Much as he is famous, Orpheus is only mentioned by name fourteen times in the Greek tragedies and tragic fragments that have survived the ravages of time. Furthermore he is never shown as a protagonist, but always evoked by a dramatic character as an example, a parallel, a peculiarity, or a fantasy. This legendary singer is mentioned every time, if not explicitly, at least implicitly, in conjunction with DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2016-0016 Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-171919 Journal Article Published Version Originally published at: Semenzato, Camille (2016). Orpheus and mousikê in Greek Tragedy. Trends in Classics, 8(2):295-316. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2016-0016 TC 2016; 8(2): 295–316 Camille Semenzato* Orpheus and mousikê in Greek Tragedy DOI 10.1515/tc-2016-0016 Abstract: Much as he is famous, Orpheus is only mentioned by name fourteen times in the Greek tragedies and tragic fragments that have survived the ravages of time. Furthermore he is never shown as a protagonist, but always evoked by a dramatic character as an example, a parallel, a peculiarity, or a fantasy. This leg- endary singer is mentioned every time, if not explicitly, at least implicitly, in con- junction with μουσική, the ‘art of the Muses’, namely ‘music’ in its fullest sense.
    [Show full text]
  • Reshaping Hypsipyle's Narrative in Statius' Thebaid
    Erret inops, exspes, caede cruenta sua: Reshaping Hypsipyle’s Narrative in Statius’ Thebaid Many scholars have recognized that Statius owes much to his epic predecessors for the characterization of his own characters in the Thebaid. More recently, Alison Keith (2016) has noted the Ovidian influences in Statius’ Thebaid, namely how Statius draws upon the Theban origin story in Ovid’s Metamorphoses for the creation of his own Theban history. While I agree that Statius owes much to the Metamorphoses, in my paper I will argue that Statius relies on another Ovidian text, the Heroides, for inspiration for his Hypsipyle, who dominates Books 4-6 of the Thebaid. By considering the rhetoric of the heroines of letters 6 and 12 of the Heroides, Hypsipyle and Medea, I will demonstrate how Statius refashions his Hypsipyle into Medea figure, a figure who is able to twist her narrative from one of infanticide to one of an abandoned woman. If the reader views Statius’ Hypsipyle through the lens of the Ovidian heroine, the reader is able to see how Hypsipyle carefully rewrites her story and thus reshapes her image, drawing sympathy from the reader and preventing the reader from viewing her merely as an infanticide. In order to understand how Statius’ Hypsipyle is influenced by the Ovidian heroines, I will first look at her introduction to the narrative as a wandering exile (4.746ff), noting specifically how the passage corresponds with the curse Hypsipyle utters against Medea in the Heroides. As Hypsipyle’s rage against Medea builds, she cries out that Medea should “wander helpless, hopeless, and bloody from her own slaughter” (erret inops, exspes, caede cruenta sua, Her.
    [Show full text]
  • Sons and Fathers in the Catalogue of Argonauts in Apollonius Argonautica 1.23-233
    Sons and fathers in the catalogue of Argonauts in Apollonius Argonautica 1.23-233 ANNETTE HARDER University of Groningen [email protected] 1. Generations of heroes The Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius brings emphatically to the attention of its readers the distinction between the generation of the Argonauts and the heroes of the Trojan War in the next genera- tion. Apollonius initially highlights this emphasis in the episode of the Argonauts’ departure, when the baby Achilles is watching them, at AR 1.557-5581 σὺν καί οἱ (sc. Chiron) παράκοιτις ἐπωλένιον φορέουσα | Πηλείδην Ἀχιλῆα, φίλωι δειδίσκετο πατρί (“and with him his wife, hold- ing Peleus’ son Achilles in her arms, showed him to his dear father”)2; he does so again in 4.866-879, which describes Thetis and Achilles as a baby. Accordingly, several scholars have focused on the ways in which 1 — On this marker of the generations see also Klooster 2014, 527. 2 — All translations of Apollonius are by Race 2008. EuGeStA - n°9 - 2019 2 ANNETTE HARDER Apollonius has avoided anachronisms by carefully distinguishing between the Argonauts and the heroes of the Trojan War3. More specifically Jacqueline Klooster (2014, 521-530), in discussing the treatment of time in the Argonautica, distinguishes four periods of time to which Apollonius refers: first, the time before the Argo sailed, from the beginning of the cosmos (featured in the song of Orpheus in AR 1.496-511); second, the time of its sailing (i.e. the time of the epic’s setting); third, the past after the Argo sailed and fourth the present inhab- ited by the narrator (both hinted at by numerous allusions and aitia).
    [Show full text]
  • THE ARGONAUTIKA He'd Gone on His Vain Quest with Peirithoos: That Couple Would Have Made Their Task's Fulfillment Far Easier for Them All
    Book I Starting from you, Phoibos, the deeds ofthose old-time mortals I shall relute, who by way ofthe Black Sea's mouth and through the cobalt-dark rocks, at King Pelias 's commandment, in search of the Golden Fleece drove tight-thwarted Argo. For Pelias heard it voiced that in time thereafter a grim fate would await him, death at the prompting of the man he saw come, one-sandaled, from folk in the country: and not much later-in accordance with your word-Jason, fording on foot the Anauros's wintry waters, saved from the mud one sandal, but left the other stuck fast in the flooded estuary, pressed straight on to have his share in the sacred feast that Pelias was preparing for Poseidon his father, and the rest of the gods, though paying no heed to Pelasgian Hera. The moment Pelias saw him, he knew, and devised him a trial of most perilous seamanship, that in deep waters or away among foreign folk he might lose his homecoming. ,\row singers before 7ny time have recounted how the vessel was fashioned 4 Argos with the guidance of Athena. IW~cctIplan to do now is tell the name and farnib of each hero, describe their long voyage, all they accomplished in their wanderings: may the Muses inspire mnj sinpng! First in our record be Orpheus, whom famous Kalliope, after bedding Thracian Oikgros, bore, they tell us, 44 THE XRGONAUTIKA hard by Pimpleia's high rocky lookout: Orpheus, who's said to have charmed unshiftable upland boulders and the flow of rivers with the sound of his music.
    [Show full text]
  • Female Familial Relationships in Valerius' Argonautica and Statius
    W&M ScholarWorks Undergraduate Honors Theses Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 5-2021 Female Familial Relationships in Valerius’ Argonautica and Statius’ Thebaid Sophia Warnement Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses Part of the Classical Literature and Philology Commons Recommended Citation Warnement, Sophia, "Female Familial Relationships in Valerius’ Argonautica and Statius’ Thebaid" (2021). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 1619. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/1619 This Honors Thesis -- Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Female Familial Relationships in Valerius’ Argonautica and Statius’ Thebaid A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Department of Classical Studies from The College of William and Mary by Sophia Irene Warnement Accepted for ______Honors___________________________ (Honors, Highest Honors) __Vassiliki Panoussi___________________ Vassiliki Panoussi, Director __Molly Swetnam-Burland____________ Molly Swetnam-Burland __Jennifer Gülly___ ____________________ Jennifer Gülly Williamsburg, VA May 07, 2021 Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ..........................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Female Characters, Female Sympathetic Choruses, and the “Suppression” of Antiphonal Lament at the Openings of Euripides’ Phaethon, Andromeda, and Hypsipyle*
    FRAMMENTI SULLA SCENA (ONLINE) Studi sul dramma antico frammentario Università deGli Studi di Torino Centro Studi sul Teatro Classico http://www.ojs.unito.it/index.php/fss www.teatroclassico.unito.it ISSN 2612-3908 1 • 2020 FEMALE CHARACTERS, FEMALE SYMPATHETIC CHORUSES, AND THE “SUPPRESSION” OF ANTIPHONAL LAMENT AT THE OPENINGS OF EURIPIDES’ PHAETHON, ANDROMEDA, AND HYPSIPYLE* VASILIKI KOUSOULINI NATIONAL AND KAPODISTRIAN UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS [email protected] Female choruses abound in Euripides’ plays.1 While there are many in his extant plays, we also encounter choruses of women in his fragmentary ones.2 Little attention has been paid to the existence of sympathetic female choruses in Euripides’ fragmentary dramas and their in- teraction with female characters. A sympathetic female chorus seems to appear in conjunction with a female character in many Euripidean fragmentary plays. The chorus of the Alexander in * This research is co-financed by Greece and the European Union (European Social Fund- ESF) through the Opera- tional ProGramme «Human Resources Development, Education and LifelonG LearninG» in the context of the pro- ject “Reinforcement of Postdoctoral Researchers - 2nd Cycle” (MIS-5033021), implemented by the State Scholar- ships Foundation (ΙΚΥ). 1 There is a female chorus in Euripides’ Medea, Hippolytus, Andromache, Hecuba, Suppliant Women, Ion, Electra, Trojan Women, Iphigenia among the Taurians, Helen, Phoenician Women, Orestes, Iphigenia in Aulis, and Bacchae. Mastronarde observed that there are 15 male choruses, 62 female choruses, and 105 choruses with undetermined gender in Euripides’ corpus. Cf. MASTRONARDE 2010, 103. AccordinG to Calame, the 82% of Euripides’ traGic choruses con- sists of women. Cf. CALAME 2020, 776.
    [Show full text]
  • ABSTRACT a Director's Approach to Euripides' Hecuba Christopher F. Peck, M.F.A. Mentor: Deanna Toten Beard, Ph.D. This Thesi
    ABSTRACT A Director’s Approach to Euripides’ Hecuba Christopher F. Peck, M.F.A. Mentor: DeAnna Toten Beard, Ph.D. This thesis explores a production of Euripides’ Hecuba as it was directed by Christopher Peck. Chapter One articulates a unique Euripidean dramatic structure to demonstrate the contemporary viability of Euripides’ play. Chapter Two utilizes this dramatic structure as the basis for an aggressive analysis of themes inherent in the production. Chapter Three is devoted to the conceptualization of this particular production and the relationship between the director and the designers in pursuit of this concept. Chapter Four catalogs the rehearsal process and how the director and actors worked together to realize the dramatic needs of the production. Finally Chapter Five is a postmortem of the production emphasizing the strengths and weaknesses of the final product of Baylor University’s Hecuba. A Director's Approach to Euripides' Hecuba by Christopher F. Peck, B.F.A A Thesis Approved by the Department of Theatre Arts Stan C. Denman, Ph.D., Chairperson Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Baylor University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts Approved by the Thesis Committee DeAnna Toten Beard, Ph.D., Chairperson David J. Jortner, Ph.D. Marion D. Castleberry, Ph.D. Steven C. Pounders, M.F.A. Christopher J. Hansen, M.F.A. Accepted by the Graduate School May 2013 J. Larry Lyon, Ph.D., Dean Page bearing signatures is kept on file in the Graduate School. Copyright © 2013 by Christopher F. Peck
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction: Medea in Greece and Rome
    INTRODUCTION: MEDEA IN GREECE AND ROME A J. Boyle maiusque mari Medea malum. Seneca Medea 362 And Medea, evil greater than the sea. Few mythic narratives of the ancient world are more famous than the story of the Colchian princess/sorceress who betrayed her father and family for love of a foreign adventurer and who, when abandoned for another woman, killed in revenge both her rival and her children. Many critics have observed the com­ plexities and contradictions of the Medea figure—naive princess, knowing witch, faithless and devoted daughter, frightened exile, marginalised alien, dis­ placed traitor to family and state, helper-màiden, abandoned wife, vengeful lover, caring and filicidal mother, loving and fratricidal sister, oriental 'other', barbarian saviour of Greece, rejuvenator of the bodies of animals and men, killer of kings and princesses, destroyer and restorer of kingdoms, poisonous stepmother, paradigm of beauty and horror, demi-goddess, subhuman monster, priestess of Hecate and granddaughter of the sun, bride of dead Achilles and ancestor of the Medes, rider of a serpent-drawn chariot in the sky—complex­ ities reflected in her story's fragmented and fragmenting history. That history has been much examined, but, though there are distinguished recent exceptions, comparatively little attention has been devoted to the specifically 'Roman' Medea—the Medea of the Republican tragedians, of Cicero, Varro Atacinus, Ovid, the younger Seneca, Valerius Flaccus, Hosidius Geta and Dracontius, and, beyond the literary field, the Medea of Roman painting and Roman sculp­ ture. Hence the present volume of Ramus, which aims to draw attention to the complex and fascinating use and abuse of this transcultural heroine in the Ro­ man intellectual and visual world.
    [Show full text]
  • 344 CHAPTER XIII Decolonising Thoas in 1855, One Year Into The
    Preprint of Hall, E. in Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris (OUP 2013) CHAPTER XIII Decolonising Thoas In 1855, one year into the Crimean War, a North American discussion of the history of the Crimea penetrated straight to the heart of the relationship between Iphigenia in Tauris and Athenian colonialism. The journalist suggested that it was the establishment of Black Sea colonies that led the tragedians ‘to make use of a Tauric legend in the plays they offered to Athenian audiences, as Shakespeare made a comedy from the Bermudas, and as a playwright of ours, if we had any, would be glad of a Kanzan tradition’. He asks his readers to understand the relationship of Euripides’ Taurians to their Athenian audiences in the same terms as Shakespeare’s Caliban in The Tempest to the English who had colonized Bermuda in 1609, or the native Kansa Sioux in the (newly created) state of Kansas to the reader of the Boston-based literary journal. The Kansa Sioux had notoriously proved resistant to all the attempts of Methodist missionaries to make them live in permanent housing and convert to Christianity. The author of the article was correct. Euripides’ IT is very nearly a definitive text in the archive of colonial literature. This chapter will explore the radical revisions that 20th- and 21st-century authors and directors have performed upon the text in order to make it speak to a world struggling to recover from centuries of European domination of the planet. For IT ticks almost all the boxes in the conceptual repertoire of postcolonial theory associated with the work of the Palestinian Edward Said, and the Indians Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Homi Bhabha.
    [Show full text]
  • Actors on High: the Skene Roof, the Crane, and the Gods in Attic Drama
    UC Berkeley Classical Papers Title Actors on High: The Skene Roof, the Crane, and the Gods in Attic Drama Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/61w4628m Author Mastronarde, Donald J. Publication Date 1990-10-01 eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Published as “Actors on High: The Skene Roof, the Crane, and the Gods in Attic Drama” in Classical Antiquity Volume 9, No. 2, October 1990, pages 247-294, ©1990 by The Regents of the University of California. Copying and Permissions notice: Authorization to copy this content beyond fair use (as specified in Sections 107 and 108 of the U. S. Copyright Law) for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by the Regents of the University of California for libraries and other users, provided that they are registered with and pay the specified fee via Rightslink® on Caliber (http://caliber.ucpress.net/) or directly with the Copyright Clearance Center, http://www.copyright.com. [247]DONALD J. MASTRONARDE ACTORS ON HIGH: THE SKENE ROOF, THE CRANE, AND THE GODS IN ATTIC DRAMA* Many recent studies of Greek tragedy and comedy have shown a special interest in staging, not only with a view to antiquarian accuracy, but also in order to assess the playwrights’ techniques and skills in manipulating the visual elements of the performance for dramatic effect.1 The present study addresses a particularly controversial aspect of staging, the appearance of actors “on high.” It is generally agreed that the crane was available in the late fifth century, and it is also widely assumed that the wooden skene building of the late fifth and early fourth centuries had a flat roof, at least a part of which could serve as an additional acting space.
    [Show full text]
  • Elegy with Epic Consequences: Elegiac Themes in Statius' Thebaid
    Elegy with Epic Consequences: Elegiac Themes in Statius’ Thebaid A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In the Department of Classics of the College of Arts and Sciences by Carina Moss B.A. Bucknell University April 2020 Committee Chairs: Lauren D. Ginsberg, Ph.D., Kathryn J. Gutzwiller, Ph.D. Abstract This dissertation examines the role of elegy in the Thebaid by Statius, from allusion at the level of words or phrases to broad thematic resonance. It argues that Statius attributes elegiac language and themes to characters throughout the epic, especially women. Statius thus activates certain women in the epic as disruptors, emphasizing the ideological conflict between the genres of Latin love elegy and epic poetry. While previous scholarship has emphasized the importance of Statius’ epic predecessors, or the prominence of tragic allusion in the plot, my dissertation centers the role of elegy in this epic. First, I argue that Statius relies on allusion to the genre of elegy to signal the true divine agent of the civil war at Thebes: Vulcan. Vulcan’s erotic jealousy over Venus’ affair with Mars leads him to create the Necklace of Harmonia. Imbued with elegiac resonance, the necklace comes to Argia with corrupted elegiac imagery. Statius characterizes Argia within the dynamic of the elegiac relicta puella and uses this framework to explain Argia’s gift of the necklace to Eriphyle and her advocacy for Argos’ involvement in the war. By observing the full weight of the elegiac imagery in these scenes, I show that Argia mistakenly causes the death of Polynices and the devastation at Thebes as the result of Vulcan’s elegiac curse.
    [Show full text]