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Tragic Desire: Phaedra and Her Heirs in Ovid

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Tragic Desire: Phaedra and Her Heirs in Ovid Tragic Desire: Phaedra and Her Heirs in Ovid by Jessica A. Westerhold A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Department of Classics, University of Toronto © Copyright by Jessica A. Westerhold 2011 Tragic Desire: Phaedra and Her Heirs in Ovid Jessica A. Westerhold Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Classics University of Toronto 2011 Abstract In this thesis, I explore the construction of female erotic desire in Ovid’s work as it is represented in the form of mythical heroines. Phaedra-like figures appear in Ovid’s poetry as dangerous spectres of wildly inappropriate and therefore destructive, bestial, or incestuous sexuality. I consider in particular the catalogue of Phaedra-like figures in Ars Amatoria 1.283-340, Phaedra in Heroides 4, Byblis in Metamorphoses 9.439-665, and Iphis in Metamorphoses 9.666-797. Their tales act as a threat of punishment for any inappropriate desire. They represent for the normative sexual subject a sexual desire which has been excluded, and what could happen, what the normative subject could become, were he or she to transgress taboos and laws governing sexual relations. I apply the idea of the abject, as it has been formulated by Julia Kristeva and Judith Butler, in order to elucidate Ovid’s process of constructing such a subject in his poetry. I also consider Butler’s theories of the performativity of sex, gender, and kinship roles in relation to the continued maintenance of the normative and abject subject positions his poetry creates. The intersection of “performance” and performativity is crucial to the representation of the heroines as paradigms of female desire. Ovid’s engagement with his literary predecessors in the genre of tragedy, in particular Euripides’ and Sophocles’ tragedies featuring Phaedra, highlights the idea of dramatically “performing” a role, e.g., the role of incestuous step-mother. Such a spotlight on “performance” in all of these literary representations reveals the performativity of ii culturally defined gender and kinship roles. Ovid’s ludic representations, or “citations,” of Phaedra, I argue, both reinvest cultural stereotypes of women’s sexuality through their repetition and introduce new possibilities of feminine subjectivity and sexuality through the variations in each iteration. iii Acknowledgments I would like to thank all of the members of my thesis committee, Victoria Wohl, Erik Gunderson and Alison Keith, for guiding my readings of ancient texts, modern scholarship, and theory. Their patient and careful advice began long before this project and has made a deep and lasting impression on my own research. I am grateful to Erik Gunderson and Victoria Wohl for their insightful, often challenging, but always thought-provoking comments and suggestions on my many drafts. Their contributions to my work are invaluable. I would also like to thank the external readers of my thesis, Carole Newlands and Jarrett Welsh, whose advice and suggestions greatly improved this work and will give me much to think about for future projects. Most especially, I owe a great deal of thanks to my advisor, Alison Keith. She has been a tireless editor, mentor, and advisor throughout the process. She is truly an inspiration and role model, not only as a scholar, but as an eloquent writer and a generous teacher. I wish to thank the intelligent and sensitive students I have been lucky to teach at the University of Toronto, most especially the students in “Performing Gender,” Spring 2010, whose discussions about ancient drama helped me think in different and new ways about Ovid’s own interpretations of these plays. I am grateful to my fellow graduate students, the faculty, and administrative staff at the University of Toronto Classics department for their support and guidance during my tenure at the institution. I owe special thanks to Ann-Marie Matti and Coral Gavrilovic, who made sure that I was registered and kept me on task through the years. In addition, I want to thank those faculty and students who have listened to my chapters patiently and attentively and have provided valuable feedback. I am especially indebted to Michael Dewar for his insightful comments on my project in its infancy. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my close friends and family, whose support and encouragement have motivated and inspired me. I am grateful to my mother, Jacki McGreevy, for sharing with me her love of learning, and to my father, Monte Westerhold, for teaching me to work hard and perservere in the most difficult times. Thank you to all of my dear friends, and in particular, Anne Carty and Heather Quinsey, for their unflagging confidence in me. iv Table of Contents Contents Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents.............................................................................................................................v Chapter 1 Introduction .....................................................................................................................1 Chapter 2 Signs of Desire ..............................................................................................................36 Chapter 3 Phaedra’s Claim ............................................................................................................76 Chapter 4 Inscribing Desire .........................................................................................................129 Chapter 5 Playing the Part ...........................................................................................................180 Chapter 6 Conclusion...................................................................................................................233 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................258 v 1 Chapter 1 Introduction at tanti tibi sit non indulgere theatris, dum bene de uacuo pectore cedat amor. eneruant animos citharae lotosque lyraeque et uox et numeris brachia mota suis. illic adsidue ficti saltantur amantes; †quid caueas† actor, qua iuuat arte, nocet. (Ovid, Rem. Am. 751-56) Supremo die identidem exquirens, an iam de se tumultus foris esset, petito speculo capillum sibi comi ac malas labantes corrigi praecepit, et admissos amicos percontatus, ecquid iis videretur mi[ni]mum1 vitae commode transegisse, adiecit et clausulam: Ἐπεὶ δὲ πάνυ κα<λ>ῶς πέπαισται, δότε κρότον καὶ πάντες ἡµᾶς µετὰ χαρᾶς προπέµψατε. (Suet., Aug. 99.1)2 In my thesis, I explore the construction of female erotic desire in Ovid’s work. Because the theme of erotic desire is so ubiquitous in Ovid’s poetry, much of which was generically amatory, I have focused my attention on one type of character, the “Phaedra-like” figure. Such women appear in Ovid’s poetry as dangerous spectres of wildly inappropriate and therefore destructive, bestial, or incestuous sexuality. Their tales legitimate a threat of punishment for any inappropriate desire. They represent for the normative sexual subject a sexual desire which has been excluded, and document what could happen, what the normative subject could become, were he or she to transgress taboos and laws governing sexual relations. My definition of “Phaedra-like” figures includes those mythological heroines whose stories in Ovid’s corpus engage most closely with the plot and themes of Phaedra’s myth as it was represented in Classical Greek tragedy. Her story was told in three Attic Greek tragic plays. 1 The second hand in MS P and Philippus Beroaldus has corrected minimum to mimum, which makes better sense in the context. Regardless of whether we accept mimum or minimum, the metaphor of dramatic play-acting is made clear by both πέπαισται and κρότον. 2 See Beacham (1999: 151), Boyle (160) and Myerowitz (187) for a discussion of this passage. 2 All three plays follow the tradition that Phaedra, wife of Theseus, falls in love with her step-son, Hippolytus. Theseus, influenced by Phaedra’s false charges against Hippolytus, exiles and curses his son, who is killed by Neptune’s bull, sent from the sea in response to Theseus’ curse.3 The three plays differ primarily in their representations of Phaedra. Webster conjectures that Phaedra was first the subject of Euripides’ Hippolytus (HI), followed by Sophocles’ Phaedra, and then a second Hippolytus (HII) by Euripides, which seems to have been a response to the scandal caused by his first play and the subsequent treatment by Sophocles.4 Unfortunately, the first two plays are only fragmentary.5 In Aristophanes’ Frogs (1043), Aeschylus states that he never made Phaedras or Stheneboias into prostitutes (πόρνας).6 This reference is believed to be to HI, in which Phaedra’s representation was by all accounts more aggressive and threatening. She probably approached Hippolytus herself. HI was sometimes referred to as Hippolytus Kalyptomenos because the character covered himself in shame at her proposal. She also makes her charges against Hippolytus to Theseus in person. Sophocles’ portrayal did not elicit the same shocked reaction from the Athenian audience. Although we have less evidence for this play, we can assume that this fact is due to a milder Phaedra. While it is not clear whether Theseus is absent for the first part of the action in HI, in Phaedra he has left Athens some time ago to accompany Pirithous to Hades and assist with his rape of Persephone.
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