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.