Tragicae Electiones: Treason, Incest and Filicide in the Middle Books of the Metamorphoses Pubblico
Drake, Evan (Fall 2020)
Abstract
These three essays examine the stories of five well-known protagonists in the middle books of the Metamorphoses. Medea, Scylla, Byblis, Myrrha, and Althaea each speak to readers of the poem through soliloquies, which are a main focus of these essays because they reward close engagement with the Ovidian text. The first essay examines the poem’s depiction of the decisions by Medea and Scylla to betray their fathers and their homelands. The essay locates in the soliloquies’ texts justifications for those decisions that are significantly influenced by the positions of the regiae virgines within the patriarchy. The second essay turns to Byblis and Myrrha. It assesses the poem’s development of the mental stress experienced by Byblis and Myrrha as they struggle with incestuous desire. The essay considers whether the soliloquies of Byblis and Myrrha and the surrounding events present coherent narratives, in which each woman’s struggle and its outcome might be plausible. The second essay credits Byblis’ story with narrative coherence. The essay largely concurs with the an earlier commentary that reads Myrrha’s struggles as a story told for dramatic effect rather than to achieve narrative coherence. The third essay examines the story of the Calydonian Boar Hunt, the murder by the leader of the Hunt, Meleager, of his two uncles, and the decision of his mother, Althaea, to take Meleager’s life in order to avenge the death of her brothers. The essay reads Ovid’s mock-heroic depiction of the Boar Hunt as a narrative strategy to engage the reader in the events that follow in Calydon. The essay’s examination of Althea’s soliloquy establishes that the text does not support a reading in which Althaea’s internal struggle includes any strong element of maternal affection for Meleager. The essay concludes that the text of her soliloquy demonstrates that Althaea’s decision-making depends primarily on her perception of her position in the patriarchy.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Page
Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….….. 1
I. Regiae Virgines ‒ The Transgressions of Medea and Scylla ………………………………………... 9
II. Byblis, Myrrha, and the Greater Crime ……………………………………………………………………... 26
III. Althaea and the Fall of Calydon: Second Thoughts ………………………………………………………56
Conclusion …………………………………………………………………...............................................................79
Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..83
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