Mairéad McAuley
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- December 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199659364
- eISBN:
- 9780191808968
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199659364.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines the figures of Thetis in Statius’ Achilleid and Atalanta in the Thebaid to reveal how these poems also utilize images and metaphors of maternity to negotiate their position ...
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This chapter examines the figures of Thetis in Statius’ Achilleid and Atalanta in the Thebaid to reveal how these poems also utilize images and metaphors of maternity to negotiate their position within the epic tradition. It argues that Statius’ allusions to the Aeneid often amplify feminine, maternal aspects suppressed in the earlier, canonical epic. Through its extraordinary evocations of maternal subjectivity in the form of Thetis and Atalanta who must negotiate the deaths of their young warrior sons, it traces an alternative reading of Statius’ Thebaid and Achilleid as a would-be, but never-quite-realized, maternal epic, a poetry of supplements, surrogates, and digressions, rather than one that fuses narrative linearity and patrilineage, like the Aeneid.Less
This chapter examines the figures of Thetis in Statius’ Achilleid and Atalanta in the Thebaid to reveal how these poems also utilize images and metaphors of maternity to negotiate their position within the epic tradition. It argues that Statius’ allusions to the Aeneid often amplify feminine, maternal aspects suppressed in the earlier, canonical epic. Through its extraordinary evocations of maternal subjectivity in the form of Thetis and Atalanta who must negotiate the deaths of their young warrior sons, it traces an alternative reading of Statius’ Thebaid and Achilleid as a would-be, but never-quite-realized, maternal epic, a poetry of supplements, surrogates, and digressions, rather than one that fuses narrative linearity and patrilineage, like the Aeneid.
Emily Spiers
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- November 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198802587
- eISBN:
- 9780191840876
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198802587.003.0006
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter explores the reworkings of Homeric epic narrative and ancient classical myth by the British poet Kate Tempest, including the epic poem Brand New Ancients (2013) and the poem sequence ...
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This chapter explores the reworkings of Homeric epic narrative and ancient classical myth by the British poet Kate Tempest, including the epic poem Brand New Ancients (2013) and the poem sequence Hold Your Own (2014). It demonstrates how Tempest uses the poetic medium to formulate future possibilities for those excluded from the political and economic processes shaping the future. By urging readers and audiences to view themselves not as passive citizen-consumers veering towards an open future being shaped by everyone but them, but, instead, as profoundly mythical beings capable of ‘everyday odysseys’, Tempest’s work constitutes a call for people to become invested in a world they can help to develop. This, in turn, points the way to a creative future that re-establishes literature as an urgent, socially relevant practice and a potentially transformative tool for social and political change.Less
This chapter explores the reworkings of Homeric epic narrative and ancient classical myth by the British poet Kate Tempest, including the epic poem Brand New Ancients (2013) and the poem sequence Hold Your Own (2014). It demonstrates how Tempest uses the poetic medium to formulate future possibilities for those excluded from the political and economic processes shaping the future. By urging readers and audiences to view themselves not as passive citizen-consumers veering towards an open future being shaped by everyone but them, but, instead, as profoundly mythical beings capable of ‘everyday odysseys’, Tempest’s work constitutes a call for people to become invested in a world they can help to develop. This, in turn, points the way to a creative future that re-establishes literature as an urgent, socially relevant practice and a potentially transformative tool for social and political change.
