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'A Simple Girl’?: Medea in Ovid Heroides 12
Citation
Davis, PJ, 'A Simple Girl'?: Medea in Ovid Heroides 12, Ramus: Critical Studies in Greek and Roman Literature, Vol. 41, (1-2) pp. 33-49. ISSN 0048-671X (2012) [Refereed Article]
Copyright Statement
© Aureal Publications 2012
DOI: doi:10.1017/S0048671X00000242
Abstract
For Homer’s Circe the story of Argo’s voyage was already well known.2 Although
we cannot be sure that the Odyssey’s first audience was aware of
Medea’s role in Jason’s story, we do know that by the time that Ovid came to
write Heroides, she had already appeared in numerous Greek and Latin texts, in
epic and lyric poetry and on the tragic stage.3 Given her complex textual and
dramatic history, it seems hardly likely that any Ovidian Medea could actually
be ‘a simple girl’. And yet precisely this charge of ‘simplicity’ has been levelled
against Heroides 12 and its fictive author.4 I propose to argue that the
Medea of Heroides 12 is complex, not simple, and that her complexity derives
from the fact that Ovid has positioned his elegiac heroine between past and
future,5 guilt and innocence, epic and tragedy.
Item Details
Item Type: | Refereed Article |
---|---|
Keywords: | Homer, literacy, criticism |
Research Division: | Language, Communication and Culture |
Research Group: | Literary studies |
Research Field: | Latin and classical Greek literature |
Objective Division: | Expanding Knowledge |
Objective Group: | Expanding knowledge |
Objective Field: | Expanding knowledge in history, heritage and archaeology |
UTAS Author: | Davis, PJ (Professor Peter Davis) |
ID Code: | 121889 |
Year Published: | 2012 |
Web of Science® Times Cited: | 4 |
Deposited By: | Office of the School of Humanities |
Deposited On: | 2017-10-19 |
Last Modified: | 2017-12-14 |
Downloads: | 0 |
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