tragedy

Question 1

rejection of tragedy in the amores

Answer 1

amores 2.18: rejection of tragedy - also enables him to give voice to the epic heroines of the heroides - they can take over and also claim the genre which he rejects - to an extent

Question 2

the tragedy of echo

Answer 2

her self absorption in her own misery at narcissus’ rejection has a degenerative effect - not only is she incapable of creative innovation, she is unable to entirely repeat the words of others

complicity in her own degeneration - her fate to echo others words is not enforced upon her but rather ‘didicit’ - learned

her awareness of her own humiliation presses her into silence, not the curse of the gods

Question 3

pentheus as the ‘good reader’ and Agave as the bad

Answer 3

loci amoeni of cadmus and acteon is reminisced upon in the setting of pentheus’ death

pentheus achieves true self awareness in his final moments, understands his fatal error unlike Narcissus - becomes the ‘good reader’

reimagines the position of the audience in ovid’s divergence from euripides - in euripides agave and the bacchants mistake pentheus for a wild boar but recognise him afterwards (metamorphoses in the eye of the beholder)

in ovid’s version - they remain deluded - bacchus revelry as a type of madness driven by bacchus - connects insanity and the loss of tragic understanding

the reader is never forced to empathise with Pentheus’ aggressors - the reader is identified squarely with the victim (departing from the anarchic dichotomy in the rest of the theban narrative when we as readers are both within and without) - violence made more grotesque by the loss of Agave and co’s ability to comprehend the human elements of the tale (caution to the audience?)

if the ovidian narrative in met is truly disordered and the poetic gaze insane - what is the value in the message he conveys - can understanding be found in this anarchy? we have to rise above being seduced to join the bacchic dance of the disordered epic

Question 4

reference to tragedy in tristia 1.8

Answer 4

addressed to a friend but with many references to tragedy - the rivers flowing back to their source is from medea

Question 5

the tragedy of the dead parrot (amores 2.8)

Answer 5

2.6: almost epic/ high tragic language of mourning - tearing out plumage and ripping their skin with talons

epitaph in the past tense - final words of the poem not of his lasting love, but rather just the fact he is gone and it is over (libestod failing)

harsher than the catullus bird poem - small sparrow to vibrant and louder parrot, much more violent mourning and emotional outpouring - shifting towards a much harsher reality

where there is genuine intimacy in the sparrow poem - this intimacy is lost in the public lament of the parrot - less personal, disappearance of the private

cold tomb stone of parrot Vs warm hands around the sparrow

libestod as a public facade / language of public discourse

Question 6

immortality in the amores

Answer 6

‘cupido’

during the lament of the parrot phrase ‘numeris suis’ -