Hunting Tereus: Rubens, Shakespeare, Sophocles
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P.J. Finglass
P.J. Finglass is Henry Overton Wills Professor of Greek at the University of Bristol. His most recent book,Euripides and the Myth of Perseus: Two Lost Greek Tragedies Illuminated by a New Papyrus (2024), is published in the De Gruyter series Sozomena; and he is currently working onSappho and Alcaeus. The Corpus of Lesbian Poetry for Cambridge University Press series Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries. Both projects were made possible thanks to a Major Research Fellowship awarded by the Leverhulme Trust. He has previously edited texts of Greek lyric and tragedy for Cambridge; and also edits the journalClassical Quarterly .
Abstract
This chapter focuses on the myth of Tereus as treated in different media by three great artists — Rubens (in Tereus’ Banquet), Shakespeare (in Titus Andronicus), and Sophocles (in Tereus). It looks in particular at the association of the myth with hunting, an association certain in the cases of Rubens (whose painting formed part of the furnishings of a royal hunting lodge) and Shakespeare (where the mutilated Lavinia is discovered by a man who has just been hunting, after which she uses the Tereus myth to reveal the identity of her rapists), and probable in the case of Sophocles (thanks to a likely restoration of the text of a new papyrus of the play published in 2016). What is it about the Tereus myth that makes it so perennially associated with the hunt?
Abstract
This chapter focuses on the myth of Tereus as treated in different media by three great artists — Rubens (in Tereus’ Banquet), Shakespeare (in Titus Andronicus), and Sophocles (in Tereus). It looks in particular at the association of the myth with hunting, an association certain in the cases of Rubens (whose painting formed part of the furnishings of a royal hunting lodge) and Shakespeare (where the mutilated Lavinia is discovered by a man who has just been hunting, after which she uses the Tereus myth to reveal the identity of her rapists), and probable in the case of Sophocles (thanks to a likely restoration of the text of a new papyrus of the play published in 2016). What is it about the Tereus myth that makes it so perennially associated with the hunt?
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword VII
- Contents IX
- Introduction 1
- (Re)assembling the Tereus Myth: Vase Painting, Memory, and the Senses 15
- Lamenting about the Wrong Crime: Homer, Sophocles and Demonising the Other 41
- Hunting Tereus: Rubens, Shakespeare, Sophocles 61
- Passion, Knowledge and Truth: Second Thoughts on Sophocles’ Tereus 77
- ζηλοτυπ[ίᾳ ......] οἰστρηθεισ̃ α: Domestic Violence and Revenge in Sophocles’ Tereus 95
- Tereus’ Illicit Penetration(s): A New Reading of Fragment 581 R 115
- The Voice of the Shuttle: The Tereus Myth in Aristophanes’ Birds 131
- Tereus in the Fifth and Fourth Century: From Paratragedy to Mythic Burlesque 153
- The Tereus Myth in Roman Republican Drama 179
- “(In)Human, All Too (In)Human”: Ovid’s Tereus and the Vulnerable Body 191
- Postface 205
- Methodological Appendix: The Orchid and the Wasp — Reading Fragments with Assemblage Theory 223
- List of Contributors 241
- General Index
- Index of Sources
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword VII
- Contents IX
- Introduction 1
- (Re)assembling the Tereus Myth: Vase Painting, Memory, and the Senses 15
- Lamenting about the Wrong Crime: Homer, Sophocles and Demonising the Other 41
- Hunting Tereus: Rubens, Shakespeare, Sophocles 61
- Passion, Knowledge and Truth: Second Thoughts on Sophocles’ Tereus 77
- ζηλοτυπ[ίᾳ ......] οἰστρηθεισ̃ α: Domestic Violence and Revenge in Sophocles’ Tereus 95
- Tereus’ Illicit Penetration(s): A New Reading of Fragment 581 R 115
- The Voice of the Shuttle: The Tereus Myth in Aristophanes’ Birds 131
- Tereus in the Fifth and Fourth Century: From Paratragedy to Mythic Burlesque 153
- The Tereus Myth in Roman Republican Drama 179
- “(In)Human, All Too (In)Human”: Ovid’s Tereus and the Vulnerable Body 191
- Postface 205
- Methodological Appendix: The Orchid and the Wasp — Reading Fragments with Assemblage Theory 223
- List of Contributors 241
- General Index
- Index of Sources
