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Afterword to the Staying Power of Thetis

  • Laura M. Slatkin
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The Staying Power of Thetis
This chapter is in the book The Staying Power of Thetis

Abstract

Laura Slatkin assesses how the volume’s contributions reflect or refract her own work on Thetis in the longue durée. Slatkin’s discussion concentrates on four core themes she detects in the volume’s contributions: Thetis’ role as saviour, Thetis’ grief, Thetis’ innate power and wrath, and Thetis’ slippery remaking of tradition in all its guises. Slatkin’s first focus, Thetis’ distinguishing role as saviour of other divinities, frames the scope of meanings for Thetis across her manifold appearances. The second theme, Thetis’ grief, is predicated upon Thetis’ inability to rescue her mortal child. Moving from grief to anger, Slatkin proceeds to discussion of Thetis’ cosmic power and wrath, inviting consideration of a darker dimension of the Nereid, recast as a murderous mother and Zeus’ potential foe. Finally, Slatkin’s fourth theme underscores Thetis’ complex relation to traditionality: Slatkin proposes that the mercurial Thetis may serve as a counter-example to orthodoxy and convention. The mutability of Thetis is not limited to her metamorphoses in Peleus’ grasp, but is rather inscribed in her transformations as registered across artistic and religious modes across the centuries.

Abstract

Laura Slatkin assesses how the volume’s contributions reflect or refract her own work on Thetis in the longue durée. Slatkin’s discussion concentrates on four core themes she detects in the volume’s contributions: Thetis’ role as saviour, Thetis’ grief, Thetis’ innate power and wrath, and Thetis’ slippery remaking of tradition in all its guises. Slatkin’s first focus, Thetis’ distinguishing role as saviour of other divinities, frames the scope of meanings for Thetis across her manifold appearances. The second theme, Thetis’ grief, is predicated upon Thetis’ inability to rescue her mortal child. Moving from grief to anger, Slatkin proceeds to discussion of Thetis’ cosmic power and wrath, inviting consideration of a darker dimension of the Nereid, recast as a murderous mother and Zeus’ potential foe. Finally, Slatkin’s fourth theme underscores Thetis’ complex relation to traditionality: Slatkin proposes that the mercurial Thetis may serve as a counter-example to orthodoxy and convention. The mutability of Thetis is not limited to her metamorphoses in Peleus’ grasp, but is rather inscribed in her transformations as registered across artistic and religious modes across the centuries.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Preface V
  3. Contents VII
  4. List of Tables and Figures XI
  5. Introduction: The Power of Thetis, 30 Years On 1
  6. Part I: The Powers of Thetis - Strife, Succession, and Cosmic Balance
  7. The Power and Failures of Thetis in Early Poetic Traditions and Beyond 19
  8. The Rape and Binding of Thetis in Its Mythological Context 43
  9. Divine Even If Not Olympian: The Mobility of Thetis in the Iliad 75
  10. Suggestions and Themes in Thetis’ rhesis in Euripides’ Andromache 87
  11. Thetis in Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo: Dynasty and Succession 107
  12. Secrets and Lies: The Power of Thetis in Roman Culture 147
  13. Neque ... sine numine uincis: Thetis, Medusa and (Literary) Creation in Ovid’s Metamorphoses 181
  14. Part II: Thetis’ Family Matters
  15. In the Bosom of the Goddess: Thetis and Dionysus in Il. 6.130–140 207
  16. Motherhood and Shapeshifting in Depictions of Thetis 225
  17. Forging Families with Thetis: “Tentacular Thinking” and Queer Kinship in Homer’s Iliad 257
  18. Mourning Mothers and Premature Deaths: Thetis’ Example in Greek Funerary Epigrams 277
  19. Part III: Material Culture
  20. ‘A Dread and Revered Goddess’: Thetis and Other Gods in Attic Vases 299
  21. Saviour Mermaids of the Ancient Mediterranean: Thetis and the Nereids as Patrons of Ancient Greek Mariners 315
  22. Part IV: Reception – Thetis’ Aftermaths
  23. The Wicked Witch of the West? Thetis’ Controversial Transformations in 14th- Century Middle English Vernacular Poetry 341
  24. Reading Thetis in Tirso de Molina’s El Aquiles 369
  25. Thetis and the Shield of Achilles — Reading the Iliad with Auden 395
  26. Thetis of the Silver Screen: The Vengeful and Cosmic Goddess in Clash of the Titans 411
  27. Sea Witches in Exile: Thetidean Figures in Disney’s The Little Mermaid (1989/2008) and Pirates of the Caribbean (2006/2007) 429
  28. Reception in Performance: Interview and Poetry 471
  29. Afterword to the Staying Power of Thetis 485
  30. List of Contributors 495
  31. Index Locorum 501
  32. Subject Index 519
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110678437-021

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Preface V
  3. Contents VII
  4. List of Tables and Figures XI
  5. Introduction: The Power of Thetis, 30 Years On 1
  6. Part I: The Powers of Thetis - Strife, Succession, and Cosmic Balance
  7. The Power and Failures of Thetis in Early Poetic Traditions and Beyond 19
  8. The Rape and Binding of Thetis in Its Mythological Context 43
  9. Divine Even If Not Olympian: The Mobility of Thetis in the Iliad 75
  10. Suggestions and Themes in Thetis’ rhesis in Euripides’ Andromache 87
  11. Thetis in Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo: Dynasty and Succession 107
  12. Secrets and Lies: The Power of Thetis in Roman Culture 147
  13. Neque ... sine numine uincis: Thetis, Medusa and (Literary) Creation in Ovid’s Metamorphoses 181
  14. Part II: Thetis’ Family Matters
  15. In the Bosom of the Goddess: Thetis and Dionysus in Il. 6.130–140 207
  16. Motherhood and Shapeshifting in Depictions of Thetis 225
  17. Forging Families with Thetis: “Tentacular Thinking” and Queer Kinship in Homer’s Iliad 257
  18. Mourning Mothers and Premature Deaths: Thetis’ Example in Greek Funerary Epigrams 277
  19. Part III: Material Culture
  20. ‘A Dread and Revered Goddess’: Thetis and Other Gods in Attic Vases 299
  21. Saviour Mermaids of the Ancient Mediterranean: Thetis and the Nereids as Patrons of Ancient Greek Mariners 315
  22. Part IV: Reception – Thetis’ Aftermaths
  23. The Wicked Witch of the West? Thetis’ Controversial Transformations in 14th- Century Middle English Vernacular Poetry 341
  24. Reading Thetis in Tirso de Molina’s El Aquiles 369
  25. Thetis and the Shield of Achilles — Reading the Iliad with Auden 395
  26. Thetis of the Silver Screen: The Vengeful and Cosmic Goddess in Clash of the Titans 411
  27. Sea Witches in Exile: Thetidean Figures in Disney’s The Little Mermaid (1989/2008) and Pirates of the Caribbean (2006/2007) 429
  28. Reception in Performance: Interview and Poetry 471
  29. Afterword to the Staying Power of Thetis 485
  30. List of Contributors 495
  31. Index Locorum 501
  32. Subject Index 519
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