Postface
-
Sabrina Mancuso
Sabrina Mancuso has been Lecturer in Greek Grammar and Translation of Greek Texts at Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen until February 2021. After graduating from Pisa, she completed her PhD jointly supervised by the universities of Tübingen and Pisa in July 2020. After research stays in Vandoeuvres and Bristol, she was awarded her doctorate in 2022 with a publication focused on the mythical paradigm of Procne in Attic tragedy. Her main research interests are Attic tragedy (especially Sophocles), ancient epics, mythical examples, rhetoric, fragmentary poetry and digital critical editions.
Abstract
The story of Tereus, Procne and Philomela is an aetiological narrative projected onto a mythical, indefinite past. The myth’s narrative core consists of the transformation of a mother, known as Procne since at least the fifth century, into a nightingale. She undergoes this transformation due to her guilt in her son’s death, a sorrow that she perpetually laments in her new shape as a nightingale. References to Tereus or his wife Procne have been attested in Greek literature since Homer’s time. The myth was subsequently handled by the Attic tragedians, who focused on the nightingale’s mourning before being adapted by later authors like Accius and Ovid. The present volume reconstructs the development of the Tereus myth by applying assemblage theory to individual aspects of Greek and Roman sources of this myth. This approach enables a thorough examination of the Tereus myth’s constant adaptation. The chapters of this volume, each of which segues into the next, allow us to ‘peel off’ the various layers of the myth so that its development over time is explored and, simultaneously, the reader is invited to consider it retrospectively, thus verifying the influence of the older parts of the assemblage on the more recent ones.
Abstract
The story of Tereus, Procne and Philomela is an aetiological narrative projected onto a mythical, indefinite past. The myth’s narrative core consists of the transformation of a mother, known as Procne since at least the fifth century, into a nightingale. She undergoes this transformation due to her guilt in her son’s death, a sorrow that she perpetually laments in her new shape as a nightingale. References to Tereus or his wife Procne have been attested in Greek literature since Homer’s time. The myth was subsequently handled by the Attic tragedians, who focused on the nightingale’s mourning before being adapted by later authors like Accius and Ovid. The present volume reconstructs the development of the Tereus myth by applying assemblage theory to individual aspects of Greek and Roman sources of this myth. This approach enables a thorough examination of the Tereus myth’s constant adaptation. The chapters of this volume, each of which segues into the next, allow us to ‘peel off’ the various layers of the myth so that its development over time is explored and, simultaneously, the reader is invited to consider it retrospectively, thus verifying the influence of the older parts of the assemblage on the more recent ones.
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
