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Balance and Excess in Ovid’s Pygmalion Story

  • Robert Kirstein
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The Reception of Ancient Cyprus in Western Culture
This chapter is in the book The Reception of Ancient Cyprus in Western Culture

Abstract

The chapter takes its starting point from the aspect of beauty in the Pygmalion story. It argues that symmetry and balance play a key role, for example in the structure of the episode or in the change of focalization between Orpheus and Pygmalion. Since balance is also, at least in part, a fundamentally physical and bodily experience, it seems to be of particular importance in the creation of a living statue. In a manner typical of Ovid, the destabilizing and the suspending of balance, including the potential even to turn into forms of excess, are also evoked at the same time.

Abstract

The chapter takes its starting point from the aspect of beauty in the Pygmalion story. It argues that symmetry and balance play a key role, for example in the structure of the episode or in the change of focalization between Orpheus and Pygmalion. Since balance is also, at least in part, a fundamentally physical and bodily experience, it seems to be of particular importance in the creation of a living statue. In a manner typical of Ovid, the destabilizing and the suspending of balance, including the potential even to turn into forms of excess, are also evoked at the same time.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Preface and Acknowledgements V
  3. Contents VII
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Part I: Cyprus in Latin Literature
  6. Cyprus and its Myths on the Roman Stage 13
  7. Venus on Cyprus: Interlinked Lists of Aphrodite’s Cypriot Sanctuaries in Latin Poetry 33
  8. Idalion, Satrachus and the Annales of Volusius: The Reception of Cyprus in the Carmina Catulli 51
  9. Nil desperandum …. cras ingens iterabimus aequor (Hor. Carm. 1.7): The Foundation of Salamis by a Bastard Archer as an Exemplum in Latin Literature 65
  10. Balance and Excess in Ovid’s Pygmalion Story 87
  11. Was Cyprus Special? The Case of Two Latin Poets 103
  12. Infamem nimio calore Cypron: Ancient Epigrams on Flacci in Cyprus 111
  13. The Digression on Cyprus in Claudian’s Epithalamium de nuptiis Honorii et Mariae 131
  14. Part II: Cyprus after Antiquity
  15. Venus and Adonis from Enheduanna to Shakespeare: The Significance of Ovid’s Cypriot Metamorphoses 153
  16. Pilgrims, Merchants and Lovers: The Island of Cyprus in Boccaccio’s Decameron (via Ovid’s Metamorphoses) 175
  17. Venus of Paphos in the Latin Poetry of the Quattrocento 201
  18. Ovid’s ‘Good’ Women: The Cypriot Exemplum Against the Background of the Statue (R)evolution 221
  19. Osmosis between High Genres: Ovid’s Tragic Formation of Myrrha’s Tale (Met. 10.298–502) and its Reception in Alfieri’s Homonymous Tragedy 249
  20. Travel, Classical Traditions and Empire: Western Travellers to Cyprus in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 265
  21. List of Contributors 289
  22. General Index 293
  23. Index Locorum 299
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110984309-006

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Preface and Acknowledgements V
  3. Contents VII
  4. Introduction 1
  5. Part I: Cyprus in Latin Literature
  6. Cyprus and its Myths on the Roman Stage 13
  7. Venus on Cyprus: Interlinked Lists of Aphrodite’s Cypriot Sanctuaries in Latin Poetry 33
  8. Idalion, Satrachus and the Annales of Volusius: The Reception of Cyprus in the Carmina Catulli 51
  9. Nil desperandum …. cras ingens iterabimus aequor (Hor. Carm. 1.7): The Foundation of Salamis by a Bastard Archer as an Exemplum in Latin Literature 65
  10. Balance and Excess in Ovid’s Pygmalion Story 87
  11. Was Cyprus Special? The Case of Two Latin Poets 103
  12. Infamem nimio calore Cypron: Ancient Epigrams on Flacci in Cyprus 111
  13. The Digression on Cyprus in Claudian’s Epithalamium de nuptiis Honorii et Mariae 131
  14. Part II: Cyprus after Antiquity
  15. Venus and Adonis from Enheduanna to Shakespeare: The Significance of Ovid’s Cypriot Metamorphoses 153
  16. Pilgrims, Merchants and Lovers: The Island of Cyprus in Boccaccio’s Decameron (via Ovid’s Metamorphoses) 175
  17. Venus of Paphos in the Latin Poetry of the Quattrocento 201
  18. Ovid’s ‘Good’ Women: The Cypriot Exemplum Against the Background of the Statue (R)evolution 221
  19. Osmosis between High Genres: Ovid’s Tragic Formation of Myrrha’s Tale (Met. 10.298–502) and its Reception in Alfieri’s Homonymous Tragedy 249
  20. Travel, Classical Traditions and Empire: Western Travellers to Cyprus in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 265
  21. List of Contributors 289
  22. General Index 293
  23. Index Locorum 299
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