Venus and Adonis from Enheduanna to Shakespeare: The Significance of Ovid’s Cypriot Metamorphoses
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Thea Selliaas Thorsen
Abstract
This paper claims that Orpheus’ Cypriot tales in Ovid’s Metamorphoses 10 upturn a tradition that before Ovid is marked by strong female voices. Focusing on Orpheus’ tale of Venus and Adonis, the paper traces a tradition back to ancient Mesopotamia, which includes the first known author in the history of humankind, the woman Enheduanna, as well as Sappho and Praxilla of ancient Greece. The paper argues that Ovid’s Orpheus inverts this tradition by introducing strands of misogyny. Yet, while these misogynistic strands might be seen as extending into the later, postclassical tradition, as exemplified by Shakespeare’s poem Venus and Adonis, where the goddess of love seems paradoxically incompetent in her own divine domain, this paper argues that the Ovidian Orpheus’ heterosexual love stories, which include that of Venus and Adonis, encompass at least two levels, one on the surface, which is genderexclusively male and misogynistic, and another, which is profounder, genderinclusive and human, and which dramatizes the dangers of other-hate and selflove in a deeply Ovidian fashion. Throughout the island of Cyprus is key to the argument.
Abstract
This paper claims that Orpheus’ Cypriot tales in Ovid’s Metamorphoses 10 upturn a tradition that before Ovid is marked by strong female voices. Focusing on Orpheus’ tale of Venus and Adonis, the paper traces a tradition back to ancient Mesopotamia, which includes the first known author in the history of humankind, the woman Enheduanna, as well as Sappho and Praxilla of ancient Greece. The paper argues that Ovid’s Orpheus inverts this tradition by introducing strands of misogyny. Yet, while these misogynistic strands might be seen as extending into the later, postclassical tradition, as exemplified by Shakespeare’s poem Venus and Adonis, where the goddess of love seems paradoxically incompetent in her own divine domain, this paper argues that the Ovidian Orpheus’ heterosexual love stories, which include that of Venus and Adonis, encompass at least two levels, one on the surface, which is genderexclusively male and misogynistic, and another, which is profounder, genderinclusive and human, and which dramatizes the dangers of other-hate and selflove in a deeply Ovidian fashion. Throughout the island of Cyprus is key to the argument.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface and Acknowledgements V
- Contents VII
- Introduction 1
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Part I: Cyprus in Latin Literature
- Cyprus and its Myths on the Roman Stage 13
- Venus on Cyprus: Interlinked Lists of Aphrodite’s Cypriot Sanctuaries in Latin Poetry 33
- Idalion, Satrachus and the Annales of Volusius: The Reception of Cyprus in the Carmina Catulli 51
- 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
- Balance and Excess in Ovid’s Pygmalion Story 87
- Was Cyprus Special? The Case of Two Latin Poets 103
- Infamem nimio calore Cypron: Ancient Epigrams on Flacci in Cyprus 111
- The Digression on Cyprus in Claudian’s Epithalamium de nuptiis Honorii et Mariae 131
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Part II: Cyprus after Antiquity
- Venus and Adonis from Enheduanna to Shakespeare: The Significance of Ovid’s Cypriot Metamorphoses 153
- Pilgrims, Merchants and Lovers: The Island of Cyprus in Boccaccio’s Decameron (via Ovid’s Metamorphoses) 175
- Venus of Paphos in the Latin Poetry of the Quattrocento 201
- Ovid’s ‘Good’ Women: The Cypriot Exemplum Against the Background of the Statue (R)evolution 221
- 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
- Travel, Classical Traditions and Empire: Western Travellers to Cyprus in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 265
- List of Contributors 289
- General Index 293
- Index Locorum 299
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface and Acknowledgements V
- Contents VII
- Introduction 1
-
Part I: Cyprus in Latin Literature
- Cyprus and its Myths on the Roman Stage 13
- Venus on Cyprus: Interlinked Lists of Aphrodite’s Cypriot Sanctuaries in Latin Poetry 33
- Idalion, Satrachus and the Annales of Volusius: The Reception of Cyprus in the Carmina Catulli 51
- 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
- Balance and Excess in Ovid’s Pygmalion Story 87
- Was Cyprus Special? The Case of Two Latin Poets 103
- Infamem nimio calore Cypron: Ancient Epigrams on Flacci in Cyprus 111
- The Digression on Cyprus in Claudian’s Epithalamium de nuptiis Honorii et Mariae 131
-
Part II: Cyprus after Antiquity
- Venus and Adonis from Enheduanna to Shakespeare: The Significance of Ovid’s Cypriot Metamorphoses 153
- Pilgrims, Merchants and Lovers: The Island of Cyprus in Boccaccio’s Decameron (via Ovid’s Metamorphoses) 175
- Venus of Paphos in the Latin Poetry of the Quattrocento 201
- Ovid’s ‘Good’ Women: The Cypriot Exemplum Against the Background of the Statue (R)evolution 221
- 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
- Travel, Classical Traditions and Empire: Western Travellers to Cyprus in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 265
- List of Contributors 289
- General Index 293
- Index Locorum 299
