The Classical Tradition, now more commonly known as Classical Reception, is a growing sub-discipline in Classics which seeks to trace the influence of Greco-Roman culture in post-classical works. While scholars have already done much to analyze specific texts, and many of these analyses are theoretically complex, there has yet to be a review of the theories these scholars employ. The purpose of this study is to provide researchers with a theoretical tool kit which allows them greater scope and nuance when analyzing usages of classical mythology. It examines five different approaches scholars have used: adaptation, allusion, intertextuality, reception, and typology. Each theory is followed by an example from Spanish literature or film: Apollo and Daphne in Calderón's El laurel de Apolo, Orpheus in Unamuno's Niebla, Dionysus in Unamuno's San Manuel Bueno, mártir, Persephone in del Torro's El laberinto del fauno, and the werewolf in Naschy's Waldemar Daninsky films. This thesis argues that a critical pluralist approach best captures the nuance and variety of usages of classical mythology. This allows for both objective and subjective readings of texts as well as explicit and implicit connections to classical mythology.

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Humanities, Department of English, 2007. / Bibliography: p. 239-289. / Introduction -- Fantastic metamorphosis as childhood 'otherness' -- The metamorphic growth of wings : deviant development and adolescent hybridity -- Tenors of maturation: developing powers and changing identities -- Changing representations of werewolves: ideologies of racial and ethnic otherness -- The desire for transcendence: jouissance in selkie narratives -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Appendix: "The great Silkie of Sule Skerry": three versions. / My central thesis is that fantastic motifs work on a metaphorical level to encapsulate and express ideologies that have frequently been naturalised as 'truths'. I develop a theory of motif metaphors in order to examine the ideologies generated by the fantastic motif of metamorphosis in a range of contemporary children's and young adult fantasy texts. Although fantastic metamorphosis is an exceptionally prevalent and powerful motif in children's and young adult fantasy literature, symbolising important ideas about change and otherness in relation to childhood, adolescence, and maturation, and conveying important ideologies about the world in which we live, it has been little analysed in children's literature criticism. The detailed analyses of particular metamorphosis motif metaphors in this study expand and refine our academic understanding of the metamorphosis figure and consequently provide insight into the underlying principles and particular forms of a variety of significant ideologies. / By examining several principal metamorphosis motif metaphors I investigate how a number of specific cultural beliefs are constructed and represented in contemporary children's and young adult fantasy literature. I particularly focus upon metamorphosis as a metaphor for childhood otherness; adolescent hybridity and deviant development; maturation as a process of self-change and physical empowerment; racial and ethnic difference and otherness; and desire and jouissance. I apply a range of pertinent cultural theories to explore these motif metaphors fully, drawing on the interpretive frameworks most appropriate to the concepts under consideration. I thus employ general psychoanalytic theories of embodiment, development, language, subjectivity, projection, and abjection; poststructuralist, social constructionist, and sociological theories; and wide-ranging literary theories, philosophical theories, gender and feminist theories, race and ethnicity theories, developmental theories, and theories of fantasy and animality. The use of such theories allows for incisive explorations of the explicit and implicit ideologies metaphorically conveyed by the motif of metamorphosis in different fantasy texts. / In this study, I present a number of specific analyses that enhance our knowledge of the motif of fantastic metamorphosis and of significant cultural ideologies. In doing so, I provide a model for a new and precise approach to the analysis of fantasy literature. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / [12], 294 p