<p> A commentary on Ars Amatoria 1.1-504 is supplemented by excursuses on the composition and structure of the work, Ovid's use of mythological exempla and his attitude towards Augustus in his pre-exilic poetry.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

In this thesis, I explore the construction of female erotic desire in Ovid’s work as it is represented in the form of mythical heroines. Phaedra-like figures appear in Ovid’s poetry as dangerous spectres of wildly inappropriate and therefore destructive, bestial, or incestuous sexuality. I consider in particular the catalogue of Phaedra-like figures in Ars Amatoria 1.283-340, Phaedra in Heroides 4, Byblis in Metamorphoses 9.439-665, and Iphis in Metamorphoses 9.666-797. Their tales act as a threat of punishment for any inappropriate desire. They represent for the normative sexual subject a sexual desire which has been excluded, and what could happen, what the normative subject could become, were he or she to transgress taboos and laws governing sexual relations. I apply the idea of the abject, as it has been formulated by Julia Kristeva and Judith Butler, in order to elucidate Ovid’s process of constructing such a subject in his poetry. I also consider Butler’s theories of the performativity of sex, gender, and kinship roles in relation to the continued maintenance of the normative and abject subject positions his poetry creates. The intersection of “performance” and performativity is crucial to the representation of the heroines as paradigms of female desire. Ovid’s engagement with his literary predecessors in the genre of tragedy, in particular Euripides’ and Sophocles’ tragedies featuring Phaedra, highlights the idea of dramatically “performing” a role, e.g., the role of incestuous step-mother. Such a spotlight on “performance” in all of these literary representations reveals the performativity of culturally defined gender and kinship roles. Ovid’s ludic representations, or “citations,” of Phaedra, I argue, both reinvest cultural stereotypes of women’s sexuality with authority through their repetition and introduce new possibilities of feminine subjectivity and sexuality through the variations in each iteration.

In this thesis, I explore the construction of female erotic desire in Ovid’s work as it is represented in the form of mythical heroines. Phaedra-like figures appear in Ovid’s poetry as dangerous spectres of wildly inappropriate and therefore destructive, bestial, or incestuous sexuality. I consider in particular the catalogue of Phaedra-like figures in Ars Amatoria 1.283-340, Phaedra in Heroides 4, Byblis in Metamorphoses 9.439-665, and Iphis in Metamorphoses 9.666-797. Their tales act as a threat of punishment for any inappropriate desire. They represent for the normative sexual subject a sexual desire which has been excluded, and what could happen, what the normative subject could become, were he or she to transgress taboos and laws governing sexual relations. I apply the idea of the abject, as it has been formulated by Julia Kristeva and Judith Butler, in order to elucidate Ovid’s process of constructing such a subject in his poetry. I also consider Butler’s theories of the performativity of sex, gender, and kinship roles in relation to the continued maintenance of the normative and abject subject positions his poetry creates. The intersection of “performance” and performativity is crucial to the representation of the heroines as paradigms of female desire. Ovid’s engagement with his literary predecessors in the genre of tragedy, in particular Euripides’ and Sophocles’ tragedies featuring Phaedra, highlights the idea of dramatically “performing” a role, e.g., the role of incestuous step-mother. Such a spotlight on “performance” in all of these literary representations reveals the performativity of culturally defined gender and kinship roles. Ovid’s ludic representations, or “citations,” of Phaedra, I argue, both reinvest cultural stereotypes of women’s sexuality with authority through their repetition and introduce new possibilities of feminine subjectivity and sexuality through the variations in each iteration.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:26:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2006-04-10Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:34:39Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 boschiero_ic_me_arafcl.pdf: 712055 bytes, checksum: 2787ee77308de0e62cb2c3351a274b4a (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Assumindo o papel de praeceptor amoris (preceptor do amor), Ovídio compõe a Ars amatoria, proclamando que tal obra é capaz de tornar instruídos (docti) os que não sabem amar. O título dado à preceptística é já esclarecedor, pois evidencia a concepção de amor como ars, ou seja, o relaciona à perícia, técnica, habilidade, bem como a método, teoria, sistema de procedimentos. Além da matéria que se propõe a ensinar, o manual ovidiano possui outra característica intrigante: é um poema híbrido, ou seja, um poema didático composto em metro elegíaco e não em hexâmetro, permeado de topoi próprios das elegias. Esse hibridismo ou o entrelaçar dos corpos elegíaco e didático é que denuncia o caráter inter e metatextual da Ars amatoria. Nas elegias, o leitor é levado a crer que aqueles topoi são de fato sentimentos naturais e espontâneos. Quando esse leitor se defronta com a Ars, nota que, na verdade, eles são imitações de sentimentos. Em outras palavras, é declarado a ele que a maneira de agir de um apaixonado não passa de uma série de convenções. Assim, Ovídio remete seu leitor para outras obras elegíacas, inclusive as suas próprias (Amores, Heróides, Os remédios para o amor). Esse procedimento capacita o leitor a estabelecer relações entre textos diferentes, ou seja, mostra a ele como ler, como se engajar no discurso erótico, tornando a Ars amatoria, mais que um manual de amor, um manual de poesia. / Assuming the role of praeceptor amoris (preceptor of love), Ovid composes the Ars amatoria, proclaiming that such work is able to make experts (docti) out of those who don t know how to love. The title given to the poem is significant in itself, since it makes evident the concept of love as ars, that is, related to technique, acquired skill, as well as to method, theory, and system of procedures. Aside from the subject it teaches, the ovidian manual has another intriguing feature: it is a hybrid poem, that is, a didactic poem composed in elegiac meter, not in hexameters, permeated of elegiac topoi. Intemingling the elegiac with didactic bodies reveals the Ars amatoria s inter and metatextual feature. In elegies, the reader begins to believe that those topoi are spontaneous feelings. However, when he faces the Ars, the reader notices that those feelings are, in fact, imitations of feelings. In other words, it is declared that being as a passionate person is nothing but following a series of conventions. In order to produce such an effect, Ovid sends the readers to other elegiac works, including his ones (Amores, Heroids, Remedia amoris). By doing that, Ovid enables the reader to establish conexions between different texts, that is, he demonstrates to the reader how he can engage himself in the erotic discourse. Such a procedure makes the Ars, more than a manual of love, a manual of poetry.

M.A. / In this dissertation I aim to establish how Ovid uses the Rape of the Sabine Women, part of the foundation myth of Rome, in the Ars Amatoria I: 101-134 to maintain or restructure male-female relationships within Roman patriarchal society. Furthermore, Ovid's legacy in the Middle Ages and our modem society is briefly looked at. This myth tells that Romulus and his men had a shortage of women in their city as they were not considered suitable husbands by the men of the surrounding tribes. In response to the ridicule of their neighbours, Romulus held a celebration of the Consualia at which he and his men seized the Sabine maidens, who would later become their wives. A semiotic approach is used to understand how Ovid viewed existing male-female relationships and to what end he would like to restructure them. Ovid understood the strength of this myth and retold it in order to persuade his audience of his argument. In these lines Ovid explained to the student-lover how and why to meet a woman at the Theatre. Through the comparison of the ancient and the contemporary, his use of certain words and figures of speech, Ovid attempted to convince his audience of the effectiveness of the art of love he promoted: a contract of agreement between two willing partners created by persuasion rather than force. He displayed an amazing understanding of the human psyche, as well as the violent, angry nature of rape. Ovid's novel approach has affected authors of the Middle Ages, among them Geoffrey Chaucer, artists of the 'heroic rape' genre and can even be discussed in relation to modem rape myths and the modern concept of equity between the sexes introduced in the Ars already. His style and subject matter has caused the analysis of his work to be highly debated among many modem scholars. It is my conclusion that Ovid wrote the Ars Amatoria with the intention of restructuring male-female relationships in Roman society, promoting a movement away from violence and unfulfilling relationships, typical of the Roman marriage tradition. His work was so far reaching that he did not only create a stir among his contemporaries, but instead he influenced the development of the male-female relationship and interaction over centuries.

Based on the author's Thesis (Ph. D.--University of Keele), 1993. / Spine title: Seduction and repetition in Ovid's Ars amatoria II. Includes bibliographical references (p. [297]-310) and indexes.

Based on the author's Thesis (Ph. D.--University of Keele), 1993. / Spine title: Seduction and repetition in Ovid's Ars amatoria II. Includes bibliographical references (p. [297]-310) and indexes. Also issued online.

Based on the author's Thesis (Ph. D.--University of Keele), 1993. / Spine title: Seduction and repetition in Ovid's Ars amatoria II. Includes bibliographical references (p. [297]-310) and indexes.

This thesis examines the hair imagery that runs through the works of Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid. Comparative analysis of the elegists’ approaches to the motif, with particular emphasis on determining where and how each deviates from the cultural assumptions and literary tradition attached to each image, sheds light on the character and purposes of elegy as a genre, as well as on the individual aims and innovations of each poet. The Introduction provides some background on sociological approaches to the study of hair, and considers the reasons why hair imagery should have such a prominent presence in elegy. Chapter 1 focuses on the elegists’ engagement with the idea of cultus (‘cultivation’), and their manipulation of the connotations traditionally attached to elaborate hairstyles, of sophistication on the one hand, and immorality on the other, to suit an elegiac context. Chapter 2 looks at how the complexities of the power relationship between the lover and his mistress play out in references to violent hair-pulling. Chapter 3 focuses on the sometimes positively and sometimes negatively spun image of grey-haired lovers, as a reflection of the lover-poet’s own contradictory wishes for his relationship with his mistress; it also considers grey hair as a symbol of physical mortality, as contrasted with poetic immortality. Chapter 4 examines the use of images of loose hair (especially images of dishevelled mourning) to suggest connotations ranging from the erotic to the pathetic, and focuses on the effects the elegists achieve by using a single image to communicate multiple implications. The Conclusion considers the ‘afterlife’ of elegiac hair imagery: the influence that their approaches had on later authors’ handling of similar images.

La femme occupe une place centrale dans la poésie amoureuse augustéenne ; les trois grands élégiaques — Tibulle, Properce et Ovide — ainsi que leur prédécesseur Catulle ressentent un amour si grand pour la puella qu’il devient le moteur de la création littéraire et, du coup, la jeune femme en incarne la muse. Ainsi, la beauté du corps de la puella, mais aussi celle de son esprit, compose la matière élégiaque et définit dans un même temps la femme idéale selon les poètes de l’amour. Du fait de son statut de poète de l’amour, Ovide reprend le canon élégiaque de la puella lorsqu’il compose son recueil didactique l’Art d’aimer. Ce mémoire étudie dans un premier temps la femme des élégies latines, ses caractéristiques physiques, intellectuelles et émotionnelles de même que sa capacité à s’engager dans le type d’union préconisé par les poètes amoureux. Ces éléments seront repris dans le cadre de l’analyse des personnages féminins des digressions narratives de l’Art d’aimer afin de montrer comment Ovide construit ses héroïnes mythologiques selon un exemplum positif ou négatif de la puella élégiaque.