The myth of Circe and Odysseus has been told, interpreted and retold from Homer's time to the present. This thesis begins with a detailed study of Homer's balancing of positive and negative elements of the myth and argues that Homer's Circe is connected with age-old traditions of goddess worship, particularly of Artemis of Ephesus. Chapters III and IV investigate the cultural context in which the purely negative Circe of the Homeric allegorists developed and how this allegorical Circe affected works by other ancient writers, particularly Virgil and Ovid. Later chapters demonstrate how this negative allegorical view of Circe prevailed through the Renaissance and seventeenth century, as evidenced in mythographies, Calderon's plays and by Spenser's Acrasia. The study concludes that allegorical interpretations of the Circe myth were founded on body-soul dualism, so that not until this belief is questioned and abandoned by Joyce and Atwood in the twentieth century are more original and/or positive Circes found.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.75897 |
| Date | January 1989 |
| Creators | Yarnall, Judith |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of English.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 000926363, proquestno: AAINL52242, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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