Ovid Underwater: Environmental Dialectics at Achelous’ Banquet

A recent tendency in studies of Metamorphoses draws inspiration from the climate crisis to highlight the uncanniness of the environments described in the poem. Ovidian nature confronts viewers and readers with the limits of human power and identity. This article integrates this approach to the repre...

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Main Author: Andrew Feldherr
Format: Article
Language:deu
Published: Université Lille-3 2024-12-01
Series:Dictynna
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/dictynna/3977
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author Andrew Feldherr
author_facet Andrew Feldherr
author_sort Andrew Feldherr
collection DOAJ
description A recent tendency in studies of Metamorphoses draws inspiration from the climate crisis to highlight the uncanniness of the environments described in the poem. Ovidian nature confronts viewers and readers with the limits of human power and identity. This article integrates this approach to the represented world of the poem with earlier critical emphases on the work’s narratological complexity. The stark power differentials suggested by the landscape contrast with the uses narrators make of environmental description to negotiate their own status within the specific contexts of narration. This function of narrative as a technique for controlling the environment is explored through close readings of the interlocking tales told at Achelous banquet. The themes of these stories, sacrifice, nurture, and reproduction, as mythical evocations of distinctively human strategies of survival, help anchor narrative itself as a means of exposing and mediating the alterity of the cosmos and suggest a model for understanding Ovid’s own act of narration in political terms.
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institution Kabale University
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1765-3142
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spelling doaj-art-e2263213c8204e2bb384733f447263302025-01-30T14:29:04ZdeuUniversité Lille-3Dictynna1969-42021765-31422024-12-012110.4000/12vk7Ovid Underwater: Environmental Dialectics at Achelous’ BanquetAndrew FeldherrA recent tendency in studies of Metamorphoses draws inspiration from the climate crisis to highlight the uncanniness of the environments described in the poem. Ovidian nature confronts viewers and readers with the limits of human power and identity. This article integrates this approach to the represented world of the poem with earlier critical emphases on the work’s narratological complexity. The stark power differentials suggested by the landscape contrast with the uses narrators make of environmental description to negotiate their own status within the specific contexts of narration. This function of narrative as a technique for controlling the environment is explored through close readings of the interlocking tales told at Achelous banquet. The themes of these stories, sacrifice, nurture, and reproduction, as mythical evocations of distinctively human strategies of survival, help anchor narrative itself as a means of exposing and mediating the alterity of the cosmos and suggest a model for understanding Ovid’s own act of narration in political terms.https://journals.openedition.org/dictynna/3977intertextualityMetamorphosesAchelousenvironmenthyperobjectsnarrative/narratology
spellingShingle Andrew Feldherr
Ovid Underwater: Environmental Dialectics at Achelous’ Banquet
Dictynna
intertextuality
Metamorphoses
Achelous
environment
hyperobjects
narrative/narratology
title Ovid Underwater: Environmental Dialectics at Achelous’ Banquet
title_full Ovid Underwater: Environmental Dialectics at Achelous’ Banquet
title_fullStr Ovid Underwater: Environmental Dialectics at Achelous’ Banquet
title_full_unstemmed Ovid Underwater: Environmental Dialectics at Achelous’ Banquet
title_short Ovid Underwater: Environmental Dialectics at Achelous’ Banquet
title_sort ovid underwater environmental dialectics at achelous banquet
topic intertextuality
Metamorphoses
Achelous
environment
hyperobjects
narrative/narratology
url https://journals.openedition.org/dictynna/3977
work_keys_str_mv AT andrewfeldherr ovidunderwaterenvironmentaldialecticsatachelousbanquet