Recent Research in the Field
Recent Research Theses on Women in Greek Myth
These are presented in order of year. They demonstrate the growing scholarship on women in Greek myth and feminist rewritings.
Gilchrist, Katie E. (1997) Penelope: A Study in the Manipulation of Myth; DPhil thesis, Oxford: University of Oxford
This thesis investigates how Penelope appears from unknown origins, acquires a portrayal in Homer's Odyssey that is almost canonical, and then participates in the subsequent interaction of Homeric and other literary allusions throughout later Classical literature. Chapters concentrate especially on fifth-century Greek tragedy, Hellenistic poetry, and Augustan literature.
Mythological characters have a variety of functions in literature. They may make direct contributions as fully realised characters, but they may also make indirect contributions as the foundation upon which literary characterisation or rhetorical argumentation are built, or as a backdrop against which other literary techniques (such as the rewriting of epic or the Romanization of Greek culture) can be distinguished.
Gilchrist analyses how Penelope is regarded by other characters of the epic. She then proposes that other female characters in Greek and Latin writing are assigned the role of Penelope; Penelope as chaste, patient, faithful, potentially unfaithful; Penelope as an exemplum and as a rounded character; Penelope as depicted in classical art, statuary, jewellery, frescoes.
The thesis compares the character of Penelope with the characters of Helen and Clytemnestra (and others) within the Homeric epics. It suggests the actions of these contrasting women provide alternate pathways for Penelope. Both Penelope and Helen are admired for their weaving, skills regarded both literally and figuratively, as strategy.
It does not consider any depictions of Penelope written by women.
Spann, Britta Leigh, Reviving Kalliope: Four North American Women and the Epic Tradition, University of Oregon, PhD Thesis, 2009
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/36685199.pdf
Classical epic poetry is often seen as a ‘masculinist genre’ in English literary studies, reinforcing dominant culture values that foreground men, and their violence. However, women poets have found inspiration in the epics of Homer and Virgil to critique gender identity and traditional masculinity. The poets, HD., Gwendolyn Brooks, Louise Gluck, and Anne Carson, through their poems Helen in Egypt, Annie Allen, Meadowlands, and Autobiography of Red respectively, are deeply invested in these works and find in them models for their own social critiques. The dissertation challenges the characterisation of classical epic in English literary studies and emphasises the complexity of ancient texts that inspire modern poets. By examining the ways modern women have engaged with the works of their ancient predecessors, the dissertation demonstrates that the epic genre is more complex than previously recognized and its tradition continues to flourish through the rewritings by women .
Spann approaches the poems as palimpsest, protest and tragic opera epics. She starts with considering how Modernism supports a version of epic poetry and classical influence. She notes that epics themselves contain the basis for critique of sex based expectations which inspire modern poets. Her thesis examines how poets use epic conventions and texts to challenge the traditional conception of the epic tradition and its ideology. She notes the focus on the domestic sphere and romantic relationships, rather than war, and an interest in individual rather than collective experiences, thereby resisting the nationalistic messaging of conventional epic.
This work can be connected to the work of writers who translate ancient women poets, who subverted Homeric epic by applying literary devices to domestic scenes. It acknowledges the legacy of epic as employed by women writers.
Richards, Jasmine, Arachne’s Daughters: Towards a Feminist Poetics of Creative Autonomy, Goldsmiths, University of London Ph.D. English and Comparative Literature, October 2013
Classical myth has been a source of inspiration for women writers. Scholars like Nancy K. Miller associate classical women with textile production (Arachne, Ariadne and Penelope). There is a tradition of female authors rewriting ancient heroines as artists, weavers, storytellers, and figures of female wisdom and prophetic power. This study examines theories of authorship, influence, and reception to a female writing subject and applies them to case studies. The thesis assesses the extent to which they have successfully used classical myth to create positive representations of women, female creativity, voice, and influence. However, these authors sometimes reproduce negative discourses of female creative inadequacy and authorial anxiety that do not reflect historical and contemporary reality. Extending Nancy K. Miller’s theory of ‘Arachnologies’, she develops a new framework for reading women’s rewriting practices.The feminist poetics of creative autonomy reflects the woman writer's sophisticated and creative dialogue with the classics and her relationship to the literary cultures and reading communities with which she identifies.
For Richards, a feminist poetics of creative autonomy aims to create space for women's voices in poetry and to explore the ways in which women's experiences and identities can inform and enrich literary production. In this thesis, feminist poetics is also associated with the idea of creative autonomy, or the ability of women poets to resist patriarchal norms and to assert their own creative agency. A technique for demonstrating how women have always been present in literature is to examine ancient myth in search of depictions of female characters whose creative deeds can be regarded as a signature of female authorship. The settings of the source texts are used in all the rewriting techniques examined in this thesis to provide an oppositional arena where female-author characters can generate alternative narratives or provide resistance to the sexist standards of female behaviour that have a negative impact on their lives. Richards notes the anxiety of influence in these rewritings by Mary Shelley, Margaret Atwood and Ursula Le Guin, symbolised by the relationship between mothers and daughters, the author’s relationship with her reading community. .
Richards advocates for the promotion and proliferation of literary representations of the creative autonomy of female authorship using her model of ‘Arachne's Web.’ She underlines how feminist reading and rewriting strategies have been applied in a variety of ways (and could be expanded upon) to prevent the reproduction of derogatory stereotypes about women and female creativity in a feminist discourse. She views the duties and challenges for Arachne's daughters in the twenty-first century as: continuing the work of Arachne's web; inventing new strategies of feminist reading and rewriting by building on the work of their literary mothers; and maintaining women's voices as present and powerful.
The thesis aligns with other work by classicists who see women’s weaving as storytelling. Academic works that support this idea include:
● Women’s Work: The First 20,000: Years Women, Cloth and Society in Early Times - Elizabeth Wayland Barber (1996) Helen P. Foley’s Homeric Hymn to Demeter with commentary
● Essay ‘What was Penelope Unweaving? ‘ - Carolyn Heilbrun 1985 (drafting possible futures for her story)
● Kruger, Kathryn Sullivan. Weaving the Word: The Metaphorics of Weaving and Female Textual Production. Cranbury, NJ: Rosemont Publishing, 2001.
● Klindienst, P. (2002) ‘The Voice of the Shuttle is Ours’ in Ed. McClure, L. Sexuality and Gender in the Classical World: 257-92.
● Spinning Fates and The Song of the Loom: The Use of Textiles, Clothing and Cloth Production as Metaphor, Symbol and Narrative Device in Greek and Latin Literature -Giovanni Fanfani (Centre for Textile Research (CTR)), Mary Harlow (Leicester University) and Marie-Louise Nosch (CTR)
● Karanika, Andromache. 2014. Voices at Work: Women, Performance and Labor in Ancient Greece. - Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press
Psychas, Hanna Eilittä Women Weaving the World: Text and Textile in the Kalevala and Beyond, Honours thesis, Harvard, December 2017.
The thesis is a creative exploration which demonstrates, both through argument and by illustration, the connection between the craft of weaving and women singing. She theorises the subversive power of resistance embodied in textile work. Of Greek and Finnish background, the creative component includes a proposed theatrical performance, Seven Women Weave with a script which includes poetry by Psychas, notes for the production design incorporating a stage design based on a loom, and transcriptions of interviews with members of Psychas’ family. She states: ‘This project attempts to apply a poetics of weaving to literary analysis and the theatrical devising process.’ The term "text,", refers to any type of artistic expression through song, both written and unwritten, that is metaphorised as a woven web, whereas the term "textile" encompasses all varieties of fabric-work, particularly as demonstrated by pattern-weaving on a standing loom that is warp-weighted.
From the playscript there is a scene: In the Hum of the World, in which she presents women’s work. The hum of the world is filled with the sounds of women weaving, bringing life to the world. The sound of the spinning wheel and the voice of a woman singing to herself are essential to the existence of the first garments and the world's first spinning wheel. Women breathe, bring life to families, and tell stories of love and humanity. The hum of the world is a reminder of the importance of women's labour and the enduring impact of their work on the world.
It aligns with other academic research on weaving as storytelling.
MacDonald, Ruth, Rethinking the Homeric Hero in Contemporary British Women’s Writing: Classical Reception, Feminist Theory and Creative Practice, PhD Thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London 2017
https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/27943583/Ruth_MacDonald_Finalised_Thesis.pdf
This thesis looks at how three texts authored by women show sustained encounters with the cyphers of conventional Homeric tropes. Elizabeth Cook's Achilles (2001), Gwyneth Lewis' A Hospital Odyssey (2010), and Kate Tempest's Brand New Ancients (2012), enable the development of an argument for the significance of different approaches and viewpoints, such as embodiment and intersubjectivity. She contends that the figuration of the nomad, as developed in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Rosi Braidotti in particular, is essential to comprehending both twenty-first century experiences and manifestations of corporeality as well as contemporary female writers' receptions of the Homeric hero. In Cook, Lewis, and Tempest, heroic bodies vacillate between liminal spaces and lurk at the edges.
The thesis is relevant to the proposed research project…
Sturzl, Lisa Christina, Margaret Atwood’s Feminist Rewritings of Classics - Masters, am Institut für Anglistik Britta SpannBegutachterin: Ao.Univ. 2018
https://unipub.uni-graz.at/obvugrhs/content/titleinfo/2581408/full.pdf
In this masters thesis Sturzl examines Atwood’s rewriting of the fairytale Bluebeard, Shakespeare’s Gertrude, and Homer’s Penelope as well as considering different types of feminisms. She says that Atwood ‘writes back to the literary canon’, reconsidering ‘the unequal power relationships between men and women in literature’ to challenge readers to ‘question predefined gender roles, misogynist traditions and patriarchal identities’. She also addresses Atwood’s relationship with feminism. She calls the original texts pretexts. She references the work of Adrienne Rich, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Andrea Dworkin, Susan Brownmiller, and Mary Daly.
Specific to Atwood’s feminist rewriting of Greek myth, Sturzl references Pomeroy's Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves (1975) and Lefkowitz's Women in Greek Myth (1986). Atwood says she will not declare herself a feminist but understands she can be called one in the broad sense of the word. She calls herself pre-feminist and not a theorist.
The thesis is relevant to the proposed research project…
Stoker, Polly "Classical Reception in Contemporary Women’s Writing: Emerging Strategies from Resistance to Indeterminacy", University of Birmingham 2019
https://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/8984/7/Stoker2019PhD.pdf
Focussing on Homeric epic and Greek theatre, this dissertation explores the reception of classical literature and culture in modern and contemporary women's writing. She notes the exclusion of the female reader in traditional reception studies as an oversight that becomes ever more visible and unquestionably less viable as women writers continue to dominate the contemporary creative arena. The thesis makes the first moves towards creating a new aesthetic model for the female reader that is built on irony, ambivalence, and indeterminacy. She considers the works of Virginia Woolf, Alice Oswald, Elizabeth Cook, and Yael Farber, who, in their writings, essentially reject the use of "resistance" as a rereading strategy and call for the creation of a new theoretical framework that can understand and acknowledge the diversity of women's reading and rewriting practises. She states: The dominance of men’s creative writing in the early formation of the sub-discipline has inevitably shaped how classicists do classical reception. To shift the focus to the abundance of women’s writing in contemporary classical reception demands a new set of creative reference points, as well as a new theoretical framework, attentive to the modern female reader and rewriter.’ She suggests a new critical framework based on irony, ambivalence, and indeterminacy.
The thesis is relevant to the proposed research project…
MacMillan, Harriet, “The Stories We Tell Ourselves to Make Ourselves Come True”: Feminist Rewriting of Mythology in the Canongate Myths Series
University of Edinburgh, 2019
This these starts with the Canongate Myths series, a project that commissioned prominent authors to recreate ancient mythologies for modern audiences, released in 2005 by the Edinburgh-based publisher Canongate. It prompted female authors to interact directly with old myths that have long been used to maintain misogynistic narratives, forcing them to evaluate how gender is represented in the myths they chose as sources. The female authors of the series' Greco-Roman mythologies—Margaret Atwood, Jeanette Winterson, Ali Smith, and Salley Vickers—serve as a singular corpus in which this thesis locates arguments for the effectiveness to uncover arguments for and against a 'feminist' strategy for reworking mythology. Whether a "feminist rewriting" is actually possible has divided critics, with some arguing that any modification must unavoidably mimic the language and structure of the original. However, this project will argue that by examining each retelling separately and the project as a whole, engagements with ancient mythologies may eventually produce results that are advantageous for representations of women and may, in turn, help to destabilise the masculinised model of the subject. The thesis argues that mythology might serve as a framework for female authors to assess the gendered consequences of their work.
The thesis is relevant to the proposed research project…
Rogers, Kylie, Why Myth Matters: The Value of the Female Voice in Greek Mythology University of Mississippi eGrove Honors Theses Honors College (Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College) Spring 4-30-2021
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2741&context=hon_thesis
In this thesis Rogers focuses on how female retellings of Greek myths shed light on the significance of myth and the reasons why these tales are still important today. She uses three key characters in particular: Circe from Madeline Miller's Circe, Penelope from Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad, and Medusa from Marjorie Garber's The Medusa Reader, as well as a few additional supporting characters from Nina MacLaughlin's Wake, Siren. She examines the unique perspectives offered by the narration of these characters and links them to the struggles and experiences that currently affect women as evidenced by political and social events like the #MeToo movement.
She posits that the full effect of stories like Circe and Wake, Siren on readers and on greater social and political changes has yet to be seen because of how recently they were published, and because the discussion of feminist literature and its influence on current feminist movements is not widely noted in academic circles. As one study notes, “even though women have made advances in higher education on multiple levels, research that is explicitly feminist is underrepresented in mainstream higher academic journals” (Ropers33 Huilman and Winters 667). She hopes ‘that this study can help contribute to a relatively new discussion and foster future conversations about how feminist retellings of Greek myths are uniquely able to capture and comment on topics that bridge present and past as well as fictional and nonfictional all in one work, which encourages renewed lessons and perspectives on both history and outlooks for the future.’
The thesis is relevant to the proposed research project…
Judge, Shelby Elizabeth Helen (2022) Contemporary feminist adaptations of Greek myth. PhD thesis.
Uni of Glasgow
https://theses.gla.ac.uk/83239/1/2022JudgePhD.pdf
The focus of this study explores the reasons for the rise in female writers' interest in adapting and rewriting classical mythology, as well as what this work indicates about present concerns and priorities in feminism and feminist theory. She contends that current feminism-related problems and literary trends in modern women's writing are both well-expressed in the present literary enthusiasm for women's revisionist myth writing. The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, which she contends is the primary source of the present tendency in women's literature to adapt myth, was published in 2005 for the Canongate Myth Series, and the scope of this thesis extends through pertinent works released in 2021. In this study, notable contributors are Jeanette Winterson, Ali Smith, and Pat Barker, Natalie Haynes, Madeline Miller, and Ursula Le Guin. In addition to combining feminist work from the fields of sociology and women's studies, as appropriate, and using a feminist literary criticism methodology, this thesis also includes feminist work from classical studies. While highlighting the variety of writing styles and strategies that represent broader modern women's writing practises, each chapter collects texts around particular contemporary feminism issues.
The thesis is relevant to the proposed research project…
From recent research, several themes emerge regarding the reinterpretation of women in Greek mythology and feminist rewritings:
Exploration of Female Characters: Scholars examine the portrayal of female characters such as Penelope, Helen, Clytemnestra, and others within Greek mythology. They analyze their roles, agency, and the ways in which they are represented by ancient authors and later literary traditions.
Feminist Critique and Rewritings: There is a focus on feminist critiques of traditional narratives and efforts by contemporary women writers to reinterpret and reclaim these stories. These rewritings often challenge gender stereotypes, patriarchal structures, and the marginalization of women in classical mythology.
Interdisciplinary Approaches: Researchers adopt interdisciplinary approaches, drawing on fields such as literary theory, feminist studies, sociology, and classical studies to analyze the significance of women's roles in mythology and their reinterpretation in contemporary literature.
Textile and Weaving Metaphors: There is a recurring theme of textile production and weaving as metaphors for female creativity, agency, and storytelling. This motif is used to explore the connection between women, artistry, and narrative production in both ancient and modern contexts.
Engagement with Classical Tradition: Scholars and writers engage with the classical tradition while simultaneously subverting and challenging its conventions. They explore how contemporary feminist perspectives and concerns intersect with ancient mythological narratives, offering new interpretations and insights.
Modern Poetic Reinterpretations: Researchers highlight the ways in which modern poets, particularly women poets, draw inspiration from classical epics to critique gender identity, traditional masculinity, and societal norms. These poetic rewritings serve as a means of reimagining and reclaiming the epic tradition from a feminist perspective.
Cultural Relevance and Social Commentary: There is an emphasis on examining how contemporary feminist rewritings of Greek mythology reflect and comment on present-day issues and concerns, such as gender inequality, sexual violence, and the #MeToo movement.
These themes underscore the ongoing scholarly and creative interest in reevaluating women's roles in Greek mythology and the ways in which these narratives are reshaped to reflect contemporary feminist perspectives and priorities.
Comments
Post a Comment