{"id":405,"date":"2023-05-17T20:00:20","date_gmt":"2023-05-17T20:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/?p=405"},"modified":"2023-05-17T20:00:20","modified_gmt":"2023-05-17T20:00:20","slug":"ovid-and-the-female-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/2023\/05\/17\/ovid-and-the-female-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Ovid and the Female Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ovid\u2019s mythological heroines can display heightened reactions to their situations which everyday women can still relate to, argues Kimberly Tyson (\u201925)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Heroides<\/a> <\/em>(\u201cHeroines\u201d) by the Roman poet Ovid<\/a> is a series of verse letters written in the voices of mythological women. Each character composes a letter to her lover, airing grievances that both her lover and the reader might disregard as inconsequential. But Ovid explored these intense emotions of mythological women towards their romantic partners to highlight the experiences of women in real life. Ovid illustrated the universal themes of abandonment, honor, and agency through the amplified frustrations of mythological women to make the reader understand these experiences through a female lens.<\/p>\n

\"woman's<\/a>
Portrait of Penelope, detail from H\u00e9ro\u00efdes ou \u00e9pitres d’Ovide, traduites par Octavien de Saint Gelais. Huntington Library via Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ovid emphasized the range of emotions from fear to fury in the heroines\u2019 reactions to abandonment. Abandonment defines the Heroides<\/em> but affects each character differently. Penelope<\/a>, Queen of Ithaca, worries that her husband Odysseus, absent for the past twenty years, \u201ccould be captive now to a foreign love\u201d (1.76). Phyllis<\/a> laments to Demophoon that \u201clike a madwoman I even had your damaged ships rebuilt\u2026ready for your desertion\u201d (2.45\u201349), and Aeneas similarly abandons Dido<\/a> once her usefulness ended (7.9\u201310.) Briseis<\/a> is no queen, but a slave who feels \u201ccontemptible, forsaken,\u201d with \u201cfear shak[ing her] bones\u201d at her fate if Achilles leaves her behind (3.81\u201382). The cause of their worries vary: some fear for their own security, or what their lover himself will suffer. The heroines struggle to cope with the loss, suffering at home unlike their ambitious lovers. They often have little say in their lover\u2019s departure, even when they wield vast societal power otherwise.<\/p>\n

The heroines\u2019 own dignity\u2014as well as the honor they bestow upon their lovers\u2014are united in their righteous anger. Phyllis cries to Demophoon, \u201cThe lover and the woman were deceived by your words: may the gods let this be the one thing you are known for!\u201d (2.55\u201356). Dido tells Aeneas she hopes \u201cthe image of the wife you cheated would stand before your eyes\u201d (7.63\u201364). Queen Hypsipyle<\/a> curses Jason and his new wife Medea to \u201c\u2018live man and bride in an accursed bed!\u2019\u201d for his infidelity (6.163\u2013164). The heroines\u2019 wrath is completely justified: their lovers were the first to break the heroines\u2019 trust. Even when they can do nothing about it, the women fully express the truth of their own experience.<\/p>\n

Ovid explored the women\u2019s lack of agency in their relationships, sometimes contrasting it with their agency in other parts of their lives. Dido furiously asks Aeneas \u201cWho\u2019d give possession of his fields to an unknown?\u201d like she did. (7.17\u201318). She reminds him of her accomplishments: \u201c[I] endured harsh journeys, pursued by enemies\u2026and I won this shore, I founded Carthage\u2026a cause of envy\u201d (7.113\u2013122). She desperately promises, \u201cIf your mind\u2019s eager for war\u2026we\u2019ll have no lack of enemies to offer\u201d (7.157\u2013159). In contrast, Briseis is a non-Greek slave with zero agency who relies on the love and mercy of her superior Achilles, whose decisions control her future (3.1\u20132, 59\u201362, 99\u2013102). The queens exert agency separate from their lovers, through their own station and merit, which initially lets them choose to assist their lovers. But their lack of agency in their relationships consumes them, lovers robbing them of power.<\/p>\n

Penelope\u2019s frustrations with Odysseus represent those of real-life women who must intelligently manage their lovers\u2019 absence. Penelope berates Odysseus for making her \u201cfear everything, insanely, [with] my anxieties\u2026open to wide speculation\u201d (1.71\u201372). Penelope uses her demure fidelity against the suitors who have besieged her home, making her an unwilling<\/em> hostess in Odysseus\u2019s absence. (1.84\u201386, 91\u201395). Ovid demonstrated her quiet, effective intelligence and strong internal motivations despite the arrogant men around her. Penelope\u2019s complicated feelings about Odysseus are a nuanced representation of women\u2019s real-life concerns. Phyllis, however, cannot cope with being exploited by Demophoon.<\/p>\n

Ovid used Phyllis to explore the bleaker experiences of women who suffer betrayal by men they trusted after offering their support. She is the most pitiful of all the women in the Heroides<\/em>, reflecting the depression of well-meaning women who undeserving men take advantage of, and for whom the women remain desperate. Phyllis gave everything to Demophoon and received nothing but heartbreak. Phyllis is a warning against naivete, wasting away as she pines for Demophoon\u2019s unlikely return (2.99\u2013102). Her suffering is passive and desolate, but the images she conjures of suicide\u2014\u201cThe tide will carry me, abandoned, to your shore\u201d \u2014are almost dream-like (2.131\u2013144). Through Phyllis, Ovid represents the fallacy of na\u00efve trust and romanticism, which results in the exploitation of a woman with a good heart.<\/p>\n

Dido, in contrast, is much angrier about her turmoil. Ovid uses Dido\u2019s unhinged emotional perspective to demonstrate the terrifying extent of women\u2019s anger toward traitorous lovers. Queen Dido is a powerful character, but her love for Aeneas has reduced her to unbecoming, dramatic behavior. She desperately wants Aeneas to marry and rule alongside her, even declaring, \u201cIf you are ashamed of me being your wife, let me be called not bride, but host; as long as she is yours, Dido will endure to be whatever you wish\u201d (7.167\u2013169). Dido\u2019s anger and desperation at his betrayal is deranged, but Ovid validated her fury. He acknowledged women\u2019s full, unpretty breakdowns, and licensed not being strategically subdued like Penelope, nor weepy like Phyllis. Ovid took Dido seriously as a complex, powerful woman who demands both his and the reader\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

He treated Briseis with similar care, though her situation requires a different degree of understanding. Ovid portrayed Briseis\u2019s enslavement with nuance to highlight her unique suffering and elaborate on her marginalization. Briseis lost her livelihood to the Greeks in the Trojan War but feels that her master Achilles \u201calone made up for them,\u201d (3.51) even though she worries he will \u201creject and shun [her]\u201d (3.55-56). Briseis has the least societal power of all the heroines, particularly when Greek commander-in-chief Agamemnon takes her away from Achilles, who is \u201cidle, and slow to anger\u201d in recovering her, for which he has absolutely no obligation (3.21\u201324, 3.39\u201342). Ovid explored her unique position at the bottom of society to demonstrate the full female experience. The reader feels uncomfortable and hopeless on her behalf as shares her confusion about the future state of her life. These mythological characters enabled Ovid to exaggerate and dramatize their problems which are relevant and understandable to his audience.<\/p>\n

Ovid used the inherently dramatized stories of these mythological women to emphasize the universal struggles they portray. Because they are mythological characters, the heroines can display heightened reactions to their situations which everyday women can still relate to. The suffering of being abandoned by a lover has transcended women\u2019s lives throughout history. Even when one\u2019s lover is gone because of duty or necessity, anger and frustration arise from the fear of loss, infidelity, and abandonment. Terrifying questions persist: What will happen to my lover? Why can\u2019t he stay safe with me? Will someone else take advantage of me? Though Ovid was not necessarily unique among his contemporaries in depicting well-developed female characters, by exclusively dedicating the Heroides<\/em> to female characters, Ovid demonstrated their perspectives to a higher degree.<\/p>\n

Ovid examined his chosen themes through a lens that illuminates the nuances of female suffering. Ovid refrained from demeaning the women\u2019s experiences and fleshed them out with their own motivations, emotions, and actions without the distraction of male perspectives. He filled in a gap in his own storytelling and brought forth a necessary set of poems that voiced all female perspectives on the themes of abandonment, honor, and agency. Even though some of the heroines exert astounding political and social power, all experience their world in a distinctly female way. Men do not take the heroines seriously and treat the women\u2019s desires as trivial in contrast to their own heroic goals. If the heroines were men, their lovers would not treat them with such callous disrespect.<\/p>\n

Ovid used the mythological women of the Heroides<\/em> to explore the full range of women\u2019s experiences with abandonment, honor, and agency. He contrasted the characters both against each other and the freedom and dominance of their lovers. Penelope conveys the intelligent tact that women must display when their lover\u2019s absence has made them lose agency in their lives. Phyllis\u2019s desolate emotions represent the depression of kind, exploited women, though Dido\u2019s reaction to the same situation is much more furious. Through Briseis, Ovid explored an enslaved women who is keenly aware of her lack of agency. The characters\u2019 dramatic stories let Ovid illuminate real women\u2019s suffering for his audience and validate women\u2019s experiences throughout time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ovid\u2019s mythological heroines can display heightened reactions to their situations which everyday women can still relate to, argues Kimberly Tyson (\u201925) Heroides (\u201cHeroines\u201d) by the Roman poet Ovid is a series of verse letters written in the voices of mythological women. Each character composes a letter to her lover, airing grievances that both her lover … Continue reading Ovid and the Female Experience<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[316754],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ovid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/classicalstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}