Parallel session 2, panel 1: Memory and Gender

(Thursday 21^st June, 11.45-1.15pm)

Memory and Identity in Seneca’s Medea
Sophie Ngan (Durham University)

In this paper, I show that memory and commemoration, are integral to the (self-) identity of Seneca’s Medea, displacing the normative mode of female identification through social relationships. For Medea, the remembrance of her deeds and her marital identity are closely entwined. Jason’s remarriage indicates his lack of remembrance and recognition of her important role in the Argonautic deeds; in her attempts to retain her marital identity, Medea calls for Jason to remember the deeds for which he owes her his life. Like the slighted epic hero, Medea’s deeds are devalued; in the course of her divorce, Medea paradoxically reclaims her marital identity.

In order to reclaim the marital identity which she has earned, Medea draws upon memory in two ways: firstly, she calls upon her past deeds as a model to emulate; secondly, she desires her current deeds to be seen and remembered. By recalling her past deeds, Medea models, by temporal symmetry, her divorce on her marriage, accomplishing both through crimes (l.55). However, in order to be recognised, the crimes of Medea’s divorce must exceed, in their extremity, the unrecognised crimes of her marriage. With this twisted logic, Medea resolves to kill her own children, exceeding the transgression of the murder of her brother. Moreover, Medea’s divorce-crime must be seen and remembered by Jason, in order for her identity to be recognised, rendering the killing of the first child without Jason present devalued in Medea’s eyes (ll.992-994). For Medea, being Jason’s wife is not dependent on the marital bond, but on being seen as Jason’s wife; therefore, having killed their children, Medea orders Jason to recognise her as his wife (l.1021: coniugem agnoscis tuam?).

Seneca’s Medea appropriates the masculine mode of identification of the epic hero, based on the recognition of deeds and, consequently, the remembrance of identity. By remembering her own past deeds, and by ensuring her present deeds are remembered, Medea simultaneously and paradoxically severs social ties and reclaims her marital identity. In this way, Medea adopts the masculine mode of identification through remembered deeds in order to be recognised in female roles.

Audita mente notaui: Anamnesis and Pastoral Impersonation in the Speech of Ovid’s Galatea
Eleni Ntanou (University of Manchester)

This paper will explore the Nereid Galatea’s recollection and re-performance of the Cyclops’ serenade for her in Ovid’s epic, the Metamorphoses from the perspective of gender and generic interaction. The Cyclops Polyphemus’ serenade for Galatea is introduced into pastoral in Theocritus’ Idylls and becomes a standard theme of pastoral in post-Theocritean poetry. In Virgil’s Eclogues, the serenade for Galatea is several times reprised, altered and woven into the repertory of the Virgilian poet-herdsmen. Thus the serenade for Galatea has already become strongly associated with the pastoral genre when it appears in the Ovidian epic. I will suggest that in a stark upturn of the masculine poetics of both epic and pastoral, the Metamorphoses strikingly offers a voice to Galatea presenting her as the narrator of the Cyclops’ story and song.

Galatea’s explicit emphasis on her memory of the Cyclops’ performance and her repetition of the song suggest the interplay between personal and intertextual memory. Moreover, by having Galatea re-performing the Cyclops’ song from memory, the Metamorphoses acts out pastoral role-playing and casts Galatea in the role of Polyphemus. Pastoral poetry repeatedly presents pastoral singers as assuming the personae of several mythical pastoral heroes during their performances, among whom the Cyclops. Nonetheless, as I will argue, the performance of the Cyclops’ song is striking in the Metamorphoses not only for its transference into a new generic context, that of epic, but also for its re-enactment by Galatea. In pastoral poetry, the Nereid Galatea is repeatedly presented as paradigmatically alien to pastoral, belonging to the sea, which is often depicted as the ‘other’ of the pastoral world. Furthermore, Galatea’s female voice clashes with the male centred-worlds and the heroics of both epic and pastoral poetry and thus simultaneously irrupts into both genres. In bringing to sharp focus issues of genre and gender and their reprisal in the Metamorphoses, Galatea’s performance can be read as a substantial case-study for Ovid’s innovative epic poetics.

Memory and manipulation in Apollonius’ Argonautica
Katharine Mawford (University of Manchester)

In Apollonius’ Argonautica we witness Hera’s manipulation of the young Medea through the intervention of Aphrodite and Eros, as Medea is made to fall in love with Jason. However, this is not the only method of Hera’s control over Medea; memory, too, plays a part. Distressed at the thought of how she will be remembered after helping Jason (3.791-3), Medea suddenly remembers (μνήσατο, 3.813) her happy childhood and is diverted from her potential suicide which would derail the goddess’ plot – a change of heart which we are explicitly told is brought about by Hera (Ἥρης ἐννεσίῃσι, 3.818). Later, however, Medea demonstrates an active control over and concern for her own memory (both internally and in terms of her reputation) as she asks Jason to remember her (μνώεο δ᾽ … οὔνομα Μηδείης, 3.1069-70). In an epic in which the memory of past deeds is from the very beginning established by the narrator as essential to its telling (ἀρχόμενος σέο, Φοῖβε, παλαιγενέων κλέα φωτῶν / μνήσομαι, 1.1-2), Medea’s concern for her future memory and Hera’s manipulation of this aspect of her character distorts the model set up by the narrator, and provides a personal analogue for the acts of remembrance involved in constructing the epic as a whole. Furthermore, in depicting Medea’s concern for future remembrance and reputation, and her manipulated memory, as I shall demonstrate, Apollonius draws connections between his Medea and Helen as she appears in both the Iliad and Odyssey, and additionally between Hera, Medea and the Odyssey’s Circe.

In this paper, I shall therefore discuss how the addition and removal of memories are used to allow for characterisation and narrative development, by considering potential intertextual readings with texts such as the Iliad and the Odyssey. This paper will explore the process of being reminded as a passive – and generally painful – action, against active remembrance and the understanding of one’s own impression in the future. Finally, in light of my reading of Medea against Helen, I shall discuss how Apollonius’ use of memory and its removal or distortion interacts with this motif in the Odyssey and the sailors’ nostoi.