MA, University of Cincinnati, 2022, Arts and Sciences: Classics

Vergil's systematic deployment of gremium to show coexisting maternity and sexuality is unparalleled by other extant Classical authors. Through a close reading of four passages from Books 1 and 4 of the Aeneid, I argue that gremium becomes the physical site where Dido's maternal and sexual desire intersect. My argument responds, in particular, to psychoanalytic readings that oversexualize Dido and see her sexuality as corrupting her maternity; Dido's gremium is a seat of intersecting and overlapping desires, which are related but distinct. In order to preface the discussion of the Aeneid, I first present evidence that the lap and gremium are feminine-coded concepts in the ancient sources and highlight the connections to maternity and sexuality. Building upon these broad observations, I demonstrate how Vergil develops a web of semantic associations surrounding gremium to frame Dido and related characters' maternal and sexual identities. Then, I analyze how those identities interact with each other within the network. In order to contextualize Vergil's unique deployment of gremium to speak to female characters' maternal and sexual identities and desires, I turn to Lucretius who similarly uses gremium systematically in an explicitly feminine-coded context, the image of Mother Earth. An analysis of the four instances of gremium in De Rerum Natura calls attention to the overlapping themes in the use of gremium between Lucretius and Vergil, namely its use with Venus and its use to represent maternity and fertility. My intertextual analysis that compares the similar feminine-coded themes in both authors' versions suggests that Lucretius directly influenced Vergil's use of gremium. The comparison to Lucretius results in a widening of the initial network that illuminates the shared associations of gremium in the Vergilian corpus beyond Dido and Venus. This paves the way for a fruitful analysis of gremium in Ovid. Ovid uses gremium with men to subvert gender roles. When he do (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Daniel Markovich Ph.D. (Committee Member); Caitlin Hines Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Ancient Languages

MA, Kent State University, 2022, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies

In this paper I explore Vergil's depiction of his female figures in the light of the optimistic and pessimistic debate. I argue that Vergil depicts his female characters as controlled by furor, as juxtaposed to Aeneas' virtus, in order to use his female characters as a narrative and symbolic foil who work to prevent the success of Aeneas' mission. Specifically, I argue that Vergil uses elegiac and tragic conventions and adapts the depiction of females from his literary predecessors Homer, Apollonius, Callimachus, and Catullus (amongst others) to create a female figure that is representative of furor and the East, so that Aeneas' rejection of these figures symbolically represents the triumphs of Augustus and Rome. I further argue that any sympathy and ambiguities Vergil ascribes to these female characters, while they allow the reader to connect to these characters and the literary work on more than one level, still serve the political purpose of creating a more realistic connection between Aeneas and Augustus, who was facing the task of needing to reinvent himself to a Roman people he had recently disenfranchised from their land and whom he had fought in a violent civil war.

Committee: Jennifer Larson (Advisor); Sarah Harvey (Committee Member); Brian Harvey (Committee Member) Subjects: Classical Studies