Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Greek and Latin

Animalization classifies women as non-human animals who must be tamed and controlled by marriage and motherhood. Our earliest written sources, like Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days (7th c. BCE) and Semonides' Fragment 7 (7th c. BCE), describe women's body parts in animal terms to manipulate the actions and behavior of female characters for a male audience. Animalization continues to affect the treatment of women and animals today, particularly regarding voice, agency, and bodily autonomy. Using Julia Kristeva's (1985), Donna Haraway's (1985), and Carol J. Adams' (1990) theories, I propose a woman-as- animal spectrum where female-presenting individuals slide between neutral/domesticated/sacrificial animals and bestial/wild/hybrid monsters. Using this spectrum, I investigate the animalized female body in classical literature through women's skin, mind, and reproductive system and end with a discussion of how contemporary authors and artists are reclaiming animalization today. Because women develop from monsters in ancient cosmogonies, I argue in chapter 1, “Skin,” that Io, Callisto, Ocyrhoe, and Scylla in Ovid's Metamorphoses (1st c. CE) experience species dysphoria, anxiety and depression because their interior and exterior experiences do not match. Hindu and First Nations stories, however, show that women do not have to suffer when transforming into animals with whom they share a close kinship. In chapter 2, “Mind,” I explore three animal metaphors (snakes, dogs, and lions) through four women from Greek tragedy (5th c. BCE): Agave in Euripides' Bacchae, Creusa in Euripides' Ion, Clytemnestra in Aeschylus' Oresteia, and Medea in Euripides' Medea. I then move to Roman tragedy (1st c. CE), where I argue that Seneca's Medea and Phaedra present the title characters as uniquely Roman manifestations of the woman-as- animal spectrum. I end by suggesting how tragic women can harness hybridity as a tool for promoting their own and their children's agency. In c (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Thomas Hawkins (Committee Chair); Dana Munteanu (Committee Member); Julia Hawkins (Committee Member) Subjects: Ancient Languages; Animals; Classical Studies; Comparative Literature; Gender Studies; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, Greek and Latin

This dissertation explores Euripides' use of the deus ex machina device in his extant plays. While many scholars have discussed aspects of the deus ex machina my project explores the overall function not only of the deus ex machina within its play but also the function of two other aspects common to deus ex machina speeches: aitia and prophecy. I argue that deus ex machina interventions are not motivated by a problem in the plot that they must solve but instead they are used to connect the world of the play to the world of the audience through use of cult aitia and prophecy. In Chapter 1, I provide an analysis of Euripides' deus ex machina scenes in the Hippolytus, Andromache, Suppliants, Electra, Ion, Iphigenia in Tauris, Helen, Orestes, Bacchae, and Medea. I argue that in all but the Orestes the intervention does not have a major effect on the plot or characters and I identify certain trends in the function of deus ex machina scenes such as consolation, enhancing Athenian pride, and increasing experimentation in the deus ex machina's role in respect to the plot of the play and the wider world of myth. In Chapter 2, I examine cult aitia in Euripides' Hippolytus and Iphigenia in Tauris and argue that Euripides uses cult aitia in plays with strong religious or cultic themes in order to connect the world of the play with the world of the audience through ritual. I also argue against the idea that there is perfect correspondence between the aitia represented in Euripides and real life cult practice instead contending that differences between the aitia in Euripides and our evidence for real cult practice may stem from Euripides referencing real cults but modifying certain aspects in order to better suit his literary motives. In Chapter 3, I examine Euripides' use of prophecy in his Electra, Helen, and Orestes. Using intertextuality and concepts from media studies I argue that Euripides uses prophecy to connect the world of the play to the world of the audience (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Dana Munteanu (Advisor); Sarah Johnston (Committee Member); Hawkins Thomas (Committee Member) Subjects: Classical Studies; Literature; Theater

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1975, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Literature

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1974, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Theater

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1954, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Literature

Bachelor of Arts, Ohio University, 2015, Classics and World Religions

The Athenian playwright Euripides has often been labeled a misogynist, both by some of his contemporaries and some modern scholars. In my thesis I attempt to show that this claim is unfounded. I examine the evidence that has been brought forth by scholars for Euripides' misogynistic reputation. Then, I look closely at Euripides' works Medea, Hippolytus and Phaedra, particularly focusing on how Euripides changes the characterization of the women from myth and previous tragedies, and fashions their thoughts, feelings, and struggles to resemble those of 5th century B.C. Athenian women. A close reading of these works makes clear that Euripides was aware of tensions in Athenian society between men and women, brought about by their subordinate position to men in Athenian society, and was attempting to make his audience acknowledge and understand their struggles. He was not offering solutions for the tensions he observed, rather he was provoking his audience to question their assumptions and conceptions about women and possibly make a change in society.

Committee: Tom Carpenter Dr. (Advisor); Lynne Lancaster Dr. (Other) Subjects: Classical Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2013, Theatre

The issues addressed by the writers of fifth-century B.C. Athens continue to have great relevance for the contemporary world. This research focuses on the gender dynamics of the plays and how contemporary revisions by women offer new ways of considering these classic texts. Greek drama is known for its strong and vibrant female characters. I use Euripides' three Greek tragedies--Medea, The Trojan Women, and The Bacchae--as the source texts for new versions of the plays by women writers. I draw on Lynda Hart's triad of dramaturgical sites that define a feminist dramaturgy: women's bodies, language, and theatrical space. Chapter two focuses on four revisions of Medea: Franca Rame’s Medea (1981), Jackie Crossland's Collateral Damage (1991), Deborah Porter's No More Medea (1990), and Marina Carr's By the Bog of the Cats (1998). Unlike the character of Medea in Euripides' play, who discusses Greek honor with heroic language, Rame's Medea uses a dialect of central Italy, and Carr's Hester, a stand-in for Medea, uses an Irish dialect illustrating that Medea is not an icon of monstrous motherhood but a particular woman suffering in the patriarchal world. These versions of Medea enter the stage to tell their side of the mythic story of maternal infanticide. Instead of a conventional deus ex machina saving Medea from her miserable circumstance through divine intervention, these contemporary Medeas show the potency of female action and declare their own destiny. In chapter three I consider three works all written and produced in this century based on The Trojan Women: Christine Evans' Trojan Barbie (2010), Caroline Bird's Trojan Women: After Euripides (2012) and Kaite O'Reilly's Peeling (2002). These works symbolically stage women's bodies as imprisoned and wounded by war, using various props and settings: broken dolls' bodies and a confined wild tiger in Trojan Barbie, a single pregnant woman tied to her hospital bed as the Chorus in Trojan Women: After Euripides, and (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Lesley Ferris (Advisor) Subjects: Classical Studies; Literature; Theater; Theater Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2013, Greek and Latin

This dissertation explores the relationships between the dramatic genres of Greek comedy, tragedy and satyr drama in the 5th century BCE. I propose that Athenian tragedians had the freedom to appropriate elements and tropes drawn from comedy into their plays, a process that I call paracomedy. While most scholars do not admit the possibility of paracomedy, I suggest that frequent examples of paracomedy exist in all three major tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides), and I provide numerous examples of paratragedy and paracomedy between Euripides and Aristophanes. In Chapter 1, I demonstrate the extent of paracomedy in tragedy, explore the theoretical background behind these appropriations of genre, and provide a methodology for determining paracomedy based on distinctive correspondences, the priority of the comedic element, and the motivation for adopting features from outside the genre. In Chapter 2, I explore the rivalry between Euripides and Aristophanes concerning plots involving "sword-bearing" and "razor-bearing men", arguing that Aristophanes parodied the "sword-bearing men" escape plot in Euripides' Helen by staging a "razor-bearing man" escape plot in Thesmophoriazusae, and that Euripides responded to this parody by increasing the amount of "sword-bearing men" in his subsequent play Orestes. In Chapter 3, I suggest that the parodos to Euripides' Orestes is modeled on the parodos of Aristophanes' Peace, due to the adoption of the comedic element "varying levels of choral volume in a madness scene". Furthermore, I analyze the evidence from satyr drama, ultimately proposing the possibility of a two-pronged response to Aristophanes in 408 BCE in Euripides' Orestes and Cyclops. In Chapter 4, I analyze the tragedic and comedic traditions of hostage scenes developing from Euripides' Telephus, arguing that in Thesmophoriazusae, Aristophanes innovated the addition of an incineration plot to the hostage scene tradition, which Euripides subsequently adopted int (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Tom Hawkins (Advisor); Fritz Graf (Committee Member); Dana Munteanu (Committee Member) Subjects: Classical Studies

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2010, Classics

Women on the Mountain explores the Dionysiac mysteries by examining literary, iconographic and inscriptional evidence between the 6th century BCE and the third century CE. Misconceptions concerning the mysteries are examined and the possible influence of Euripides' 5th century tragedy The Bacchae on the mysteries is explored.

Committee: Tom Carpenter PhD (Advisor) Subjects: Classical Studies

Bachelor of Arts, University of Toledo, 2012, English

During the mid to late Victorian period, Euripides' tale of Medea was given new life by the suffragette movement. As Victorians began to question women's rights and capabilities, Medea's story resurfaced as a cautionary tale showing the damage that occurs when women repress and shape their identities to fit uncompromising social expectations for their gender. In this thesis, I examine two Victorian women poets who interpreted Medea as a feminist statement: Augusta Webster, whose “Medea in Athens” (1870) was featured as the lead dramatic monologue in her collection Portraits, and Amy Levy whose closet drama “Medea: A Dramatic Fragment” (1881) was published as a part of her collection A Minor Poet and Other Verse. Both these writers examine Medea's psychology and the context in which she lives. Through their use of poetic conventions, Webster and Levy are able to suggest ways in which Medea's autonomy and identity are co-opted by a patriarchal society. I argue that Webster uses the tactics of the dramatic monologue to explore Medea's disintegrated sense of self, depicting her as a woman whose identity has been usurped by her husband's view of her. Levy appropriates the techniques of closet drama to focus on the voice of a patriarchal culture that excludes Medea long before her act of filicide. Through close readings of these two poems, I show the cultural impact and relevancy of Webster and Levy as female voices in the Victorian literary tradition.

Committee: Melissa Valiska Gregory PhD (Advisor); Matthew Wikander PhD (Committee Chair); Christina Fitzgerald PhD (Committee Chair) Subjects: Comparative Literature; Gender; Womens Studies