Description
Seeking the Mothers in Ovid''s Heroides explores Ovid''s reconceptualization of the heroines'' maternal experience. Rather than aligning them with the stereotypical roles of Roman women, motherhood enables the Ovidian heroines to challenge traditional norms with irreverent perspectives on gender categories and familial relationships. To confront these perspectives and overcome the dialectic between the (male) voice of the poet and the (female) voice of the heroines, Seeking the Mothers in Ovid''s Heroides argues for a form of polyphonic cooperation between the two voices, thus providing new angles on ironical discourse and gender fluidity within the Heroides.
By reading the Heroides both through feminist theory and against Ovid''s poetic production, Simona Martorana provides a novel approach to describe how motherhood enhances the heroines'' agency, drawing on works of Kristeva, Irigaray, Butler, Mulvey, Cavarero, Braidotti, and Ettinger. The
