Metamorphosis and Metamorphic Identity: The Myth of Actaeon in Works of Ovid, Dante, and John Gower.
- Author/Editor
- Hawes, Greta.
- Title
- Metamorphosis and Metamorphic Identity: The Myth of Actaeon in Works of Ovid, Dante, and John Gower.
- Published
- Hawes, Greta. "Metamorphosis and Metamorphic Identity: The Myth of Actaeon in Works of Ovid, Dante, and John Gower." Isis: Journal of the Classical Association of Victoria, 21 (2008): 21-42.
- Review
- Hawes looks to the Actaeon story as an example of "the way in which evolving cultural and literary traditions can influence the reading of a mythological narrative" (21). She discusses Ovid's version in detail, concluding that he "raises the issue of (in)justice but does not seek closure for it. In the epic world of the 'Metamorphoses,' in which divine power determines all, there is little purpose in discussing justice in human terms" (24). In later antiquity the "Metamorphoses" tales were kept alive in allegorized form as exempla by Hyginus, Pseudo-Lactantius Placidus, and especially Fulgentius (28). The latter's "rather confusing account" presents Acteon as representing "the dangers of curiosity, fear, and . . . an excessively wasteful lifestyle" (28-29). This last aspect characterized twelfth-century approaches to Actaeon, e.g., Arnulf of Orleans and Giovanni del Virgilio; although in modified form, it remains visible in the "Ovide Moralisé" and the "Ovidius Moralizatus" (29). Dante recalls it in "Inferno" XIII.109-29, in his treatment of the squanderers Arcolano da Squarcia di Riccolfo Maconi and Iacopo da Santo Andrea, retrieving from Ovid the ravening dogs (33) while maintaining the medieval interpretation of wasteful spending and its consequent punishment, putting both to his own purposes. Gower resembles Dante in this, offering "not so much a translation of the original narratives as a bold remoulding, taking only what is necessary for the sense of the exemplum" (34)--which in this case is "mislok," or sinful looking. This sin Hawes goes to some length to connect with the emphasis placed on beauty by "courtly love" (34-35), and both with the dominant conceit of the "Confessio Amantis." Noting how Gower has adapted Ovid's story to his purposes (expending a good deal of space identifying aristocratic features of Gower's Acteon, and discussing the overlap of hunting and courtship), she comments: "Acteon's death appears as an afterthought: if the reader can comprehend the danger of indecent vision, then the punishment itself has a largely perfunctory role" (37). With Maria Wickert (quoted 37, fn. 53), Hawes finds this an "inept" and "dull" choice, aimed solely to "push his heroes and stories with high-principled directness towards a question of moral decision." A classicist to the end, she concludes: "It is testimony to the inherently flexible nature of classical myth that the same simple narrative of offense and punishment can . . . be utilised to illustrate both the pettiness and violence of the pagan gods within a world in which the frames of reference are constantly in flux, and the pitiless objectivity at the heart of the medieval conception of universal justice" (39). [RFY. Copyright. The John Gower Society eJGN 40.1]
- Date
- 2008
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations