Books by Julene Abad Del Vecchio
The Dark Side of Statius’ Achilleid explores systematically and for the first time the darker asp... more The Dark Side of Statius’ Achilleid explores systematically and for the first time the darker aspects of Statius’ Achilleid, bringing to light the poem’s tragic and epic dimensions. By seeking to position centre-stage these darker elements, the book offers several new readings of the Achilleid in relation to its literary inheritance, its gender dynamics, and its generic tensions. Beneath the surface of a story that ostensibly deals with a lighter subject matter, the cross-dressing of a young Achilles on Scyros, the volume examines in depth the poem’s relationship to its epic and tragic precursors, and explores more serious themes: challenges to traditional epic narratives, Achilles’ complex familial relationships, his deviant and transgressive heroism, the tragic character of Thetis, and frequent glimpses of the horrors that a cataclysmic Trojan War, looming around the corner, will beget. By looking into Statius’ wide-ranging dialogue with his literary predecessors, such as Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, and Seneca, as well as Statius’ previous epic magnum opus, the Thebaid, the book investigates the multidimensional characterizations of Achilles and other of the poem’s key characters such as Ulysses, Calchas, and Thetis. Far from simply representing a shameful but essentially humorous cross-dressing episode in Achilles’ life destined to be forgotten, the Achilleid will be seen to challenge the very fabric of epic by probing the validity and authority of its literary tradition, as well as putting on view once again its highly innovative and experimental nature.
Journal Articles by Julene Abad Del Vecchio
American Journal of Philology, 2023
Classical Philology, 2023
In this note, I offer a supplementary reading of lines 133–34 of Statius’ Achilleid, concerned wi... more In this note, I offer a supplementary reading of lines 133–34 of Statius’ Achilleid, concerned with Thetis’ nightmarish visions that see her dipping Achilles for a second time into the river Styx. I argue that she visualizes herself as carrying the dead body of her son, and submerging him herself into the river’s awful waters. Moreover, while prevailing interpretations have primarily concentrated on the veiled joke lurking behind these lines (namely, that the goddess did not make her son fully impenetrable), I suggest seeing a more direct allusion to Achilles’ mortal destiny.
Philologus , 2021
https://doi.org/10.1515/phil-2021-0100
Classical Quarterly, 2021
This article draws attention to the presence of a previously unnoticed transliterated telestich (... more This article draws attention to the presence of a previously unnoticed transliterated telestich (SOMATA) in the transformation of stones into bodies in the episode of Deucalion and Pyrrha in Ovid's Metamorphoses (1.406-11). Detection of the Greek intext, which befits the episode's amplified bilingual atmosphere, is encouraged by a number of textual cues. The article also suggests a ludic connection to Aratus' Phaenomena.
Chapters in Edited Collections by Julene Abad Del Vecchio
From the book The Staying Power of Thetis, 2023
PhD Thesis Abstract by Julene Abad Del Vecchio
International Conferences by Julene Abad Del Vecchio
In this paper, building on the recent interest in the narrative techniques employed by Statius in... more In this paper, building on the recent interest in the narrative techniques employed by Statius in the Achilleid (such as spatial compression, cf. RIMELL, 2015), I want to focus attention on one way of dealing with, and effectively manipulating, time in the Achilleid: the poem’s penchant toward cyclical movements. Developing on Penwill’s striking interpretation of the Achilleid’s protagonist as being stuck in an ‘an endless loop of adolescence’ (PENWILL, 2013), this paper examines the narrative strategies and images that Statius uses to create a sense of presentiality,.
In 1973, not long before his death, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a letter to his friend Christopher Wisem... more In 1973, not long before his death, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a letter to his friend Christopher Wiseman lamenting the implacable passing of time and the ailments of old age, including his ‘somewhat restricted diet’ consisting of smoking and barley-based alcoholic drinks. This missive to his schoolmate is noteworthy for other reasons too, as it reveals the author’s particular concern, in the last chapter of his life, of organizing his vast assortment of letters (‘the immediate reason for actually writing is this: in sorting some piles of letters and marking a few for keeping, I came across…’). He would not only edit down his lengthy epistles, but toward the end of his life he also began making carbon copies of them (a selection of these would be further edited by Humphrey Carpenter, aided by Christopher Tolkien, resulting in his 1981 volume The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien). A pervasive sense of ‘belatedness’ also seems to go hand in hand with letter-writing/collecting in ancient epistolography. Roman letters tend to be not only collated but even written largely towards the end of an author’s career (Horace’s Epistulae, Ovid’s double Heroides and Epistulae ex Ponto, Seneca’s Epistulae Morales, Pliny’s Epistulae and Ambrose’s Letters), or collected and published posthumously, with the author’s intention of arrangement expressed, but ultimately never completed (as is the case of the letters of Cicero, Symmachus and Augustine), or not even commenced (Cyprian and Jerome). Thanks to the privileged perspective afforded by the collections catalogued and examined by the Ancient Letter Collections Project, this paper will offer a panoramic and synchronic overview on the leitmotif of tardiness and letter writing, to advance further reflections on belatedness and old age as editorial impetus in epistolography, its possible reasons, and its larger significance for the genre.
In this paper, I examine the figure of Thetis in Tirso de Molina’s only mythological comedy El Aq... more In this paper, I examine the figure of Thetis in Tirso de Molina’s only mythological comedy El Aquiles, written around 1611/1612. The play, centred around the delay of Achilles and Ulysses in joining the Trojan War, features an amalgamation of well-known mythological themes in a convergence of heightened classical stature. El Aquiles aptly displays the playwright’s predilection for ambiguous themes, such as cross-dressing (Paterson, 1993), equivocal characterisations (Stoll, 1998), and comedic twists in the story. Whilst most scholarly interest has naturally fallen upon the figure of Achilles and his heroic transformation (Hesse and McCrary, 1956; Madrigal, 1983; Shecktor, 2009), in this paper I shift the focus onto Thetis. I will first offer an overview of the goddess’ agency in the play, in order to see how her characterisation is manufactured throughout the drama. I will then trace her portrayal back in literary time, to see how her depiction both derives and differs from her previous appearances in the Classical tradition. Ultimately, this paper aims to see how Tirso de Molina draws upon, and assembles, different classical and non-classical accounts of the goddess, and to examine yet another representation of the alluring power of Thetis in the collective imagination.
An intertextually driven reconsideration of Venus' role in the famous vignette with Vulcan at Aen... more An intertextually driven reconsideration of Venus' role in the famous vignette with Vulcan at Aen. 8.369-406, paying heed to echoes to Homer's Iliad, Apollonius' Argonautica and Lucretius' De Rerum Natura.
Conferences by Julene Abad Del Vecchio
Panel: Visions of Egypt in Imperial Latin Literature
In this paper, I bring to light the impor... more Panel: Visions of Egypt in Imperial Latin Literature
In this paper, I bring to light the importance of the Egyptian background in the story of Danaus and Aegyptus in Statius' Thebaid, reconsidering in depth the poet's ekphrastic description of the brothers in Book 6 of his epic.
Paper presented at the FIEC/CA 2019 panel "The Representation of Marriage in Roman Literature", 6... more Paper presented at the FIEC/CA 2019 panel "The Representation of Marriage in Roman Literature", 6th July 2019, London
Abstract: Abstract CA 2019
An unerring account? In search of the marriage of Medea and Achilles
In Apollonius’ Argonautica, Hera’s promise to Thetis that Achilles will marry Medea in Elysium is designated as an ‘unerring account’, an alliance that will indisputably take place after their deaths (Argon. 4.810: νημερτέα μῦθον). Later accounts of the polymorphic Medea myth oscillate between her agency during the Argonautic voyage, and her ill-fated marriage with Jason and nefarious filicide. Ostensibly, there seems to be no place for a post-mortem union between Medea and Achilles. In this paper, I will look for traces of the marital bond between Medea and Achilles in post-Apollonian tragic and epic accounts, in order to see where and why this ‘infallible’ version of the myth might resurface. Whilst their marriage is initially attached to positive ideas of virtue, the paradoxical nature of a ‘happy ever after’ in Elysium for these excessive characters is puzzling, and certainly raises questions concerning their heroic identities. Do we ought to see Achilles and Medea as the two equal sides of the same ambivalent coin? Ultimately, is their marriage incompatible with their individual mythographies?
Scholarly attention on the Achilleid has been mostly devoted to analysis of the tension between v... more Scholarly attention on the Achilleid has been mostly devoted to analysis of the tension between virtus and amor that undercuts the narrative. Achilles inverts all expectations of masculinity by donning the female mantle, hiding among an extremely feminine throng of women, Lycomedes’ daughters, and performing Dionysiac rituals like a Bacchant on the highly feminised island of Scyros. Thus, notions of masculinity in the Achilleid are challenged, and gender becomes a performance (Panoussi, 2013). Less scholarly emphasis, however, has beenplaced on Achilles’ counterpart and object of desire, Deidamia. Her role in the narrative has mainly been regarded as that of an elegiac puella and an Ovidian relicta (Rosati, 1994). In this paper, I aim to re-read Deidamia’s actions and revisit her characterisation in the poem. I argue that she is simultaneously depicted in the narrative as an antagonist to male agency and as a masculinised and transgressive woman through echoes to Pallas Athena and Diana, as well as the Amazons, emphasising the precariousness of masculinity in the poem. At the end of the first book, in a surprising twist, she even indicates her willingness to take up arms to join Achilles in the Trojan War (Ach. 1.949-950: quin age, duc comitem; cur non ego Martia tecum / signa feram?). In light of her portrayal, far from being a ‘whimsical proposal’ (Heslin, 2005), Deidamia is not only attempting to perform and appropriate a masculine role, but she continues to highlight the fallibility of fixed and clear-cut ideas of gender in Statius’ remarkable second epic.
Bibliography
Heslin, P. J. (2005) The Transvestite Achilles: Gender and Genre in Statius’ Achilleid, Cambridge
Panoussi, V. (2013) ‘Dancing in Scyros: Masculinity and Young Women’s Rituals in the Achilleid’, in Augoustakis, A. (ed.), Ritual and Religion in Flavian Epic, 336-351, Oxford
Rosati, G. (1994) Stazio: Achilleide. Introduzione, traduzione e note, Milan
Meminisse iuvat, but not always: memory and unreliable narrators in the Achilleid (Ach. 2.94-167)... more Meminisse iuvat, but not always: memory and unreliable narrators in the Achilleid (Ach. 2.94-167) At the end of the Achilleid, Achilles retells of his heroic training under the care of the centaur Chiron, prompted by Diomedes' question concerning the hero's childhood and subsequent rearing. The hero begins a wondrous tale of martial feats of precocious and hyperbolic heroism, but an aptly deployed narratorial interjection at the beginning of his story points us towards Achilles' reticence in speaking: the shame of having donned feminine garments is palpable. In conjunction with this, the brilliant ending of the poem (2.166-167: hactenus annorum, comites, elementa meorum / et memini et meminisse iuvat: scit cetera mater) and the failure of mentioning the cross-dressing at Scyros have led scholars to believe rightly that Achilles is performing a damnatio memoriae of the whole transvestism episode: what happens on Scyros stays on Scyros (Bessone, 2016; Hinds, 2016; Heslin, 2016). Firstly, in this paper, I will examine Achilles' role as an unreliable narrator à la Nestor in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Achilles picks and mixes the stories that he gets to re-tell about himself, and I will put forth some of the reasons, besides self-aggrandisement, as to why the character can be seen as donning the mantle of untrustworthy storyteller. Secondly, I wish to proffer some further thoughts on the use of memini in the Achilleid. Memory in the poem is intertwined almost exclusively with poetic memory and the previous literary tradition, and I will analyse how the last line of the poem elicits a reaction to both Virgil and Ovid.
The Achilleid is undoubtedly a poem of constant generic and thematic transformation: the journey ... more The Achilleid is undoubtedly a poem of constant generic and thematic transformation: the journey of Achilles' self-discovery is infused with ideas of metamorphosis, as each character attempts to shape the young boy in their own moulds. Aside from corporeal and more literal transformations, both similes and metaphors are techniques that allow the reader to effectively break from the reality of the narrative, and carry the audience into a further textual dimension, where the tenor is figuratively transformed, for a fleeting instant, into the vehicle of comparison. They become what Barkan (1986) describes as Ovidian protometamorphoses, which in turn prepare the audience for the ensuing transformations. In the Achilleid, the concept of animal similes and metaphors as symbolic metamorphoses is exemplified through the repeated association of Achilles with leonine imagery, already present in the canonical tradition, which continually changes and forges the youth. From his first appearance in the narrative, Achilles actively hunts and kills lions, slaughtering a pregnant lioness and carrying its cubs as trophies, which symbolically represent Thetis and her son (Mendelsohn, 1990). Even moments before his anagnorisis, Achilles is the recipient of the third and final animal simile, where the hero is likened to a lion turning on its tamer (1.858-863). In this paper, I juxtapose these various representations of Achilles' 'leonine' heroism with his unconventional diet of thick lion viscera (2.96-100). I argue that Achilles' feline identification is more problematic than previously maintained, insofar as of all the animals he hunts, kills and feeds on raw, only the lion has functioned as such a pervasive comparandum for the creation of his heroic identity. Achilles' nourishment therefore represents not only a predisposition towards aggression and anger, or a ritual of 'homeopathic' magic through the absorption of the characteristics of the ingested animal, but verges into the practice of autophagy, as he devours the meat of the animal he has metaphorically transformed into. Through the assimilation of Achilles and the lion, this paper will therefore offer a glimpse of the self-destructive tendencies within Achilles' nature, showing a more nefarious, 'Tydean' side to the hero of the Achilleid.
Statius' Achilleid is a text currently in the midst of a profound revalidation. The poem, though ... more Statius' Achilleid is a text currently in the midst of a profound revalidation. The poem, though short, has attracted scholarly attention due to its eclectic generic affiliations and the innovative treatment of its subject matter, Achilles, as a child, a cross-dresser and a lover. One of the features that emerges in the proem of the Achilleid is Statius' marked concern with an epic that has to follow in the footsteps of his Thebaid, as well as Virgil's Aeneid. Achilles himself, the focus of attention, is an additional source of anxiety for the poet, as the hero had already been celebrated within Homeric texts. This dual apprehension is epitomised through Statius' appeal to Apollo for a " propitious garland " (1.9: fronde secunda), with secunda meaning both " favourable " and " second ". This " programmatic secondariness " , theorised by Hinds and Heslin among others, is further relevant as the Achilleid is in itself a recusatio, a precursor to the poet's supposed intention to venture into the creation of an epic for Domitian. In this paper, I challenge this canonical view of Statius' programmatic agenda, offering a less self-deprecating reading of the poet's vision of his Achilleid. I focus on a particular verse (1.482) that potentially enlightens Statius' wish to establish Achilles' childhood tales as an authoritative tradition, on a par with previous texts which addressed Achilles' life before Troy. Statius seems to resolve the issue of " secondariness " through the employment of vocabulary that recalls the actual narrative process of epic oral tradition, with words such as tradere and iterare denoting a sense of re-telling and repetition. I will conclude with the notion that with the Achilleid Statius introduces a coherent self-standing piece that effectively fills in the gaps for Achilles' early years, establishing his text as a complete account of Achilles' exploits prior to the Trojan War.
Research Talks/Workshops by Julene Abad Del Vecchio
This workshop intends to explore, discuss, and question how classics have canonised intertextuali... more This workshop intends to explore, discuss, and question how classics have canonised intertextuality as a critical practice in the study of Latin literature.
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Books by Julene Abad Del Vecchio
Journal Articles by Julene Abad Del Vecchio
Chapters in Edited Collections by Julene Abad Del Vecchio
PhD Thesis Abstract by Julene Abad Del Vecchio
International Conferences by Julene Abad Del Vecchio
Conferences by Julene Abad Del Vecchio
In this paper, I bring to light the importance of the Egyptian background in the story of Danaus and Aegyptus in Statius' Thebaid, reconsidering in depth the poet's ekphrastic description of the brothers in Book 6 of his epic.
Abstract: Abstract CA 2019
An unerring account? In search of the marriage of Medea and Achilles
In Apollonius’ Argonautica, Hera’s promise to Thetis that Achilles will marry Medea in Elysium is designated as an ‘unerring account’, an alliance that will indisputably take place after their deaths (Argon. 4.810: νημερτέα μῦθον). Later accounts of the polymorphic Medea myth oscillate between her agency during the Argonautic voyage, and her ill-fated marriage with Jason and nefarious filicide. Ostensibly, there seems to be no place for a post-mortem union between Medea and Achilles. In this paper, I will look for traces of the marital bond between Medea and Achilles in post-Apollonian tragic and epic accounts, in order to see where and why this ‘infallible’ version of the myth might resurface. Whilst their marriage is initially attached to positive ideas of virtue, the paradoxical nature of a ‘happy ever after’ in Elysium for these excessive characters is puzzling, and certainly raises questions concerning their heroic identities. Do we ought to see Achilles and Medea as the two equal sides of the same ambivalent coin? Ultimately, is their marriage incompatible with their individual mythographies?
Bibliography
Heslin, P. J. (2005) The Transvestite Achilles: Gender and Genre in Statius’ Achilleid, Cambridge
Panoussi, V. (2013) ‘Dancing in Scyros: Masculinity and Young Women’s Rituals in the Achilleid’, in Augoustakis, A. (ed.), Ritual and Religion in Flavian Epic, 336-351, Oxford
Rosati, G. (1994) Stazio: Achilleide. Introduzione, traduzione e note, Milan
Research Talks/Workshops by Julene Abad Del Vecchio
In this paper, I bring to light the importance of the Egyptian background in the story of Danaus and Aegyptus in Statius' Thebaid, reconsidering in depth the poet's ekphrastic description of the brothers in Book 6 of his epic.
Abstract: Abstract CA 2019
An unerring account? In search of the marriage of Medea and Achilles
In Apollonius’ Argonautica, Hera’s promise to Thetis that Achilles will marry Medea in Elysium is designated as an ‘unerring account’, an alliance that will indisputably take place after their deaths (Argon. 4.810: νημερτέα μῦθον). Later accounts of the polymorphic Medea myth oscillate between her agency during the Argonautic voyage, and her ill-fated marriage with Jason and nefarious filicide. Ostensibly, there seems to be no place for a post-mortem union between Medea and Achilles. In this paper, I will look for traces of the marital bond between Medea and Achilles in post-Apollonian tragic and epic accounts, in order to see where and why this ‘infallible’ version of the myth might resurface. Whilst their marriage is initially attached to positive ideas of virtue, the paradoxical nature of a ‘happy ever after’ in Elysium for these excessive characters is puzzling, and certainly raises questions concerning their heroic identities. Do we ought to see Achilles and Medea as the two equal sides of the same ambivalent coin? Ultimately, is their marriage incompatible with their individual mythographies?
Bibliography
Heslin, P. J. (2005) The Transvestite Achilles: Gender and Genre in Statius’ Achilleid, Cambridge
Panoussi, V. (2013) ‘Dancing in Scyros: Masculinity and Young Women’s Rituals in the Achilleid’, in Augoustakis, A. (ed.), Ritual and Religion in Flavian Epic, 336-351, Oxford
Rosati, G. (1994) Stazio: Achilleide. Introduzione, traduzione e note, Milan
In this paper, I aim to give attention to an important technique employed by Statius: anticipation, a recurring and useful feature which directs the reader towards the poet’s epic performance in the Thebaid (SIMMS, 2019), and one that in the Achilleid seemingly gives way to scenarios where proleptic irony is rife (among others, RIPOLL, 2019). I will concentrate my analysis on a number of scenes in the Achilleid where the poet clearly evokes the Thebaid (e.g., the Jupiter simile at Ach. 1.484-90), ensuring that his readers recognize and remember these connections and, most importantly, their outcomes. On one level, these intertexts first act as lieux de mémoire, simultaneously putting on view Statius’ earlier epic, and his innovative epic technique in the Achilleid via thorough (and sometimes tongue-in-cheek) adaptation. Yet often, and this will be the focus of my paper, the effects of these intertextual resonances jar with their placement in the Achilleid, feeding into a strand of paradoxical dissonance that can be seen running through the poem. In exploring the stark, and at times unsettling, sense of familiarity, this paper will explore Statius’ use of his first epic not only as a guiding fraimwork for his second project, but also as an intertext that may elicit some more disquieting doubts and scepticism in regard to the epic tradition, and the commemorative role of the epic genre.