Ovid's Heroides 4 and 8 : a commentary with introduction.

Ovid's Heroides in the form they have come down to us are a diverse group comprising fourteen verse letters supposedly addressed by heroines of Greek mythology to their absent loved ones (Her. 1-14), one further similar letter by the Greek poet Sappho (Her. 15), and the so-called "double letters" (Her. 16-21), which consist of three pairs of letters exchanged between famous couples of myth and literature. Despite the recent revival in the study of this Ovidian work, this thesis is the first full-length comprehensive commentary on Phaedra's letter to Hippolytus (Her. 4) and Hermione's letter to Orestes (Her. 8) since 1898. In the main commentary my investigation treats issues of language, style, versification and structure in the light of possible intertextual exchanges with prior works of Greek and Roman literature (esp. Greek epic, Euripidean tragedy and Roman elegy). A wide range of literary, inscriptional and archaeological material is used to illuminate and contextualize this many-sided poetry. The introduction concentrates primarily on issues of characterization mainly from a post-feminist and intertextual perspective with emphasis on the representation of (fe)male voice and desire, and the mechanics of the generic assimilation of prior literary material to the elegiac context. In addition, the introduction also provides a detailed examination of the (mis)application of mythological exempla in terms of rhetorical effectiveness and relevance to the overall structure of both letters. The aim of this explorative study, besides including a detailed stylistic and linguistic analysis, is to offer an in-depth and multi-faceted critical examination of the poetic quality of these two poems and with the help of modern, up-to-date literary theories on genre, gender and writing to contribute further to the critical reassessment of the Heroides as a whole.