Maternity, Monstrosity, and Heroic (Im)mortality from Homer to Shakespeare

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This work uses an adaptation of monster theory to rethink the foundations of epic-heroic immortality. Rather than focusing on a specific monster or monsters, the author identifies the belly-monstrous as a crucial point of intersection between mothers and warriors in traditional narratives of the Trojan War.

This work uses an adaptation of monster theory to rethink the foundations of epic-heroic immortality. Rather than focusing on a specific monster or monsters, the author identifies the belly-monstrous as a crucial point of intersection between mothers and warriors in traditional narratives of the Trojan War. Identifying the gestating/digesting belly as the center of the Iliadic world, this groundbreaking approach disrupts androcentric readings of the Iliadic warrior and his ethos, emphasizing the crucial role of female suffering in the generation and preservation of immortal legacy.,The author reconsiders ancient Greek depictions of the Trojan War and its aftermath, including Homeric epic and the tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides, and illuminates the cohesive patterning of Shakespeare's mother-warrior plays, which place inherited Iliadic-belly-monstrous motifs in conversation with cultural anxieties of late Elizabethan England. With meticulous scholarship and captivating analysis, Maternity, Monstrosity, and Heroic (Im)mortality from Homer to Shakespeare redefines the relationship between mothers and warriors in the Iliadic-heroic ideal, paving the way for new interpretations of war, grief, and immortal glory in a broad range of literary and cultural contexts.

Obsah

Introduction, Part I: Mother, Warrior, Monster, Chapter 1. The Monstrosity of Woman and Belly, Chapter 2. The Warrior at War, Chapter 3. Engendering the Hero: Destruction, Generation, and Kleos Aphthiton, Part II: Troy and Its Aftermath: Mothers, Warriors, and Monsters in the Ancient World, Chapter 4. For the Sake of Helen, Chapter 5. Clytemnestra and the Furies, Chapter 6. Hecuba, Queen of Troy, Part III: Elizabethan Anxieties: Mothers, Warriors, and Monsters in Shakespeare, Introduction Shakespeare and the Iliadic Belly-Monstrous, Chapter 7. Titus Andronicus: Authorizing Warrior and Monster, Chapter 8. 1-3 Henry VI and Richard III: The Mother's Creatures, Chapter 9. Coriolanus: A Return to the Source