Category: Literary Analysis

Fractured by formido: Plotting the Destabilizing Specter of Fear in Catiline’s War
Nov 10

Fractured by formido: Plotting the Destabilizing Specter of Fear in Catiline’s War

Fractured by formido: Plotting the Destabilizing Specter of Fear in Catiline’s War
By Gideon Gruel

In Catiline’s War, Sallust constructs the eponymous Catiline and his infamous conspiracy to overthrow the Republic as products of Rome’s advancing moral decay and indicts the largely confused counteraction of the Roman populace — the Senate together with the commons — thereto as likewise symptomatic of that decay. This was not a decay of wealth, empire, or political institutions, though these too eventually suffered, but a decay of the mind. For Sallust, this mental decay, its exact evolution muddled and difficult to perspicuously plot, is rooted in a gradual corruption of the way Romans…

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Echoes in the Forest: Fable Tradition and Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Phaedrus 1.12
Aug 5

Echoes in the Forest: Fable Tradition and Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Phaedrus 1.12

Echoes in the Forest: Fable Tradition and Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Phaedrus 1.12

By Alethea Lam

Phaedrus opens Book 1 of his fables with the phrase Aesopus auctor, anchoring his work in the animal fable tradition of the legendary Greek storyteller. With this phrase, the Latin poet credits Aesop as the pioneer of the genre itself as well as the original narrator of the fables he is about to retell (Phaedrus 1.1.1). Phaedrus’s poems exhibit the classic characteristics of animal fable, namely morals communicated in promythia and epimythia, instructive narratives to demonstrate these lessons, and recurring semi-anthropomorphized animal characters whose behavior reflects stereotypes of their species.

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The Oresteia: Entanglement in Nets and Blood
Feb 11

The Oresteia: Entanglement in Nets and Blood

The Oresteia: Entanglement in Nets and Blood
By Citlali Diaz

The Oresteia, written by Aesychlus, is composed of three separate plays, each of which focuses the attention on the different characters involved in the same conflict of violence. Whether it is Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, or The Eumenides, regardless of the focus on Clytemnestra, Orestes, or the Furies, the Oresteia as a whole highlights the consequences which arise out of intrafamilial bloodshed…

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Telemachus, Heredity, and the Persistent Weirdness of Parent-Child Relationships
Dec 31

Telemachus, Heredity, and the Persistent Weirdness of Parent-Child Relationships

Telemachus, Heredity, and the Persistent Weirdness of Parent-Child Relationships
By Natalie Dean

Poets such as Sappho and Pindar garnered plenty of attention during their lifetimes, but many of them also led rich afterlives in which they continue to influence the world of poetry. In the current pop culture scene, works inspired by or retelling Greek and Roman myths are very popular, including loosely inspired children’s books such as the Percy Jackson series and edgy, politically relevant retellings such as the musical Hadestown…

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Perpetua in the Arena: A Translation and Literary Analysis
Sep 10

Perpetua in the Arena: A Translation and Literary Analysis

Perpetua in the Arena: A Translation and Literary Analysis
By Dara Sánchez

From a prison diary in Carthage, Perpetua gives a captivating account of martyrdom in the Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis (Passio Perpetuae). Amidst the foul conditions of the prison, her father’s pleas for her to reject Christianity, and her separation from her infant, Perpetua wondrously describes the visions that come to her in dreams…

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“Canto Audentium” (I Sing of the Daring)
Apr 21

“Canto Audentium” (I Sing of the Daring)

“Canto Audentium” (I Sing of the Daring)
By Lily Nesvold

After reading Dante’s Inferno in high school, I was inspired to write a descriptive piece that mimics his style of writing but presents a modern twist and incorporates the Latin language. Set forty years in the future, my rendition of the classic depicts a sin—hubris—tacked onto the end of “Incontinence,” the initial subsections of Hell, but occurring before the walls of the city of Dis…

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Sophocles’ Creon and the illusion of polis
Mar 10

Sophocles’ Creon and the illusion of polis

Sophocles’ Creon and the illusion of polis
By Julia Ongchoco

One of the most salient binaries in Sophocles’ Antigone is the distinction between polis (or state) and oikos (or family).  In this tragedy, Antigone, the main character, goes against Creon, the king and her uncle, out of the desire to properly bury her brother. Her persistence in the name of family cascades into all sorts of problems for Creon, who continued until the end to resist her plea…

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“A Widow in the Halls”
Jul 24

“A Widow in the Halls”

An Examination of the Lamentations of Hector in the Iliad
By Abhinav Suri

Classical epics share many characteristics, among which is an expression of loss: lamentation.  From a literal perspective, a lamentation is an expression of sorrow or mourning. However, in the context of the epic, it takes on a far greater meaning in the storyline. As Murnaghan puts it, “Lament … confers praise … on the actions of heroes, and more particularly of dead heroes who have earned their right to be praised through the manner of their deaths” (Murnaghan 1999)…

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Sappho’s Shadow: Reading Ovid’s Heroides 15 as Reconstruction
Jul 13

Sappho’s Shadow: Reading Ovid’s Heroides 15 as Reconstruction

Reading Ovid’s Heroides 15 as Reconstruction
By Clare Kearns

Ovid’s Heroides are fundamentally paradoxical. As a collection of letters that take on the point of view of spurned mythological heroines writing to their former lovers, the poems purport to express the sadness, fear, and anger felt by the heroines from their own perspective—though, of course, the Heroides is the work of male poet Ovid…

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