PHILOMELA

Question 1

Ovid, Metamorphoses

Answer 1

Book VI (Roman, c. 8 AD)

Question 2

Chaucer, The Legend of Good Women

Answer 2

late 14th Century

Question 3

Gower, Confessio Amantis

Answer 3

Book V - Avarice - (late 14th Century)

Question 4

Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus

Answer 4

(late 16th Century)

1. Revenge play
2. cycle of retribution between Titus and Tamora, queen of Goths
3. Grotesque re-enactment of story of Philomela

Question 5

Tereus

Answer 5

King of Thrace, descendent of Mars

Question 6

Violence is…

Answer 6

physical and sexual, but also political

Question 7

Gower, Book V: Avarice (rapacity)

Answer 7

1. Rapacity
2. Kathryn McKinley: theme of kingship
3. Divine justice: emphasis on prayer
4. Silent prayer
5. Focus on life after metamorphosis

Question 8

In Titus Andronicus, Lavinia…

Answer 8

draws on Ovid’s story of Philomela to tell her own story

Question 9

As Titus engages in rivalry with Procne…

Answer 9

Shakespeare engages in rivalry with Ovid

Question 10

QUOTE: doomed marriage Procne and Tereus

Answer 10

‘But neither the Graces nor Hymen nor Juno, who bestows her blessing upon brides, was present at that ceremony. Furies lit the bridal pair upon their way, with torches stolen from funeral processions […]. Such were the omens when Procne and Tereus were married, such the omens when they became parents.’

Question 11

QUOTE Philomela rape

Answer 11

‘[H]e told her of his guilty passion and, by sheer force, overcame the struggles of the lonely and defenceless girl, while she vainly called aloud to her father, to her sister, and above all to the gods, for help.’

Question 12

QUOTE Philomela - voice

Answer 12

If I have the chance, I shall come forward before your people, and tell my story. If I am to be shut up in the woods, I shall fill the forests with my voice, and win sympathy from the very rocks that witnessed my degradation. Heaven will hear my cries, and any god that dwells there!’

Question 13

QUOTE Procne revenge scheme

Answer 13

‘I am prepared to go to any lengths of crime, my sister – either to set the palace alight, and trap that scheming Tereus in the flames, or to cut out his tongue and his eyes, to hew off the limbs which wronged you, and drive his guilty soul from his body, through a thousand gaping wounds.’

Question 14

QUOTE Gower - Philomela (speech and virginity lost)

Answer 14

I wolde I hadde noght be bore,
For thanne I hadde noght forlore /
Mi speche and mi virginité.

Question 15

MARCUS to Lavinia quote (TA - Act II)

Answer 15

‘But sure some Tereus hath deflowered thee, /

And, lest thou shouldst detect him, cut thy tongue’

Question 16

TITUS to Chiron and Demetrius (Act V)

Answer 16

‘For worse than Philomel you used my daughter,

And worse than Procne I will be revenged.’

Question 17

WASTELAND

Answer 17

‘The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.’

Question 18

What shows rape of Lavinia is central horrific crime of play?

Answer 18

Edward Ravenscroft’s adaptation of the play has the alternate name of “The Rape of Lavinia”

Question 19

Lavinia was… (quote - Act IV)

Answer 19

“Ravished and wronged as Philomela was, / Forced in the ruthless, vast and gloomy woods”

Question 20

Philomela (name)

Answer 20

Lit. “lover of song” from Greek philein and melos (“a song”, “a dirge”, but also “a limb”).

Question 21

Peter Nicholson

Answer 21

argues that while Gower uses the story from Ovid, he cuts out significant portions of the Philomela story in order to create “a moral context within a finite world”

Question 22

Philomela powerful voice in Gower - anaphora of words that relate to her articulation

Answer 22

she threatens to ‘telle’, ‘clepe and crie’ and ‘reherce’ Tereus’ crime –> points to language as a powerful tool against tyranny.

Question 23

Gower - exemplum genre of text

Answer 23

• applies a high register to Philomena’s language through use of Latinate vocabulary such as ‘ensample’ - didactic - expresses Tereus’s behaviour as ‘an example to be avoided’

Question 24

Gower - legalastic diction / high register

Answer 24

‘felonie’ - broken the law / deeply violent - emphasises both the public and the private horror of Tereus’s crime

‘untrouthe’ and ‘beheste’

Question 25

Gower’s Philomena appears

Answer 25

to be much stronger than her counterpart in Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Question 26

Unlike Ovid where Philomela has to ‘shrug off [her] shame’ to reveal Tereus’ crime…

Answer 26

Gower’s Philomena expresses no such loss of modesty or guilt at the theft of her maidenhood.

Question 27

Gower’s poetic style

Answer 27

tetrameter couplets

Question 28

Gower - responsibility

Answer 28

he decide to exclude details surrounding Tereus’ lineage to Mars (which Ovid describes) - gives greater responsibility to Tereus; not innately evil - his ‘unhappi handes’ are to blame.

Question 29

Gower - tongue cutting out

Answer 29

frequent sharp ‘c’ sound echoed through words such as ‘cauhte’ ‘caste’ and ‘clippeth’ poignantly mirrors cold brutal disfiguring of Philomena

Question 30

Difference in Chaucer’s story

Answer 30

omits any moralisation or psychologism; omits the whole ending of Ovid’s story - stops after sisters are reunited so neither their revenge on Tereus or their metamorphoses into birds are mentioned.

Question 31

alterations in Chaucer’s tale which make Philomela seem more of a victim + more passive

Answer 31

1. T falls for P after seeing her cry to her father: he adds tears & begging
2. Removes Philomela’s threat to reveal Tereus’ crime

Question 32

Difference in location where T commits crime (Chaucer - Ovid)

Answer 32

‘stabula alta’ (stable) to ‘derke cave’ (makes it more bestial and inhuman)

Question 33

Charles Segal - identification of Ovid’s work with Philomela

Answer 33

‘Behind Philomela’s weaving is Ovid’s own web of words (textus) that recreates events which are spectacular for their suppression of speech’

Question 34

Katherine Kruger

Answer 34

‘Philomela’s achievement consists in her ability to transform wool into an instrument of symbolic and semiotic power’

Question 35

Patricia Joplin

Answer 35

‘Philomela and her loom speak to us because together they represent an assertion of her will to survive despite everything that threatens to silence us’

Question 36

As Lepley argues.. Gower

Answer 36

creates a moral exemplum; clear distinctions between good and bad characters (unlike Ovid - 3 characters guided by wild passion and desire)