Part II

The Body of the Mother

Incest, Abjection, and Literary Childbirth

Part 2 begins by focusing on a special kind of mother-son relationship: Phaedra’s incestuous liaison with her stepson, Hippolytus (Her. 4). Given the lack of shared biological or parent‑ al blood, an erotic relationship between them cannot be said to be exactly incestuous in the sense that the modern word implies.¹ However, it would have appeared incestuous, and adulterous, from a Roman point of view, as well as morally execrable.² In chapter 3 Phaedra’s (step)motherhood within Heroides 4 is mainly investigated through feminist narratology (Cavarero) and (male) gaze theory (Mulvey), alongside Julia Kristeva’s and Luce Irigaray’s reinterpretation, and readaptation, of the Lacanian concept of the “Symbolic.” The use of this theoretical framework aims to demonstrate how Phaedra establishes a discursive (and somewhat ontological) “law of the Mother” (to rephrase a Lacanian expression) within her epistle, which subverts well-established and heteronormative gender dichotomies. This subversion is accomplished through Phaedra’s intervention in her mythological background, which allows her to manipulate the previous literary tradition, particularly Euripides’s Hippolytus, and become the master of her narrative. Along with the literary tradition, Phaedra also engages with political and legal discourses within her letter, thus redefining her motherhood not only as a mythological figure, but also as the articulation of Ovid’s poetic voice. Therefore, motherhood enhances Phaedra’s ability to play an active role within her story, as well as dialectically interact with Ovid’s contemporary legal and social context.

Chapter 4 focuses on another example of incestuous motherhood, that of Canace in Heroides 11.³ Although Heroides 11 is staged as an epistle written by Canace to Macareus, her lover and her brother, as well as the father of her child, some passages suggest that its implied addressee is in fact Canace’s and Macareus’s father, Aeolus.⁴ The reference to Canace’s father (the implied reader) alongside the explicit addressee, Macareus, affects the content of the entire epistle and culminates in the murder of Canace’s child and the heroine’s suicide, which are carried out by order of Aeolus himself (83–92, 95–100, 127–128). Canace’s incestuous motherhood is a pivotal issue in the epistle, and her childbirth is also described in detail (37–64). The heroine’s first-person description of her own body during pregnancy and childbirth following sexual intercourse with Macareus are interpreted according to Kristeva’s definition of abjection.⁵ Since Canace seemingly perceives her child as an impure part of herself, her suicide not only represents a means to abide by her father’s will, but also a rebellious act aimed at purifying herself and restoring control over her own body, and narrative, which she previously lost during pregnancy. Canace’s self-portrayal as both a mother and a character within her story is intertwined with her self-construction as a fictional author. The heroine’s interplay with the previous literary tradition, and her status as a knowledgeable reader, open different possibilities for alternative outcomes of her narrative. The active intervention in her story, along with Canace’s description of her pregnancy as a quasi-subjective and embodied experience, further emphasizes Canace’s reappropriation of her maternal body and identity.

Keeping the focus on the physical experience of motherhood, part 2 concludes with an examination of Dido’s relationship with her corporeality (Her. 7). In reading Heroides 7 through the filter of narrative theory (Barthes), feminist narratology (Cavarero) and semiotics (De Lauretis, Cixous), chapter 5 shows how Dido’s potential pregnancy further develops the equivalence between the maternal body and the textual body. Dido transforms her frustrated expectations about pregnancy into subjective storytelling, thereby recasting her motherhood—and thus her maternal body—as a constructive process, which ultimately lies in, and is determined by, her quasi-subjective écriture féminine. As explained in the introduction, I do not consider this writing (the heroines’ writing) as being exclusively feminine, nor do I see the necessity to completely obliterate the male poet (that is, Ovid), who stands behind the persona of the heroines. Rather, I look at these fictional epistles in terms of a perfect synergy between Ovid’s ironic voice and the alternative, discrepant, othered voice of the heroines. This feminine voice amplifies the subversive potential, as well as the artistic and poetic outcomes, of Ovid’s poetry.

1. The substantive incestus had a legal and religious meaning in classical Latin that is not always conveyed by the modern word “incest.” For instance, it seems that Clodius was charged with incestus when he dressed up as a woman and interrupted the rite of the Bona Dea; see Moreau 1982, 83–98; Moreau 2002, 9–10, 137–150; Campanile 2017, 54. However, the word could also refer to “incest” proper. As an adjective, incestus seems to be attested more widely, but its primary meaning is “unchaste” or “impious”: this broader meaning coexists with a more specific one, from which the modern word “incest” derives (see Prinz in TLL online, VII 1, 893–896, s.v. “incestus”).

2. On incest among relatives and close kin in Rome, see Dig. 23.2.17, 55; Gai. Inst. 1.6, with Evans Grubbs 2015, 127–128; Gai. Inst. 1.59–61, with Moreau 2002, 259, and Evans Grubbs 2002, 136–140; see also Gardner 1986, 125–127; Treggiari 1991, 37–39. For a parallel, see the relationship between Anchelomus and his stepmother in Verg. Aen. 10.389 (“Anchelomum thalamos ausum incestare novercae,” Anchelomus dared to defile the marital bed of his stepmother), where the use of the infinitive form incestare indicates the incestuous relationship between them; on Phaedra’s liaison with Hippolytus as incestuous, see Bettini 2002, 88–99.

3. Jacobson 1974, 162–163; Viarre 2007, 81–91; Casanova-Robin 2009, 53–66.

4. Jacobson 1974, 166; Philippides 1996, 428.

5. Kristeva 1982; Kristeva 1985, 133–152.