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Over Her Live Body? Marriage in Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica

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Buckley_2016_Flavian_AAM.pdf (770.9Kb)
Date
01/08/2016
Author
Buckley, Emma
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Abstract
This chapter examines the wedding of Jason and Medea in Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, arguing that the marriage ceremony held in book 8 is a charged moment for Roman epic itself, serving as a microcosm for a much deeper reflection on the role of marriage in constituting Roman epic. It starts by framing Valerius’ marriage within the epic tradition, within which, I argue, Valerius’ wedding exaggerates the power of the disruptive female, drawing together the troubling hints of Medea’s tragic identity from her introduction in the epic. But Valerius also uses Argonautica’s status as ‘first’ epic to provide an origin story for the role of coniugium which valorizes her epic role. It is Medea’s deeds which constitute labor (V. Fl. 5.453), not Jason’s, her flight rather than his quest memorialized in song. Re-purposing Virgil’s flirtation with and avoidance of coniugium—a ‘marriage’ to Dido that is a dead end for the narrative but is of crucial importance for the rise of Rome itself via its conflict with Carthage—the ‘Roman’ Medea who confronts Jason at the end of the Argonautica, fighting for her rights as a Roman wife, is a truly appropriate symbol for a tradition of epos. The result—not just a deeply disturbing wedding ceremony in Argonautica 8, but also an epic that attributes empire and epos to the survival of the disruptive female—offers its Flavian readers a revisionary origin-story for epic itself.
Citation
Buckley , E 2016 , Over Her Live Body? Marriage in Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica . in N Manioti (ed.) , Family in Flavian Epic . Mnemosyne, Supplements , vol. 394 , Brill , pp. 61-88 . https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004324664_005
Publication
Family in Flavian Epic
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004324664_005
ISSN
0169-8958
Type
Book item
Rights
Copyright © 2017 Koninklijke Brill NV. This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004324664_005
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URL
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004324664
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/15737

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