Ovid and the Politics of Emotion in Elizabethan England

Download or read book Ovid and the Politics of Emotion in Elizabethan England written by C. Fox and published by Springer. This book was released on 2009-11-23 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elizabethan English culture is saturated with tales and figures from Ovid s Metamorphoses. While most of these narratives interrogate metamorphosis and transformation, many tales - such as those of Philomela, Hecuba, or Orpheus - also highlight heightened states of emotion, especially in powerless or seemingly powerless characters. When these tales are translated and retold in the new cultural context of Renaissance England, a distinct politics of Ovidian emotion emerges. Through intertextual readings in diverse cultural contexts, Ovid and the Politics of Emotion in Elizabethan England reveals the ways these representations helped redefine emotions and the political efficacy of emotional expression in sixteenth-century England.