Fiche du document
2023
- 20.500.13089/f84n
Ce document est lié à :
info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/1765-3142
Ce document est lié à :
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13089/f84i
Ce document est lié à :
https://doi.org/10.4000/dictynna.3095
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess , https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Mots-clés
gender Arachne transformation spiders in antiquity paternity and maternity weaving contestSujets proches
WarpingCiter ce document
Ellen Oliensis, « Why is Arachne a spider? (Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.129-45) », Dictynna
Partage / Export
Résumé
This essay presents an alternative reading of the transformation of Arachne, with implications for the interpretation of the episode as a whole. On the basis of what Minerva herself says before sprinkling Arachne with the transformative elixir, and of the elixir’s effects as Ovid describes them, I argue that the spider’s weaving can be read not as the culmination of Arachne’s punishment but as an act of defiant self-assertion on her part; that the ‘poetic justice’ Minerva had in mind centered not on Arachne’s weaving but on the challenge Arachne presents via her transgression of gender norms; and that this challenge is reformulated but not abandoned by Arachne the spider.
