Cassandra and the Poetics of Prophecy in Greek and Latin Literature
Cambridge University Press, 4/11/2019
EAN 9781108473934, ISBN10: 1108473938
Hardcover, 274 pages, 23.4 x 21.3 x 2 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
This book explores the miscommunications of the prophet Cassandra - cursed to prophesy the truth but never to be understood until too late - in Greek and Latin poetry. Using insights from the field of translation studies, the book focuses on the dialogic interactions that take place between the articulation and the realization of Cassandra's prophecies in five canonical ancient texts, stretching from Aeschylus' to Seneca's Agamemnon. These interactions are dogged by confusion and misunderstanding, but they also show a range of interested parties engaged in creatively 'translating' meaning for themselves from Cassandra's ostensibly nonsensical voice. Moreover, as the figure of Cassandra is translated from one literary work into another, including into the Sibyl of Virgil's Aeneid, her story of tragic communicative disability develops into an optimistic metaphor for literary canon-formation. Cassandra invites us to reconsider the status and value of even the most riddling of female prophets in ancient poetry.
Introduction
translating Cassandra
1. Understanding too much
Aeschylus' Agamemnon
2. Rewriting her-story
Euripides' Trojan Women
3. A scholarly prophet
Lycophron's Alexandra
4. Greco-Roman Sibylline scripts
Virgil's Aeneid
5. Cassandra translated
Seneca's Agamemnon
Conclusion
transposing Cassandra.