Parthenope's Song: Epic Foundations From Homer To Ferrante

Date of Award

Spring 1-1-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Italian

First Advisor

Tylus, Jane

Abstract

In this dissertation, titled Parthenope's Song: Epic Foundations from Homer to Ferrante, I argue that the mythical Siren Parthenope, re-signified across time and genres as a hybrid feminine voice, authorial agent, and body, shapes Neapolitan epic narratives, presenting the city's foundation as an anti-teleological, ecofeminist collaboration. The myth of Parthenope centers on the post-Homeric version of the Siren's story, where "she" dies in the Mediterranean Sea and, through her burial, becomes the foundation of Neapolitan civilization. Chapter 1, "Parthenope as Epic Siren vs. as Bucolic Genius Loci of Naples," sets the stage for the reception of the myth by exploring how classical antiquity crystallizes the figure of Parthenope as the founder of Naples. However, the Siren's portrayal oscillates between a monstrous, virginal, feminized killer in Greek epic and a positive, nurturing, mother-like figure in Virgil's Georgics, particularly in his sphragís. The epic Siren poses what I term an "authorial threat" by competing with the author for her own version of epic; on the contrary, the bucolic Muse inspires the poet to write. After Virgil changes the generic form commonly associated with Parthenope, from epic character to Muse of bucolic poetry, the generic oscillation recurs in the many centuries of its reception. Later authors face the challenge of whether to kill and silence her as a Siren (or as a woman,) or to use the echo of her lost song to refound the city during moments of difficulty.  Chapter 2, "A Sicilian, Humanized Siren: The Cronaca di Partenope and Boccaccio," examines the medieval repression of the body and song of Parthenope, who has now changed her appearance into a virgin and the daughter of Sicily's king. Giovanni Boccaccio intriguingly revives the myth through what I term a "collective re-reading" at Parthenope's tomb, aimed at reviving the Sicilian virgin and her descendants. From my medieval analysis of the myth, we start to uncover a Siren who, while oscillating between her epic and bucolic characterizations, is also inspiring the city's rebirth. This transformation into a Siren inspiring a new epic of refounding of the city is something akin to the early modern and the modern-contemporary period. Chapter 3, "Hydrogeological Poetics: The Refounding of Parthenope in Sannazaro's Arcadia" deals with the Renaissance reception of the Siren figure from Greek and Roman authors in Sannazaro's Arcadia. By reviving the Siren's dual nature - as both the feminized killer of epic stealing the author's voice and the bucolic Muse saving and inspiring him (as we see in his nightmarish encounter with her in the twelfth prose) - Jacopo Sannazaro's work metaphorically calls on Parthenope to resurrect Naples through what I describe as "hydrogeological poetics." Parthenope's key figure in Arcadia marks a shift from bucolic to a new tentative epic genre that coincides with the author's will to refound his own city. This form of environmental and geographical literary expression dovetails with the actual restructuring of Naples in that time. In the final chapter, "Ecofeminist Foundations from the Margins: Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels," I analyze how Ferrante reinterprets the myth of Parthenope as part of her geopoetics via her spokesperson and protagonist Lila, positioning Naples as an ecofeminist, collaborative space born from the metaphorical suppression of the Siren.

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