Myths, Legends and Tales in Romance Literatures and Cultures
Myths, Mirrors, and Metamorphoses: Narcissus and Echo in Medieval and early modern Romance Literatures and Cultures
Most people today have heard of narcissism. Yet, how many of us really know the original story of Narcissus and Echo, or its various adaptations by Medieval and early modern authors? In this course, we will explore the most influential version of the myth (from Book III of Ovid’s Metamorphoses), along with reworkings and reinterpretations by writers from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century in France, Italy, and the Hispanic world. As we shall see, this remarkable tale invites us to examine timeless themes, including questions related to desire and death, love and passion, reality and illusion, identity and difference, knowledge of self and other, mimesis and representation, as well as androgyny and gender fluidity. We will study examples from different Medieval genres and traditions, including troubadour love lyric (written in Occitan by Bernard de Ventadour), an allegorical dream vision in Le Roman de la Rose (written in Old French verse by Guillaume de Lorris), as well as an anonymous Tuscan prose narrative from Il Novellino, before turning to more didactic texts such as the anonymous Ovide moralisé, Boccaccio’s Genealogia deorum gentilium, and Christine de Pizan’s Epistre d’Othéa. We will then examine depictions of Narcissus in Neoplatonic philosophy (Plotinus, Marsilio Ficino) and in the visual arts (via Alberti’s treatise on painting), along with relevant iconography in emblem books (Andréa Alciato, Barthélemy Aneau, etc.), where Narcissus is portrayed as an exemplum of excessive self-love or self-regard (philautia). We will then focus on a selection of Renaissance poems by Petrarch, Scève, Ronsard, and Desportes, among others. In addition to investigating mirror-motifs and representations of proud youths (male or female) who fall in love with their reflections, we will also look at Echo poems by Joachim Du Bellay, Gaspara Stampa, and the Dames des Roches. Finally, we will examine several plays that reimagine the Ovidian myth in distinctive ways: Isabella Andreini’s Italian pastoral play, La Mirtilla (1588); Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s Arcadian drama, Eco y Narciso (first performed in Spain in 1661), and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s El Divino Narciso (written in Mexico around 1688).
This course will be taught in English; readings will be available in English translation, as well as the original language of composition.
Language of instruction: English
Instructor: Dr. Nancy Frelick
Prerequisites: None