Berkeley Undergraduate Journal of Classics

Sea monsters inspired both fascination and fear in the minds of the ancients. In this paper, I aim to examine several traditional monsters of antiquity with a multi-faceted approach that couples classical background with modern day zoological knowledge. Looking at the examples of the ketos and the sea serpent in Roman and Greek societies, I evaluate the scientific bases for representations of these monsters across of variety of media, from poetry to ceramics. Through the juxtaposition of the classical material and modern science, I seek to gain a greater understanding of the ancient conception of sea monsters and explain the way in which they were rationalized and depicted by ancient cultures. A closer look at extant literature, historical accounts, and artwork also helps to reveal a human sentiment towards the ocean and its denizens penetrating through time even into the modern day.

James Joyce’s novel Ulysses applies the ambiguities of classical grammar and syntax to the English language in order to multiply meanings. He introduces the idea of subjective and objective genitives to illustrate the reciprocal love between a mother and a son. In addition, he declines the name of the character Bloom as a neuter noun rather than a masculine. Reading Bloom as a neuter character connects him to ideas of sterility and childlessness, since a sterile woman is also described in the book as being neuter. This conflation of the feminine and the neuter foreshadows Bloom’s transformation into a woman in the ‘Circe’ chapter, where his name is declined as a neuter noun. The flux of gender in this chapter is also seen in the character Bella/o, who switches between feminine and masculine pronouns. However, the necessity of the grammatical neuter circumscribing Bloom’s gender as simultaneously masculine and feminine is evidenced by the inability of Bella/o’s end-word gender signifiers to represent more than one gender at once. Therefore, Joyce borrows from classical grammar to introduce concepts that English cannot illustrate. In Ulysses, the application of classical grammatical forms is used to unify meanings that are contradictory or inexpressible in conventional English grammar.

This paper offers a new reading of Horace’s Fifth Epode as a response to Vergil’s Fourth Eclogue. Vergil’s poem heralds a savior-child that will restore the Roman state, while Horace’s poem narrates the tale of a child captured and killed by witches. I argue that by pairing these two poems the reader uncovers a latent Horatian commentary on civil war and Roman leadership from the seemingly innocuous witch fable of Epode 5.

To my knowledge, a sound linking of these two contemporary poems has never been published. I draw a concrete link between Eclogue 4 and Epode 5 first through textual and then thematic comparison.  Vergil says that his messiah will destroy poisonous plants and snakes (24-25) and these are the very two things that Horace’s child cannot overcome in the witch tale. Thematically, Eclogue 4 is centered in the ideas of birth and growth, the amicable integration of Eastern and Western cultures, and the natural peacefulness of the countryside. Epode 5 is concerned with the exact opposite themes: death and devolution, clashing of Roman and foreign cultures, and the murderous and unnatural filth of the city. I argue that these oppositions are intentional and highlight the tension between Vergil’s hope for a savior-child that will rebuild Rome and Horace’s pessimism that this abducted child will perish and take the city down with him. I then argue that contextual clues identify the savior-child as Octavian.

Although Horace is known for his patriotic poetry, the uncovering of this biting political commentary in superficially non-political Epode 5 begs reconsideration of other seemingly non-political Horatian poetry. Perhaps the poet safely conceals his honest opinions in these poems lest he compromise his political allegiances.

The Heroides is Ovid’s collection of verse letters between classical heroines and their lovers. The set of fifteen single letters and several paired letters begins with Penelope’s letter to her husband Odysseus, who has been gone from Ithaca for twenty years due to the Trojan War. While Odysseus’adventures were chronicled by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey, Ovid sets out to share Penelope’s perspective on, arguably, the eve of Odysseus’ return. However, Penelope’s letter is not just the first in the collection, it is a programmatic letter for the Heroides because it introduces the theme of the later letters, and it more closely follows epistolary style markers than the other letters. Penelope’s letter occurs in a situation that is more realistic than others in the collection, and so readers are persuaded to accept the later letters, even if the situations seem less plausible. Ovid’s interpretation of Homer’s Penelope also prepares readers for his views of later heroines and demonstrates the important place of imitatio and aemulatio in his writing. Therefore, in acting as a programmatic letter, Penelope’s letter introduces the collection and gives Ovid firm ground to explore with his later “writers.”