CENTRE FOR MYTH STUDIES
University of Essex
OPEN SEMINAR
The Sun-Flower:
An eco-centric footnote to Book IV of Ovid’s Metamorphoses
Dr Leon Burnett
University of Essex
Thursday 6 June 2024
7.30 – 9.00 pm (BST)
Online
All welcome
To register for this free Zoom event, please email: pps@essex.ac.uk before 11.30 am on the day of the seminar (mention CMS open seminar)
George Frederic Watts, Clytië (c. 1868-75). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
At the start of Book IV of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the three daughters of Minyas shun the celebration of Bacchus that is taking place outside. One of the sisters suggests “taking turns/ to tell a story to entertain us all/ and fill our idle ears, so that the time/ will pass more quickly”. The weaving of the fleecy wool and the telling of new tales run parallel.
The central story is about the Sun and his lovers. At its core are two transformations: Leucothoë is changed into a white frankincense tree and Clytië becomes a flower, forever gazing on Sol, the god of the sun. This seminar will review some of the complexities, both ecological and aesthetic, of Ovid’s choice of these two “bloodless” plants in the shifting standpoints of the Ancient World, the Early Modern World, and our own times.
The translation used in the seminar is by Ian Johnston, available on the internet at http://johnstoniatexts.x10host.com/ovid/metamorphosespdf.pdf. It is recommended that attendees acquaint themselves in advance of the seminar with Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book IV, 1-419 (or IV, 1-615 in Johnston’s translation).
Leon Burnett, founding Director of the Centre for Myth Studies at the University of Essex, has held the post of Honorary Senior Lecturer at the same institution since his retirement in 2014. He remains active internationally in the areas of Myth Studies, Literary Translation, and Comparative Literature. He is co-editor of Myth, Literature, and the Unconscious (2013), and Translating Myth (2016).
Essex Myth 