Ariadne and the poetics of abandonment: echoes of loss and death in 'Heroides' 10

© 2009 Rachel HirschThe Ovidian Ariadne of Heroides 10 self-consciously constructs her persona into the archetype of erotic abandonment. The heroine attempts to re-write her destiny and reverse the loss of Theseus and her unfulfilled desire. But Ariadne cannot change her depiction as abandoned by Theseus. The language employed in her epistle only succeeds in emphasising the erotic loss. The more Ariadne tries to change the master narrative, the more she accentuates the literary echoes of her abandonment. This thesis argues that the intertextual echoes of the heroine should not exclusively be read from Catullus 64, but that Ovid‟s Ariadne writes her epistle in the context of many genres - elegy, epic, tragedy, exilic elegy - which all emphasise loss, death, and erotic disillusionment. My reading of Heroides 10 avoids the interpretations of parody previously read of this particular heroine to argue instead the way Ariadne constructs the governing persona in accordance with the genres of both elegy and epistolography. Ariadne‟s self-representation as an elegiac puella ultimately reflects her traditional literary and artistic image. This disrupts her self-depiction as an erotic object and subsequently her construction of masculine desire. The heroine‟s epistolary gaze and voice self-consciously re-affirm her position as the quintessential abandoned woman, while her poetics continually assert the irreversible end of her relationship and the failure of her words to change her fate. Death is the primary concern of the epistle, in which the request for proper burial replaces the desire for erotic union. Memorialisation and writing become the prime motivation for Ariadne‟s poetics whereby she attempts to reverse Theseus‟ forgetful mind with a concrete monument to the self. The dislocation of Ariadne‟s erotics alongside the failure of epistolarity attests to the failure of her voice in constructing change to her traditional narrative