1 Introduction
In this paper I shall argue that with his âMetamorphosesâ C.H. Sisson anticipates important aspects of the most recent receptions of Ovid at the same time that he builds upon the long Ovidian tradition. The past few decades have indeed witnessed the rise of a âNew Ovidian Age,â especially since many rewritings and reinventions of the Metamorphoses have appeared in various and differing art forms: poetry, narrative prose, drama, movies, and the visual arts.1 For instance, Christoph Ransmayrâs novel The Last World was published in the late 1980s (original title: Die letzte Welt, 1988). While perpetuating a tradition of stories centered on Ovidâs exile, it is also a transfigured reworking of the Metamorphoses themselves.2 The real beginning of the âNew Ovidian Age,â however, is marked by the publication, in 1994, of a volume entitled After Ovid: New Metamorphoses, edited by two poets and critics, Michael Hofmann and James Lasdun. It is a collection of poetic versions (translations, reinterpretations, and even complete reinventions) of sixty passages from the Metamorphoses, composed by forty-two Anglophone poets.3 This work has been followed by numerous poetic and prosaic rewritings of the Metamorphoses, such as Ted Hughesâ Tales from Ovid (1997), Alex Shakarâs City in Love: The New York Metamorphoses (1996), and the collection of short stories entitled Ovid Metamorphosed, edited by Philip Terry (2000). Note also dramatic works such as Mary Zimmermanâs Metamorphoses: A Play (2002) and movies like Christophe Honoréâs Métamorphoses (2014).
Although these artworks are very different from one another, contemporary reworkings of the Metamorphoses tend to share some common features:
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Rewriting is a fragmentary, heterogeneous operation. Individual authors, such as Hughes and Shakar, seem to select Ovidian excerpts in a âdesultoryâ way, rewriting and rearranging only certain episodes of the Metamorphoses. Similarly, collective works such as After Ovid and Ovid Metamorphosed lack both completeness (since they do not encompass the poem as a whole) and systematicity (since certain episodes, for instance, are narrated multiple times by different authors). Moreover, such collections include various texts of disparate nature, ranging from (more or less faithful) translations to reinventions of Ovidian episodes adapted to a contemporary context, not to mention original narratives that simply take the cue from Ovid for an entirely new reflection.
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Ovidâs stories are âdefamiliarizedâ in more or less evident ways (the term and its definition belong to Stephen Hinds).4 This is accomplished through various means. On occasion, authors employ modern vocabulary (note, for instance, âthe nuclear blastâ in Ted Hughesâ âSemeleâ)5 or adopt a point of view that was marginalized in Ovid: for instance, Alice Fulton in her âGive: Daphne and Apolloâ emphasizes the perspective of the tree into which Daphnis is turned.6 Other writers modify the Ovidian plot altogether; see, for example, Naomi Iizukaâs play entitled Polaroid Stories: An Adaptation of Ovidâs âMetamorphoses,â7 in which Eurydice kills Orpheus with a dagger. Others let the narratorâor a single characterâtransmit and interpret the story, as Phaethonâs analyst does in Mary Zimmermanâs play.8 Finally, certain authors radically choose to transfer the story itself to a contemporary context, as is the case, for instance, with Shakarâs City in Love and Honoréâs movie Métamorphoses.
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References to Ovid and his historical context are mixed with references to modern sources and events. Stephen Hinds has excellently highlighted the pattern in his analysis of Alex Shakarâs short story âMaximum Carnage,â9 which expects from its readers not only thorough knowledge of Ovidâs poetry, but also great familiarity with American comics (especially Violator, a supervillain and the arch-enemy of the eponymous hero in Todd McFarlaneâs Spawn serial, published by Image Comics).10 Among the numerous examples, note also Mary Zimmermanâs choice to combine Ovidâs Orpheus and Eurydice with Rainer Maria Rilkeâs version of the tale.11 Similarly, Glyn Maxwell assigns a structural function to audio-visual media in his Phaethon and the Chariot of the Sun: Fragments of an Investigative Documentary Unearthed by Glyn Maxwell.12
Such features can also be detected in an earlier poetic text: âMetamorphoses,â written by the British poet, translator, and critic C.H. [Charles Hubert] Sisson. The poem is part of, and shares its title with, an entire collection of poems that Sisson published in 1968.13 Born in Bristol in 1914 and deceased in Langport in 2003, Sisson is considered a direct heir to Eliot and Poundâs Modernism, but also to a different literary tradition spearheaded by Thomas Hardy and Edward Thomas. He is the author of over twenty-five books of poetry, two novels, several translations (Dante, Du Bellay, Racine, La Fontaine, Heine, and Valéry among others), and critical essays.14 Besides translating a number of Latin poetic texts,15 Sisson frequently took inspiration from Latin poets in his own literary output. As regards Ovid alone, his translation of the opening of the Metamorphoses (1.1â155),16 albeit unfinished, is particularly important, both because it makes use of the same metrical form (couplets of iambic tetrameters) that Sisson employs in his own Ovidian poem and because it features the myth of the ages, an Ovidian theme that frequently recurs in Sissonâs poem.17 Note also his freely reworked version of the Actaeon episode (Met. 3.138â252),18 which plays a crucial role (along with Pygmalionâs story) in Sissonâs original poem (although, in this case, the connection between the two texts is somewhat looser, and the metrical form of the translation, iambic pentameters, is different; see further below). Sissonâs translations also include a version of Tristia 5.10.19 Among his original poems, note especially âDaphneâ and âOvid in Pontus,â both published in a 1974 collection entitled In the Trojan Ditch,20 as well as âNarcissusâ (another Ovidian composition), published in 1980 as part of Exactions.21 Later in his career, Sisson published a larger poetic collection entitled Tristia and divided into ten parts, adding up to 125 lines; the theme is, once again, the poetâs exile in Pontus.22 Moreover, the volume entitled Metamorphoses includes, besides the eponymous text, a poem on âEurydiceâ and one on âOrpheus,â23 to which I shall come back.
In the preface to his Collected Poems (published in the volume In the Trojan Ditch, now in Louth and McGuinness 2014, 429â430), Sisson compares the practice of poetic translation to the use of myth in his own poetic output, equating both with a form of âdistractionâ of consciousness:
The writing of poetry is, in a sense, the opposite of writing what one wants to write, and it is because of the embarrassing growth of the area of consciousness which writing, as indeed the other serious encounters of life, produces that one has recourse to the conscious manipulation of translation, as it were to distract one while the unwanted impulses free themselves under the provocation of anotherâs thought. ⦠There are other enabling distractionsâreasoning and analysis, mythology and other narrative, properly used. All these are really modes of the problem of form.24
In the preface to his Collected Translations, published in the same volume (Louth and McGuinness 2014, 430â433), Sisson asserts that, in fact, he sometimes hesitated between including a text in his âpoemsâ and classifying it as a âtranslationâ (432). As I shall show, a composition inspired by Prop. 1.3 appears in both Sissonâs Collected Poems and in his Collected Translations.25
The poem âMetamorphosesâ is written entirely in couplets of iambic tetrameters and divided into nine sections, ranging in length from a minimum of four lines to a maximum of fifty-four (the total length is 240 lines). The text begins as a series of variations on Ovidian themes (the first two sections are devoted to Actaeon, the third to Pygmalion, and the fourth to Leda and Europa). Then, however, Classical myths are placed side by side with Biblical episodes (such as those of Ruth and Susanna in the seventh section), gradually mixing the two sources together until the emergence of what Sisson calls the âmetamorphosis of allâ: i.e. Christâs coming.26 Sissonâs poem includes, at least in embryonic form, all three of the main features common to more recent Ovidian rewritings:
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Sissonâs poem âMetamorphosesâ has a fragmented, heterogeneous relationship with its model. The author, in fact, chooses (a few) specific episodes, rearranges them according to his needs, and treats some of them multiple times (particularly the story of Diana and Actaeon, narrated in the first two sections and evoked again in the sixth). This may not surprise the reader, since the poem is Sissonâs original composition, merely echoing Ovidâs Metamorphoses. Note, however, that the text (initially) reads, in effect, like a miniature rewriting of Ovidâs poem (just as Sissonâs Tristia is a rewriting of Ovidâs). This is what the first half of Sissonâs poem is, although its second half is partly different. We can, therefore, legitimately associate this text with actual reinventions composed by later authors (who may well have used Sissonâs âMetamorphosesâ as a blueprint).
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Sisson âdefamiliarizesâ Ovidâs tales, particularly through a deliberate, systematic inversion of perspectives and/or radical change of ending (in both cases, Sissonâs technique is essentially the same). Thus, for instance, Sisson surmises in the second half of his poem that Actaeon was not a man transformed into a stag, but a stag transformed into a man. Similarly, the Pygmalion episode is concluded by the protagonistâs wish that the woman may be turned back into a statue.
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Sisson combines Ovidâs Classical legacy with another cultural strand: the Bible and, in general, Judeo-Christian religion. (In fact, Sisson uses two intertexts simultaneously: Ovidâs poem and the Scriptures. Through his use of both texts, however, Sisson incorporates the respective cultures into one poem, which thus has a twofold reference point.) To be sure, the poemâs structure seems to display a linear trajectory from Classical myth (in the first four sections) to the Old Testament (in the sixth, seventh, and eighth sections), featuring a âbridgeâ in the fifth section and the climax (i.e. Christâs coming) in the ninth. However, in the entire second half of the poem, both cultural strands almost constantly overlap (note, for instance, âThe naked figure in the grove / Dianaâs or the risen Christâs?â in the sixth section). This is confirmed by Sissonâs final reference to the Gigantomachy in the ninth section (which is about the birth of Christ). In sum: two cultural reference points coexist in the whole text.27
Thus, the poem is worthy of closer scrutiny; in what follows, I shall focus on the way in which Sisson rewrites the episodes of Actaeon and Pygmalion, the only tales to which (as noted) he dedicates one or more entire sections.28
2 Actaeon
In European and Western culture, the episode of Diana and Actaeon (which Ovid narrates in Met. 3.138â255) is famously a symbol of the relationship between error, guilt, and punishment. Ovid himself introduces the story with a moral exoneration of its protagonist (at bene si quaeras, Fortunae crimen in illo, / non scelus invenies; quod enim scelus error habebat? âBut in him, if you look closely, you will see Fortuneâs wrongdoing, / not a crime: for what crime is there in a mistake?â Met. 3.141â142) and concludes it by making room for two opposite evaluations of Dianaâs behavior, without taking sides with either (rumor in ambiguo est: aliis violentior aequo / visa dea est, alii laudant dignamque severa / virginitate vocant; pars invenit utraque causas âPeopleâs comments are disparate: some think that the goddess was less merciful / than would have been fair, others praise her and consider her worthy / of her rigorous chastity; each side has good arguments to adduce,â Met. 3.253â255). Analogously, in medieval, modern, and contemporary culture, readers have wondered what exactly is the crime of the seemingly innocent Actaeon, suspecting that some further details of the story were omitted by Ovid (or by the mythical tradition itself) and, more generally, meditating on the theme of identity, which is evoked by the transformation tale and its reversal of roles between hunter and prey. Another important object of debate is Ovidâs insistence on the fact that Actaeon retains human consciousness even after the metamorphosis (see especially Met. 3.200â205).29
Two texts have recently attempted to answer the questions raised by the narrative: Ted Hughesâ poetic version of the myth30 and Joyce Carol Oatesâ short story âThe Sons of Angus MacElster.â In Ted Hughesâ account, the scene in which the two protagonists meet is significantly replete with verbs of âseeingâ and âlookingâ (referring, of course, to Actaeon), whereas Ovidâs narrative focused, by contrast, on Diana and the nymphsâ reaction to the intruderâs arrival: âSo he came to the clearing. And saw ripples / Flocking across the pool out of the cavern. / He edged into the cavern, under ferns // That dripped with spray. He peered / Into the gloom to see the waterfallâ/ But what he saw were nymphs, their wild faces // Screaming at him in a commotion of water. / And as his eyes adjusted, he saw they were naked, / Beating their breasts as they screamed at him. // And he saw they were crowding together / To hide something from him. He stared harder. / Those nymphs could not conceal Dianaâs whiteness, // The tallest barely reached her navel. Actaeon / Stared at the goddess, who stared at himâ (my emphasis).31 Thus, Hughes suggests the intentionality of Actaeonâs gesture, thereby implying Actaeonâs guilt.32 In her short story âThe Sons of Angus MacElster,â33 Joyce Carol Oates reinvents the Ovidian tale and sets it in Nova Scotia in 1923. In this narrative, Angus MacElsterâs six sons murder their father in order to avenge the outrage suffered by their mother, whom Angus had undressed in the street following a heated argument. As Philip Terry writes in the introduction to the volume Ovid Metamorphosed (which includes the story), Oates makes explicit the violence that, from a female point of view, is implicit in the male gaze.34
The several possible readings of the episode traditionally associated with Ovidâs narrative seem to be conflated in the two texts that Sisson devotes to Actaeonâs story, both placed at the outset of his âMetamorphosesâ but offering two differentâand diametrically oppositeâinterpretations of the events. In the first rewriting (twenty-two lines), âActaeon was a foolish hind / to run from what he had not seenâ (1.1â2), and the narrative continues in the wake of Ovid, albeit suggesting that Diana deliberately ensnared her future prey (1.6â9: âDiana knew the man he was / but took her kirtle from her waist. / She gave her arrows to her maids / then dropped her short and flimsy dressâ). In the second rewriting (only four lines), Sisson hypothesizes that events actually followed exactly the opposite course: ââOr else he was a rutting stag / turned to a man because he saw / Diana bathing at the poolâ (2.1â3). Sissonâs systematic use of his inversion technique appears evident here (note, in the final line of the section, his choice of an image simultaneously explicit and allusive: ââAs you might turn a foreskin back,â 2.4). While the opening of Sissonâs poem features an inversion of Ovidâs tale (note the incipit: âwhat he had not seenâ) and a portrayal of Diana as responsible for the entire incident (âI think she knew the hunt was up / but set the hounds upon the man / to show her bitter virgin spite,â 1.11â13), Sisson rewrites his own version in the second section by reversing the sense of Actaeonâs metamorphosis: no longer from man to stag, but vice versa.
Such choices, however, are not merely dictated by a taste for paradox, since the changes made by Sisson to Ovidâs narrative are heir to a long tradition of creative reinventions and reinterpretations of the episode. The reverse metamorphosis, for instance, previously appeared in Giovanni Boccaccioâs short poem âLa caccia di Diana,â at the end of which the narrator reveals his past as a stag. He asserts that he and other prey were turned into young men by Venus, whom Dianaâs companions had invoked after the hunt, asking her to fulfil their sexual desires (E poi, verso del foco rivoltata, / non so che disse: se non che di fuori / ciascuna fiera che vâera infiammata, / mutata in forma dâuom, di quelli ardori / usciva giovinetto gaio e bello, / tutti correndo sopra âl verde eâ fiori; / e tutti entravan dentro al fiumicello, / e, quindi uscendo ciascun, dâun vermiglio / e nobil drappo si facean mantello, âThen, turning herself towards the fire, / she said I know not what. But every animal / trapped inside the fire came out / transformed into a man, emerging from those flames / as a fair, cheerful youth. / All of them ran around the flowery meadows, / and all sprang into the stream. / Coming out of it, each of them put on / a crimson cloth as his noble cloak,â 17.37â45; Quasi ripien di nuova ammirazione, / mi ritrovai di quel mantel coperto, / che gli altri usciti dello ardente agone; / e vidimi alla bella Donna offerto, / e di cervio mutato in creatura / umana e razionale esser per certo, âAs though filled with renewed admiration, / I found myself covered in the same cloak / that the others had, as they came out of the fire; / then, I was offered to the fair Mistress / and, turned from stag into man, / I was sure of being a rational human creature,â 18.7â12). In Boccaccio, Actaeonâs metamorphosis obviously plays a different role compared to what occurs in Sissonâs poem. Both authors, however, testify to the possibility of further developing ambiguities inherent to Ovidâs narrative as well as to the mythical tradition. In this case, they both complicate and destabilize our perception of the hunterâs transformation into prey. As a result, Boccaccio opts for a man-prey (who is happy about his fate), whereas Sisson refers to the animal as a hunter (âa rutting stagâ).
Sisson, moreover, hints at Actaeonâs ambivalent gender identity by calling the protagonist a âhind,â then a âstagâ (note also his remark on Dianaâs muscular body, âThere was some muscle on the girl,â 1.10). In fact, gender ambivalence seems to be a constant element of rewritings and reinventions of the Ovidian tale.35 For instance, at the outset of Christopher Marloweâs Edward II, Gaveston muses over various literary and musical pleasures that he might offer to his new king (and lover)âamong them, a staging of the story of Diana and Actaeon, in which both roles would be played by boys: âSometime a lovely boy in Dianâs shape, / with hair that gilds the water as it glides, / crownets of pearl about his naked arms, / and in his sportful hands an olive tree, / to hide those parts which men delight to see, / shall bathe him in a spring; and there hard by, / one like Actæon peeping through the grove / shall by the angry goddess be transformâd, / and running in the likeness of an hart / by yelping hounds pullâd down, and seem to dieâ (1.1.61â70). A similar, yet more significant reinvention is found in the movie Métamorphoses by Christophe Honoré, who not only places the Actaeon episode at the outset of his work, but also stages a transgender Diana.36 This confirms that the motifs of mutable identity and role reversal, along with those of taboo and transgression, can always be associated with the theme of gender identity (as observed by Sarah Annes Brown). Without a doubt, the âmusclesâ of Sissonâs Diana can retrospectively acquire new overtones in light of Honoréâs movie (and perhaps also of Marloweâs choice to put the Actaeon episodeâone of the many possible storiesâin Gavestonâs mouth). The similarities between all these versions may suggest that, besides the portrayal of the hunter as a âhind,â a more radical role reversal has taken place.37
Sisson also evokes the episode of Diana and Actaeon in two other poems: âThe Deer-Park,â published in his 1961 collection The London Zoo,38 and âThe Withdrawal,â published in the volume Metamorphoses (along with the eponymous poem).39 In âThe Deer-Park,â however, the myth functions as an antithetical emblem of a âvanquished worldâ (15) no longer experiencing âindividual sorrow / or even identified painâ (26â27): âAnd the horn sounding at the death / of the torn Actaeon / echoes for similar deaths / in identical forests / for in this machine world / no one can die lonelyâ (19â24). Note also that the poemâs ending features âthe bell / of the emerging church-tower,â which âmarks / a point in the gathering mistsâ (34â36): an important detail in relation to the cultural and religious syncretism that characterizes the finale of Sissonâs âMetamorphosesâ (see below). By contrast, in the seven-line poem âThe Withdrawal,â Sissonâs allusion to the mythical tale translates a world of love and introspection into a world of symbolic imagery, following a pattern typical of lyric poetry. Finally, Sissonâs version of the episode in iambic pentameters (âActaeonâ)40 is of crucial importance to our understanding of the contemporary reception of Ovidâs poem and the Actaeon myth. In this text, situated midway between translation and rewriting, Sisson adapts the Ovidian narrative to a modern context (for instance, Diana mistakes Actaeon for a reporter, 39). In so doing, Sisson seems to foreshadow certain features of some of the most memorable poems published in After Ovid; but note also the choice to let the translator-narrator occasionally take the floorâa technique common to both Sissonâs version and David R. Slavittâs translation (e.g., âFor killing deer was then accepted practice,â 13; âIn those days / That was the only way to have a shower,â 25â26). It is particularly significant that here, too, Sisson alludes to the uncertain and ambivalent nature of the story: âThe cameramen had not arrived in time, / Unfortunately, for a front-page picture, / And so the tale was left to literatureâ (9â11).41
We can, therefore, affirm that the Actaeon episode is the Ovidian tale that most attracted Sissonâs interest. No wonder that the story also appears in the opening of Sissonâs poem âMetamorphoses.â42 This fact, however, can also be explained on a different basis. Some medieval writers and commentators famously regarded Actaeon as a Christ-figure: this is the case, for instance, with the 14th-century poem Ovide Moralisé (3.604â669), in which the hunterâs metamorphosis is read as an allegory of Christâs incarnation, while Diana is equated with the Sacred Trinity (seen by Actaeon-Christ in its naked purity) and the hounds tearing Actaeon to pieces are identified with the Jews who put Christ to death. Cf. also Ovidius Moralizatus (3.5â6) by Pierre Bersuire (c. 1290â1362) and Ãpître dâOthéa (69) by Christine de Pizan (c. 1364âc. 1429). This raises the question: is it purely accidental (or merely a result of Sissonâs idiosyncrasies) that a poem in which Classical myth and Biblical episodes constantly mingle and overlap, opens with Actaeonâs death and concludes with the death of Christ (âA death in spring-time is the best,â 9.20)?
3 Pygmalion
In Europe and the West, especially since the 18th century, Ovidâs version of the myth of Pygmalion (Met. 10.243â297) has been perhaps the best known symbol of the life-giving power of art, as well as of the relationship between art itself, love, and ideals.43 Note, for instance, Jean-Jacques Rousseauâs one-scene lyric drama Pygmalion (1762â1770), in which the metamorphosis is not due to divine intervention, but rather to the power of the sculptorâs artâto the point that the woman/statue identifies herself explicitly with the artist as soon as she utters her first words, touching herself and her surroundings (âMoi â¦. Câest moi â¦. Ce nâest plus moiâ). Finally, she touches Pygmalion and sighs: âAh! encore moi.â This tradition can be placed alongside a parallel yet opposite one, which reinvents Ovidâs tale (or simply refers to it) by highlighting its disturbing aspects. One such facet of the story is the idea of an inanimate, anthropomorphic object suddenly coming to life (cf., for instance, Washington Allstonâs 1809 ballad âThe Paint-King,â in which it is Pygmalionâs portrait that comes to life and kills the woman who has fallen in love with him).44 Alternatively, other authors emphasize the inherently misogynistic assumptions implicit in a manâs desire to create the âperfect womanâ (cf., for example, George Bernard Shawâs 1913 comedy Pygmalion).45
Among the many recent rewritings of the episode, Alex Shakarâs short story âA Million Years from Nowâ (published in the collection City in Love)46 belongs to the first category, in that it thematizes the contrast between the real and the ideal, bringing it to its peak. The protagonist is, in fact, a once-famous artist who is now disparagingly called âthe Junk Man.â Surrounded and ridiculed by prostitutes, he manufactures a woman using waste material found in the street and aspiring to attain ideal perfectionâin other words, to create âa woman I could love,â who maybe existed âa million years agoâ or could perhaps exist âa million years from nowâ (hence the title).47 Other works belong to the opposite category, including Michael Longleyâs short poem âIvory and Water,â in which the reader is prompted to imagine what happens âIf as a lonely bachelor who disapproves of women / You carve the perfect specimen out of snow-white ivory.â In such a case, âyour dream may come true / And she warms and softens and you are kissing actual lips.â At the end of the dream, however, events take a wholly unexpected turn as the woman melts and is transformed into water, âuntil / There is nothing left of her for anyone to hug or hold.â48 Ted Hughes, in his version of Ovidâs tale,49 ascribes the artistic creation process not to the sculptor but (again, as in a dream) to a âspectreâ striving to come to life: âHe dreamed / Unbrokenly awake as asleep / The perfect body of a perfect womanâ/ Though this dream / Was not so much the dream of a perfect woman / As a spectre, sick of unbeing, / That had taken possession of his body / To find herself a life.â50
As for Sisson, he devotes the third section of his âMetamorphosesâ (thirty-two lines) to Pygmalion. While his treatment of the Actaeon episode is immediately introduced as an explicit inversion of Ovidâs narrative pattern (and, thus, as a radical disappointment of the readerâs expectations), Sissonâs Pygmalion is initially presented in a wholly conventional fashion, as if the story were consistent with its Ovidian counterpart: âPygmalion was an artful man; / Sculpsit and pinxit were his tradeâ (3.1â2). In fact, Sisson at first follows in Ovidâs footsteps, albeit condensing the narrative into a much shorter text and adopting a laconic tone (which he uses throughout the first half of the poem, but especially here): note, for instance, âBut it was marble, rather hardâ (3.8) and âHowever, it did not respondâ (3.12).
Nevertheless, Sissonâs Pygmalion, too, undergoes an inversion process. This time, however, the process takes place at the end of the narrative, although its consequences retrospectively affect the storyâs premises as well (note, especially, âThe ones he knew were troublesome,â 5, referring to women in general. The statement obviously acquires new overtones in light of Pygmalionâs misogyny, which the narrator explicitly endorses towards the end). At the moment of the metamorphosis and the two loversâ union, the statueâs transition from the ideal to the real (or, more specifically, from the artistâs dream of an imaginary woman to Pygmalionâs coexistence with one of flesh and blood) is foreshadowed by Sissonâs use of the verb âto slobber,â which has a shocking effect on the reader: âTo his surprise the girl grew warm; / He slobbered and she slobbered backâ (3.23â24). The following couplet, featuring a stark contrast between two juxtaposed sentences, makes the point even more explicitly: ââThis is that famous mutual flame. / The worst of all was yet to comeâ (3.25â26). The finale of Sissonâs narrative reverses the conclusion of Ovidâs tale: âAlthough he often wished her back / In silent marble, good and cold / The bitch retained her human heat, / The conquest of a stone by art. / May Venus keep me from all hope / And let me turn my love to stoneâ (3.27â32).
Here, too, as in the case of his Actaeon narrative, Sisson does not merely aim at surprising the reader (although the aprosdoketon effect is certainly deliberate) or desecrating the Classical model. Rather, Sissonâs version is replete with echoes of previous rewritings and reinventions of the myth. Consider, for instance, the idea that the statue may be preferable to the flesh-and-blood woman, which also appears in Charles Cottonâs 1689 poem âThe Pictureâ (âPerhaps you fear mâ idolatry / Would make the image prove / A woman fit for love; / Or give it such a soul as shone / Through fond Pygmalionâs living bone, / That so I may abandon thee,â 13â18) and, most notably, in an epigram by James Robertson (âTo please Pygmalion, Heavân inspirâd with Life / A Tongueless Stone, of which he made a Wife; / Wouâd Heavân, all-gracious, hear Asinoâs moan, / His Wifeâher Tongue at leastâwouâd soon be Stoneâ),51 originally published anonymously in 1770 (as part of Poems, consisting of Tales, Fables, Epigrams, & c. & c. by Nobody, London, 184) and later signed by the author in 1780 (as part of the second edition of the same volume: Poems, consisting of Tales, Fables, Elegiacs and Miscellaneous Pieces, Prologues, Epilogues, & c. & c. by J. Robertson, London, 270). The final line of Sissonâs narrative (âAnd let me turn my love to stone,â 3.32) indirectly evokes the idea of reverse metamorphosis, which was widespread well before Sisson himself. Note, for example, W.S. Gilbertâs 1871 comedy Pygmalion and Galatea, in which the protagonist is a happily married man and the girl decides to turn herself back into stone in order not to destroy his marriage. In Georg Kaiserâs play Pygmalion (written in 1944, but first published and staged in 1948 as part of a trilogy also including Twice Amphitryon and Bellerophon), the girl symbolizes an artwork that can only be truly understood by its creator; correspondingly, Athena turns her back into a statue so as to save her from the charge of prostitution, pressed against her by the sculptorâs client.52
In Sissonâs text, both the idea of an artwork (actually or seemingly) preferable to reality and the reverse metamorphosis are expressions of the protagonistâs misogyny, which is key to the interpretation of the whole episode. Thus, in Sissonâs version, the ultimate significance of the tale is the very opposite of what Ovid suggests. In fact, Ovidâs Pygmalion succeeds in overcoming his contempt for women precisely through his creation of an ideal woman and his love for her (Quas quia Pygmalion aevum per crimen agentes / viderat, offensus vitiis quae plurima menti / femineae natura dedit, âHaving seen them [the Propoetides] and their debauched / life, Pygmalion was disgusted by the vices with which nature had / abundantly endowed the female mind,â Met. 10.243â245). In Sissonâs narrative, by contrast, the âbirthâ of Pygmalionâs ideal woman and the protagonistâs union with her unveil the âtrueâ nature of desire (âHe slobbered and she slobbered back,â 3.24),53 besides laying bare the intrinsically misogynistic assumptions that govern the sculptorâs action from the very beginning. In Ovidâs tale, the objectified woman replaces an ideal love which the artist deems unattainable, and which is eventually actualized through the objectâs metamorphosis. By contrast, Sissonâs Pygmalion comes to realize that the object is precisely what best embodies his ideal woman. Sissonâs rewriting thereby reverses the Ovidian model and ends on a cynical, realistic note.54
4 The Pagan-Christian syncretism
In the remainder of Sissonâs poem, none of the single sections is entirely devoted to a specific Ovidian myth. In the fourth section, the poet evokes Jupiterâs encounters with Leda and Europa.55 Then, in the context of his Biblical rewriting, Sisson refers to Danae in the fifth and central section, which marks a transition between the âpaganâ first half of the poem and the âChristianâ second half. Phaethon is mentioned in the sixth part, in which Diana reappears; Eurydice in the seventh and eighth sections; the Gigantomachy is narrated in the ninth; and the myth of the ages occurs in the fifth and ninth sections (the only part in which no Classical references are featured is the seventh, which contains two Old Testament episodes, first Ruth and Boaz, then Susanna and the Elders).
In âMetamorphoses,â Sisson pays great attention to the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, which he reworks on a syncretistic basis. In fact, the myth features a descent to the Underworld, which Sisson associates with Christâs: âAnd when you visited the shades / Did you see my Eurydice, / Christ, on that terrifying day?â (6.9â11). References to Eden provide (albeit indirectly) further grounds for syncretism: âWithin this forest everything / Begins. Although I may not say / Eurydice walks with her tears / It is the grove where they beganâ (8.7â10). This âforest,â which the author goes on to describe as the Garden of Eden, is âthe forest of the uterusâ (8.4), from which an aborted fetus is pulled out. Significantly, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice is explicitly treated in two other poems belonging to the same collection. The first is âEurydice,â56 an Ovidian rewriting somewhat similar to that found in âMetamorphosesâ (note especially the final inversion, âOrpheus goes back to Thrace, / In those hard mountains / Learns to hate all women. / For her, it might be said / But that is false,â 37â41, alluding to Ovid, Met. 10.78â85). The second is âOrpheus,â57 in which the myth is used as an allegory of the mind (âA group of naked figures with Orpheus playing / But succeeding in attracting only the animals / I take to be a representation of the mind,â 12â14). Another reinvention of the Orpheus myth appears in the poem âIn Allusion to Propertius, I, iii,â placed right after âEurydiceâ in the final edition of the collection.58 Here, Sisson freely rewrites Prop. 1.3, intermingling it with a role-reversed version of Propertius 4.7, and alludes to the Orpheus tale in the finale of the poem. Note the role reversal: âWhy had I not come to her bed before? / I explained that I lived in the underworld / Among shadows. She had been in that forest. / Had we not met, she said, in that place? / Hand in hand we wandered among the tree-trunks / And came into the light at the edge of the forestâ (âIn allusion to Propertius, I, iii,â 19â24).
The pagan-Christian syncretism, which Sisson dates back to Dante in a theoretical essay,59 culminates in the ninth and final section of âMetamorphosesâ (twenty lines). Here, Christâs coming is equated with the beginning of a new Golden Age (as in the late-antique and medieval interpretation of Vergilâs fourth eclogue): âThe golden age began anew; / What had been first became the last. / Declension to the age of iron / Was unimportant after allâ (9.10â13). However, the elevated, optimistic tone of this section is deflated first through Sissonâs use of colloquial style (âFunny how he became a Mass,â 5), then through similes (âBuilding an ark for the whole world / As you might nail a coffin up,â 8â9). In the finale, the poet prompts further questioning: âAnd yet there must remain a doubt. / The giants piling up the sky, / Pelion on Ossa, also rose / And what will rise must also fall. / We know it by experienceâ (14â18).
In Sissonâs poetry and poetics, parallel references to both pagan mythology and Christian religion play a central role, as Sisson himself explains in an important theoretical text, âPoetry and Mythâ (1977).60 The essay begins with a polemical attack on Philip Larkinâs idea that âevery poem must be its own sole freshly-created universe,â61 preceded by a general observation that âa poem can have meaning only in terms of words other people use, and which we have from our ancestors.â62 Then, Sisson examines in greater detail the role of mythology, not only in works of literature, but in human experience itself:
The question is, are our feelings about things some sort of absolute? Or can they be checked against some wider reference? And if so, how? It is certainly essential to the possibility of any sort of civilization that the answers to these latter questions should not be entirely negative. It is essential to any communication, to human life itself which, whatever it may be, is certainly not that of any individual floating in space. Mythology is one of the vehicles by which the human being can escape from his solipsism. Through it, one stands for all, as in the Christian religion, or for some of all, or for part of all, as in the pagan mythologies. The old gods were put to flight, but not altogether chased off the scene, by Christ, and if he could be erased from menâs apprehension it would not be in favour of a vacuum.63
This passage, whose conclusion indirectly illustrates the significance of the finale of Sissonâs âMetamorphoses,â can be read as a sort of programmatic statement of the entire poem. In fact, it offers a potential key to the interpretation of any modern rewriting of ancient mythical narratives. In this paper, at any rate, I have aimed at highlighting the way in which Sissonâs poem simultaneously evokes a long tradition of Ovidian reinventions (Boccaccio and medieval moralizing literature; Christopher Marlowe and 17th-century English poetry; but also 20th-century drama) and anticipates with surprising accuracy many features of contemporary Ovidian rewritings (by no means limited to poetry). These features include systematic âdefamiliarizationâ (in Sissonâs case, through explicit inversion) and contamination of Classical sources with other cultural frames of reference (in Sissonâs case, through explicit pagan-Christian syncretism). As a result, Ovid is deeply and radically transfiguredâin other words, âcomplicated by the words and rhythms of a different language, a different age and a different tradition,â as Sisson writes in his discussion of John Drydenâs translation of the Aeneid:
Even a translator of geniusâsay Drydenâcannot give you his authorâs line. The most he can do is to offer you a related line, a related poem. That is something. It omits matter you could find in such as Cornish, and it is complicated by the words and rhythms of a different language, a different age and a different tradition. That takes us far from the original, it may be said. But we are far from our classic originals.64
âFar from the originalâ: Sisson acknowledges the irreducible distance between Ovidâs world and ours, concluding therefrom that this very distance can generate a surplus of meaning, crucial to our understanding of both worlds. This idea is perhaps the most distinctive and significant aspect of the multifarious artworks (literature, drama, and movies) which, a quarter-century after C.H. Sissonâs âMetamorphoses,â would collectively give birth to a âNew Ovidian Age.â
Acknowledgements
I am most grateful to Marco Romani Mistretta for translating this paper into English.
For a systematic treatment of the phenomenon, with references, see the second chapter (entitled Le Metamorfosi nellâetà dellâincertezza) of my book on Ovid and European culture (Ursini 2017, 115â256).
See Ursini 2017, 278â291.
Niklas Holzberg was the first to describe a âNew Ovidian Age,â but he placed its beginning some ten years earlier: âsince the mid-1980s, he [Ovid] has become so popular, not only with classicists and other lovers of Greek and Roman poetry, but also with poets and prose writers, that we may once again speak of an âAge of Ovid,â at least as far as the literary afterlife of antiquity is concernedâ (Holzberg 2002, 1 = Holzberg 1997, 11). By contrast, I prefer to place the original Ovidian âbig bangâ in 1994, the year in which there appeared both the first explicit, systematic rewriting of the Metamorphoses (After Ovid) and David R. Slavittâs translation (The Metamorphoses of Ovid). Slavittâs translation (Slavitt 1994) proved to be not only very free, but also extremely influential among learned readers: hence, its impact on later rewritings. (Note, for instance, that it is the source of Mary Zimmermanâs play, presumably the Ovidian reinvention with the largest audience.)
Hinds 2005, 69â79. See also Chapter 11 in this volume.
Hughes 1997, 91.
Hofmann and Lasdun 1995, 28â58.
Iizuka 1999, 84.
Zimmerman 2002, 62â68.
Shakar 2002, 89â104.
Hinds 2005, 78: âShakarâs Maximum Carnage, by superimposing the sensibility of a reader of Ovid (as cued by his own book-title), and the sensibility of his ten-year-old narrator, a reader of Violator, achieves part of its impact by forcing us to consider the possibility of mutual permeability between high and low-cultural versions of the mythic imagination.â
Zimmerman 2002, 40â48.
Hofmann and Lasdun 1995, 65â78.
Sisson 1998, 118â127.
For a recent bibliography of writings on and by Sisson, see Louth and McGuinness 2014, 491â493 (but cf. also Knottenbelt 1994 and De Luca 2015). Sissonâs poem âMetamorphoses,â a text generally neglected in scholarship on Ovidâs reception (there is no mention of it, for instance, in Miller and Newlands 2014) though represented in anthologies such as Martin 1998 and Miles 1999, is briefly examined in Joshua 2001, 152â153; Brown 2005, 81 and 130â131; Ziolkowski 2005, 169â170; Ursini 2017, 119â121. On the presence of Ovid in modernist poetry see in general Tomlinson 1983 and, further, Tomlinson 2003.
Among other texts, Sisson translated the entire Catullan corpus, Horaceâs Ars poetica, Lucretiusâ De rerum natura, and Vergilâs Aeneid, besides excerpts from Plautus, Martial, andâof courseâOvid (see below). Sisson discusses his rationale for translating poetic texts (and also, albeit indirectly, adapting or rewriting them) in the prefaces to his single translations, as well as in the introduction to his volume Collected Translations (Sisson 1996, ixâxi). There, in particular, he asserts that âthere never was a poet who was not profoundly affected by poetry, not in the sense merely of having been open to identifiable influences, ⦠but in the sense of finding that he belonged to a far-spreading company which, for all its individual diversity, shares some modes of perception which compel the linkage with words and rhythms which lie close to the heart of every languageâ (Sisson 1996, ix). In the same text, the very sense of translating is expounded by Sisson as âan irresistible, or at any rate unresisted attempt to get close to the work of foreign poets and to understand what they were saying, in their different times and places, in ways which make sense here and nowâ (Sisson 1996, x). For a more extensive, technical discussion of issues inextricably tied to poetic translation, see Sissonâs 1984 essay âThe Poet and the Translatorâ (reprinted in Louth and McGuinness 2014, 467â479). On issues more specifically tied to the translation of Latin authors, see Sissonâs preface to his Selected Translations, which appeared in 1974 as part of the volume In the Trojan Ditch (now in Louth and McGuinness 2014, 430â433).
Sisson 1996, 285â291.
Despite Sissonâs obvious debt to a common model in both texts, certain lines of his âMetamorphosesâ seem to echo his translation of the opening of Ovidâs Metamorphoses (or vice versa): cf., for instance, âThe first age was the age of goldâ (5, 9) with âThe golden age was first, when none â¦â (112) and âThe giants piling up the skyâ (9, 15) with âThe giants pile the mountains upâ (182). I was unable, however, to establish the chronological priority of either text over the other. Sissonâs translation appeared in his 1974 volume In the Trojan Ditch and Sisson himself, in the preface to his Selected Translations (now in Louth and McGuinness 2014, 430â433), dates it between his translation of Catullus and that of Vergil (432). In other words, it was composed roughly at the same time as his poem âMetamorphoses.â At any rate, it is reasonable to assume that the translation precedes the original poem (it could even have inspired it), and that the references to the myth of the ages and the Gigantomachy in Sissonâs âMetamorphosesâ are prompted by Sissonâs translation of the opening of Ovidâs poem, where the same topics are treated.
Sisson 1996, 291â293.
Sisson 1996, 294â295.
Sisson 1998, 157â158; on âOvid in Pontusâ see Ziolkowski 2005, 129; Simonis 2016, 313â314; Ursini 2017, 312.
Sisson 1998, 265.
Sisson 1998, 488â492.
Sisson 1998, 91â92 and 117.
Louth and McGuinness 2014, 429.
On the faint boundary line between free translation and poetic reinvention, see also Sissonâs 1984 essay on âThe Poet and the Translatorâ (in Louth and McGuinness 2014, 467â479): âWhen we say a translation is free we should consider the ways in which it could be bound. What is usually meant is being tied up with what one might call the fiction of literal meanings, according to which there are words corresponding with other words. The real situation is much more complex. ⦠There is a sense in which almost any line of poetry is nearer to Catullus than the complete prose version of Cornish isâ (474).
That religion plays a fundamental role in the whole collection is confirmed by the two epigraphs, respectively by Fulke Greville (âThough fleshe cannot believe, yet God is trueâ) and René Crevel (âEt ici, sans nous perdre dans des subtilités, constatons que le monde nâest devenu une telle cochonnerie que parce quâil a été si bien, si totalement, empli de Dieuâ), which Sisson places at the outset of his 1968 volume (although there is no trace of them in Collected Poems). See Louth and McGuinness 2014, 482â483.
For this crucial feature, cf. Sissonâs âDaphne,â in which the wood of the tree into which the girl is transformed is paired with that of the Cross. For a discussion of the role of religion in postwar British and Irish poetry more generally (including that of Sisson himself), see Huk 2009.
Referring to his collection a few years after its publication, Sisson described it as ârather confusingly entitled Metamorphoses on account of some allusions to Ovid in the title poemâ (in the preface to his Selected Translations, published in the volume In the Trojan Ditch: Louth and McGuinness 2014, 432). The statement is clearly a form of self-mocking humor. And yet, even if taken literally (implying, in other words, that Ovid is but a spur to Sissonâs original poetry), it would fall short of disproving that Sissonâs own poem âMetamorphosesâ is also a rewriting of Ovidâsâindeed, an open and explicit reinvention, at least in the first half of the text (the poem then transforms itself into something different; after all, metamorphosis is its fundamental theme and principle).
For the various ancient versions of the myth, cf. Schlam 1984 and Heath 1992; on the modern European reception of the tale, see Casanova-Robin 2003; Brown 2005, 67â83; Schmitzer 2008; Moog-Grünewald 2010, 19â25 and Lafont 2013. See, finally, Ursini 2017, 183â190, and Schiesaro 2018 for contemporary rewritings.
Hughes 1997, 97â103 (âActaeonâ).
Hughes 1997, 99.
The intentionality of Actaeonâs gaze, established as a commonplace since Petrarch (RVF 23, 152â153: Io, perché dâaltra vista non mâappago, / stetti a mirarla: ondâella ebbe vergogna, âAnd I, who am satisfied by no other sight, / kept staring at her: hence, she felt ashamedâ), had been made explicit as early as Nonnus of Panopolis: Dionys. 5.287â369 (by contrast, as noted, Ovid treats Actaeonâs encounter with Diana as a result of mere chance; the same is true of Ovidâs direct source, namely Callimachusâ Hymn 5 On the Bath of Pallas 107â118). Note that, some twenty years before publishing his Tales from Ovid, Hughes had devoted an original poem to Actaeonâs story (also entitled âActaeonâ), which had appeared in the 1979 collection Moortown Diary. In this case, the new text is a complete reinvention of the episode, transferred to a modern psychological context and endowed with a more specific meaning (see Scigaj 1986, 274). On the poem included in Tales from Ovid see Ingleheart 2009 and most recently Schiesaro 2018, 518â523.
Terry 2000, 72â77.
Terry 2000, 14â15: âclassicists have often been puzzled by the disproportion between the crime and the punishment; Oatesâs reworking, which let us see the violence of the male gaze from the womanâs point of view, provides an incisive answer.â
Brown 2005, 81: âAlthough the dynamic of the legend, in so far as it is sexual at all, seems heterosexual, it is amenable to queering of different kinds. In particular, the strong sense of transgression or boundary-crossing inherent in the myth may figure same-sex desire even though it is concealed behind a male/female encounter.â
Ursini 2017, 189â190 (see also 159â163 on the movie in general).
It is possible, on the other hand, to detect various allusions to a âreversedâ sexual violence in the hunting scene: âThere was some blood but not her ownâ (1.14, following the mention of Dianaâs âvirgin spiteâ); âthe forest rang but not with tearsâ (1.16); âwhich they were sure he would enjoyâ (1.19, referring to Actaeon, who is about to be killed by âhis favourite whippetâ); âDiana by the fountain still / shuddered like the water on her fleshâ (1.20â21).
Sisson 1998, 35â36.
Sisson 1998, 100.
Sisson 1996, 291â293.
Once again, I was unable to date Sissonâs âActaeonâ with precision. Consider, however, that Sisson was translating the opening of the Metamorphoses towards the mid-1960s, all the while composing an Ovidian poem prominently featuring the Actaeon episode (along with Pygmalion). Moreover, in 1967, Sisson published an essay entitled âCall No Man Happy Until he is Deadâ (now in Louth and McGuinness 2014, 318â322), in which he quoted the proverbial dictum (attributed to Solon) which Ovid had echoed at the outset of his Actaeon narrative (dici ⦠beatus / ante obitum nemo supremaque funera debet, âNobody ⦠ought to be / called happy before the day of his death and his funerary ceremonies,â 3.136â137). Based on this evidence, we can conclude that, in all likelihood, Sissonâs âActaeonâ was also composed around that time. Note that, in his theoretical writings, Sisson highlights the difficulty of drawing a clear-cut line between free translation and reinvention of a poetic model: see above, n. 25.
Note also that T.S. Eliot alludes to the story of Actaeon in The Waste Land, which Sisson obviously uses as a blueprint for his own religious âsyncretismâ in âMetamorphoses.â In The Waste Land 196â201, Sweeneyâs visit to Mrs. Porter is sketched through echoes of John Dayâs The Parliament of Bees, which features the myth of Diana and Actaeon. Ezra Pound, another of Sissonâs poetic models, had composed a short poem entitled âThe Coming of War: Actaeonâ in 1915.
Unlike other ancient versions of the Pygmalion myth, Ovidâs narrative portrays the protagonist as an artist (elsewhere, he is either a king or a common man).
On this aspect see Sharrock in chapter 10 of this volume.
See Rosati 1983, 51â93 (= Rosati 2016, 53â93) for a comparison between Ovidâs version and other ancient sources, as well as for the significance of the story in the context of Ovidâs Metamorphoses. See further Dörrie 1974; Dinter 1979; Schmitz-Emans 1993; Mayer and Neumann 1997; Brown 1999, 133â139, 155â167 and 181â200; Joshua 2001; Brown 2005, 123â142; and Martin 2010, 578â584 on the modern reception of the myth in European culture; Ursini 2017, 233â241 on its contemporary rewritings; Keen 2017, 315â316 on its use in science fiction literature; James 2011 on movie adaptations; Stoichita 2006 on the âPygmalion effectâ in general.
Shakar 2002, 55â65.
Shakar 2002, 58.
Hofmann and Lasdun 1995, 240.
Hughes 1997, 133â139 (âPygmalionâ).
Hughes 1997, 135.
The three texts discussed here (Cotton, Robertson, and Sisson) have been compared to one another by Brown 2005, 129â131. Note also that Cottonâs poem includes a turn of phrase very similar to the ending of Sissonâs Pygmalion narrative: âWhere feather-footed Time / May turn my hopes into despair, / My downy youth to bristled hairâ (9â11, immediately preceding the passage quoted above).
For a similar case, cf. Michel de Cubières-Palmézeauxâs 1777 comedy Galathée. On the theme of reverse transformation, cf. notably Martin 2004.
Cf. also âAn Essay on God and Manâ (a poem of the same collection, in which the notion of individual personality is called into question), 17â20: âLove? This monster is supposed to be kinked with the person, / But again, I do not know. / It is a fine trick to tie love to the penis / Like the cracked fakirs who put a skewer through itâ (Sisson 1998, 129).
The motif of Pygmalionâs disappointment with Galatea and the reverse metamorphosis (for which the artist himself is responsible) are ironically combined in two 19th-century operatic texts: the libretto written by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré for Victor Masséâs opéra comique entitled Galathée (1852), and Leonhard Kohl von Kohleneggâs libretto for Franz von Suppéâs operetta Die Schöne Galathee (1865).
Ovid does not offer an extensive account of the myth of Leda in the Metamorphoses, and merely refers to it as one of the episodes depicted on Arachneâs tapestry (6.109) alongside the rape of Europa (103â107)âwhich, however, is also narrated in full elsewhere in the poem (2.836â875). It is likely that Sisson used Met. 6 as a direct source (note also the eagle, mentioned by Ovid at 6.108 and by Sisson at âMetamorphosesâ 4.5 in the context of the myth of Asteria).
Sisson 1998, 91â92.
Sisson 1998, 117.
Sisson 1998, 92â93. In the final edition of Sissonâs Collected Poems, the collection Metamorphoses includes some texts which did not appear in the 1968 volume (see Louth and McGuinness 2014, 483). âIn allusion to Propertius, I, iiiâ is also (significantly) featured in Collected Translations (Sisson 1996, 293â294).
âPoetry and Myth,â on which see below. For Sissonâs reference to Dante (Purg. VI, 118â119), see Louth and McGuinness 2014, 453.
Originally published in âAgendaâ 15 (2â3), 1977, the essay later became part of two collections of Sissonâs literary-critical writings (The Avoidance of Literature: Collected Essays, 1978; In Two Minds: Guesses at other Writers, 1990), and has now been reprinted in Louth and McGuinness 2014, 452â458.
See Larkin 1983, 79.
Louth and McGuinness 2014, 453.
Louth and McGuinness 2014, 454.
Louth and McGuinness 2014, 474 (from The Poet and the Translator; emphasis in the original). âCornishâ is, of course, Francis Warre Cornish, author of a well-known prose version of Catullusâ poems (1904).
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