Muto Nititur Ore Loqui: Interactions of the Female Voice and Body in Roman Elegy

Abstract

This thesis investigates the interaction of the female voice and body in Roman elegy. Specifically, I look at female speech that is quoted by male narrators and the written female voice, which is not filtered through the frame of the male perspective. I consider the female body not only as the object of the male gaze, but also as a tool that the women can use for their own benefit when communicating with men. Starting with the traditional Roman love elegy of Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid, I explore the use of female speech and body language in these poems as paradigmatic. Building upon this foundation, I then track variations on these established standards of elegy in Propertius’ fourth book of elegies, Ovid’s Heroides, and Ovid’s Fasti. By investigating the interaction between the female voice and body, this thesis aims to elucidate the different ways that the elegiac woman, from the puella of love elegy to the mythological women of Ovid’s Fasti, was fashioned as an embodied speaker and writer by Rome’s male elegists.