Noua … corpora: New Bodies and Gendered Patterns in the Metamorphoses

Abstract

This article explores metamorphic outcomes in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. While the poem may be steeped in constant mutability, for the most part gender emerges as a surprisingly static feature, and one that carries remarkable weight also when read beside the aftermaths of Ovidian transformations. Though there may be no fixed schema that categorically establishes disparities in the final destinations of male and female transformations, I show that there are significant gendered patterns with some perhaps unexpected consequences for class and social status also. In considering the poem’s main destinations, we can see distinct patterns of outcomes: heavily gender-based for trees, gender-significant (albeit not simply determined) for watercourses, gods, and stones, and gender-equal in the case of birds and other animals. The article tackles some of the unconscious gender preconceptions at play, and explores the enduring significance of gender for the Metamorphoses within the various outcomes of those who become victims, or occasionally beneficiaries, of Ovidian metamorphosis.