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Elaine Feinstein, in a modern, late-twentieth-century interpretation of the myth of Orpheus, draws on many of the classical images used by Ovid in his ancient version of the same legend. However, despite the striking similarities between the two poems, a significant paradigm shift has occurred. Primarily, the narrative voice and perspective of Ovid’s male storyteller, has given way to a socially conscious, intuitive feminine Eurydice. ... Eurydice’s voice – strong, sorrowful and loving represents the multidimensional woman of today, whereas Eurydice was, in Ovid’s depiction, a voiceless object of Orpheus’s control – and was entirely dependent on his actions. At the heart of Feinstein’s poem is the implication that despite the innate human drive to be spiritually at one with another soul, the universal masculine qualities as represented by Orpheus and the feminine qualities represented by Eurydice make this yearning an almost unachievable quest.
Starting from the beginning of book 11, and taking the masculine point of view, Ovid’s Orpheus, mourning the loss of his dear bride, retreats to the wilderness to sing to the wildlife. Suddenly, the frenzied Thracian women interrupt rational Orpheus as he wields his magic over nature. They reveal why they hate Orpheus – he is ‘The man who scorns us’ and proceed to hurl their arsenal of weaponry at him. ... Their lack of reasonable thought processes is contrasted with both Orpheus and Apollo. Apollo, who was presumed to be the father of Orpheus, personifies all the qualities that the Bacchante lacked, namely reason, foresight and enlightenment. ... Feinstein, like Ovid, compares the unreasonable nature of these ‘ladies’ with the perceptive and enlightened nature of Apollo, although for Feinstein, Apollonean qualities also include the element of ‘control’. ...
In both versions of the myth, the women overpower Orpheus and the importance of Orpheus’s music is highlighted. Ovid’s Bacchante women hurl spears and stones at Orpheus, which at first he fends off and vanquishes with the sheer power of his voice and lyre. ... Chaos overcoming order is manifested here in the bloody and brutal killing of harmonic Orpheus by the barbaric Bacchantes.
Feinstein depicts the Bacchante women similarly as mad ‘murderers’ , but they approach Orpheus like staggering, drug-induced zombies.
Approximate Word count = 1765
Approximate Pages = 7.1
(250 words per page double spaced)
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