My research focuses on marriage stories in Greek and Sanskrit poetry - particularly within the epics - and, based on their comparison, I am attempting to reconstruct an older Indo-European predecessor for these narratives. In particular, during my BA and MPhil, I have been considering stories of bridal contests, such as the archery contest for Penelope in the Odyssey, the suitors of Helen in the Catalogue of Women, and the competitions held for Draupadi and Damayanti in the Mahābhārata, as well as abduction narratives, like those of Persephone and Sitā.
The goal of my DPhil dissertation is to discuss whether these narratives may have been adopted and adapted within the Greek and Sanskrit cultures from an older poetic tradition, and whether the two types of narrative may have themselves been related at some point, diverging from a story based on the appropriate method of obtaining a bride for a warrior figure.
