My thesis, supervised by Prof. Laura Swift, investigates the development, alteration, and adaptation of three myths attested in all three major poetic genres (epic, lyric, tragedy), namely the legend of Oedipus and the Labdacids, the tale of Bellerophon, and the myth of Agamemnon and the Atreidai. It explores the intersection between poetic mythmaking, audience expectation and reaction, and the poets’ innovative freedom. It analyses mythical reshaping as a process of selectivity and adaptation driven by genre conventions and needs, and as a codified exercise of reshaping and restructuring of pre-existing elements, rather than one of creation ex nihilo of mythical elements.
When I’m not working on my DPhil, you can find me playing with my band in and around Oxford.
