•Hero and Leander
•Epyllion: long narrative poem, short of
the epic
•Epic poem:
•
long, in media res opening, vast setting
• divine intervention, lists
•Here: love
•Sources: Ovid, Grammaticus (6th cent.)
•Poetic format: iambic rhyming couplets
•Attraction for Marlowe?
• sexual content
•
•
ancient world
exotic places
•Description of Hero (9-50):
•
•
•
•
focuses on clothes
appeals to all senses
surfeit of details
no actual description of Hero
•Description of Leander (51-90):
• focuses on his body
•
desirable to men and women
•91ff religious feast in Sestos:
• Hero is the main attraction
•
135-55 Venus’ church: erotic and profane
•They see each other: 161
•Speculation on love at first sight: 167-76
•Leander’s first speech (199-294):
•
•
•
compliment
complaint against virginity
virginity as hoarded treasure, idol
•Leander’s second (299-328)
•
•
“holy Idiot”
Venus’ rites = love
•Hero won (330)
•Hero’s response (343-57):
•
•
description of tower
“come thither” slip
•Digression (385-484)
•
•
•
•
mythological story
Mercury, shepherdess, Cupid, Jove, Destinies
Destinies hate Cupid
Hero and Leander’s love is doomed
•Lovers in tower (503)
•
•
•
“He asked, she gave, and nothing was denied”
“And as a brother with his sister toyed”
innocence
•Leander swims (638ff):
•
•
Neptune, Ganymede
Neptune’s lust and anger
•Leander and Hero in the tower
•
naked encounter: 720-21
•Bed and siege imagery (731ff):
•
•
•
•
“defense” @ 755
“truce” 762
“another world begat / Of unknown joy”
ambivalence of “surrender”
•Final vision of poem: Hero’s nakedness
•Break of dawn
•Themes of poem:
• Sex
•
•
Defined in period as an act, not essence
Here, hetero and homo, though homo
unconsummated
• The ancient world
•
A playground for alternate ideas, beliefs
• Play with narrative expectation
•
Tragedy becomes erotic comedy