Focalisation as a Part of the Narrative Strategy in the 'Orphic Argonauts' Cover Image

Fokalizacja jako element strategii narracyjnej w „Argonautykach Orfickich”
Focalisation as a Part of the Narrative Strategy in the 'Orphic Argonauts'

Author(s): Mariusz Zagórski
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II - Instytut Filologii Klasycznej
Keywords: Orphic Argonauts; epic poety; narratology; focalisation

Summary/Abstract: The Argonautica Orphica is one of three epic poems describing the way of Jason and the Argonauts to Colchis, which survived to our time. Although each of them tell us the same well known story, which includes the same traditional episodes, each of them seems to be very different. After a hellenistic version by Apollonius Rhodius and a flavian one by Valerius Flaccus, the “Orphic Argonauts” appear to be an example of the later Greek epic tradition symbolised by Nonnos of Panopolis and his famous “Dionysiaca” and “Paraphrasis of St. John”. These poem created in “an age of anxiety” – as Robert Dodds described the late Roman Empire – are not so much concerned with storytelling, but they rather tend to draw attention to the religious aspect of myth stressing its mystical dimension. My aim in this paper will be to examine, how the author of the Argonautica Orphica adapts some conventional narrative strategies, known from the earlier epic tradition, to this aim using focalisation connected with Orpheus, the narrator of the poem.

  • Issue Year: 2011
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 97-109
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: Polish