River, Agency, and Gender: An Ecocritical Reading of the Myths of the Tiber

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11210%2F24%3A10484781" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11210/24:10484781 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

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DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

River, Agency, and Gender: An Ecocritical Reading of the Myths of the Tiber

Original language description

Rome started as a small settlement on the banks of a large river and its history has been tied to the Tiber ever since. This essay investigates a range of myths that feature the changing river as an agent that actively shapes the landscape. Myths of the Tiber contain precious ecological knowledge about the changing environment of the river, reflecting social, religious, and political concerns. The Roman foundation myth is set in a destructive Tiber flood, exhibiting an awareness of both the dangers and the richness of the fluvial environment. The destructive forces of flooding also feature in Horace&apos;s Odes and Vergil&apos;s Aeneid. The god Tiberinus appears to Aeneas in a dream to announce his victory and his death in the same breath. Tiberinus is an active agent that drives Vergil&apos;s epic narrative but also a divinity that the Romans worshiped together with Gaia, his female partner. Several stories combine the masculine portrayal of the Tiber with the productive role of women thus reflecting Roman gender and power dynamics. The story of the creation of the Tiber Island tells of land donation made by two women and renders river phenomena of alluviation and erosion in anthropomorphic terms. The myth of Vertumnus, a shapeshifter god, reflects the fluidity and gender ambivalence of rivers, as shown in the works of Propertius and Sulpicia.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

C - Chapter in a specialist book

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60101 - History (history of science and technology to be 6.3, history of specific sciences to be under the respective headings)

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2024

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Book/collection name

Conversing with Chaos: Writing and Reading Environmental Disorder in Ancient Texts

ISBN

978-1-350-34421-1

Number of pages of the result

15

Pages from-to

120-134

Number of pages of the book

232

Publisher name

Bloomsbury

Place of publication

London

UT code for WoS chapter

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