The Seas are Full of Monsters: Divine Utopia, Human Catastrophe

• Autores: Georgia L. Irby
• Localización: The Ancient Sea: The Utopian and Catastrophic in Classical Narratives and their Reception / coord. por Hamish Williams, Ross Clare, 2022, ISBN 9781800854239, págs. 123-146
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The Greco-Roman attitude toward the sea is ambiguous. The sea is a place of danger, a source of wealth (fish, pearls, murex purple dye), and a utopia where Nereids frolic, a paradise which categorically rejects human encroachment. The sea is the birthplace of catastrophe (disaster and destruction), where humans exist unnaturally and only with the aid of tenuous technology. This potential for maritime catastrophe is given form by kētē (sea monsters) who corporealize the sea’s more abstract dangers, its metamorphic qualities, storminess, and threats of death. The sea, moreover, is a sacred space, reserved for the divine and primal forces...