Confronting Time: The Quest for Agency and Power in Ovid’s Heroides

Abstract

In this article, I examine various temporal perspectives found in Ovid’s Heroides, considering how they clarify the way in which we view the letters’ power dynamics, together with the female authors’ capacity for agency in a mythological setting which appears to be already determined. Deploying a theoretical framework for time drawn from modern philosophy and science, I examine four examples drawn from the single Heroides. In Laodamia’s letter to Protesilaus, I consider how Laodamia strives to take back control of their fated futures against a backdrop that will see her husband lose his life. Then, I turn to Dido’s letter to Aeneas, which offers Aeneas an alternative future in Carthage, one which appears to be more secure from Dido’s standpoint than his fated journey to Italy. Hypsipyle and Medea’s letters to Jason enable me to evaluate the role of causation in a pre-determined world. Penelope’s letter to Ulysses provides an example of subjective time, framing her self-representation in relation to Ulysses’ delayed return. At the centre of these examples sits the question of free will in a fixed world, a topic which remains relevant now, as we too supposedly exist in a deterministic universe where temporal passage is deemed to be an illusion. These letters, therefore, can offer the modern reader a fictional window into what such a world might look like, a viewpoint that is unobtainable in real life.