Andromaca. Indagine filologica, storica e culturale di un mito letterario

Andromache. Philological, historical and cultural survey of a literary myth. The survey is based on a game of mirrors, that examines a series of similarities and/ or oppositions between Andromache and female characters (Elena, Briseis, Hecuba, Teti, Hermione, Penelope) and male ( Hector, Achilles, Priam, Aeneas, Agamemnon, Ulysses, Helenus). It has investigated the topos of motherhood, proceeding with a comparison between he eroine and the other mothers of Euripides’ tragedies (Teti, Medea, Alcestis, Hecuba, Megara, Etra, Creusa, Jocasta, Clytemnestra, Agave). Studying the situation of women in ancient Greece, it was possible to draw a profile that you set up as an ideal wife Andromache, comparing, by affinity or contrast, other famous wife (Clytemnestra, Medea, Teti, Elena). The psicological examination was based mainly on some keywords, which are spies for the caracterization of the character. The work focoused on themes (war, sacrifice, maenadism, water and rock, love and death, ) relating to the character of Andromache, of some reference zoomorphic (heifer, bee, mare) in connection with the bride of Hector and the elements that involve references to the warlike character of heroine. Sometimes, for the purpose of clarity, it has been provided a brief classification of works and authors in their literary, social and cultural context. Building on the influential works of literary critics who have offered valuable contributions to the understanding of literary myths, the work goes on a journey in time and space, to retrace the history of this heroine, and to try to lighten, from the philological, historical and cultural standpoint, the most remote and unknown aspects, analyzing even the less known variants of the myth and offering a portrait in the round of the character. The survey is based on documents of the classical authors ( Homer, Sappho, Euripides, Ennius, Virgil, Ovid, Propertius, Seneca), in which the figure of Andromache has a considerable significance (a total of four chapters). The attention, in the appendix, is placed on the sporadic survivals of the myth of this heroine in the Second Sophistic (Quintus Smyrnaeus, Ditti Cretan, Dares Phrygius) and modernity (Racine, Baudelaire, De Sanctis, Saponaro).