DATE: Tuesday, November 6, 2012
TIME: 1:30 p.m
PLACE: Studio, Lambert Road campus
CANDIDATE: Madhavi Nambiar
DISSERTATION TITLE: "Metaphor, Paradox and Repetition as Contemplative Tools in Ovid’s Metamorphoses"
PROGRAM-TRACK/YEAR: PhD-G; 2007
CHAIR: Dr. Christine Downing
READER: Dr. Lori Pye
EXTERNAL READER: Dr. Lyn Cowan

Nambiar, M.(2012). Metaphor, Paradox and Repetition as Contemplative Tools in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2012)

ABSTRACT

This study examines the way in which metaphor, repetition and paradox help shape and integrate personal transformations in text-based characters in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. By taking a close look at the transformational qualities of these three narrative devices in relation to their particular contributions to characters within the text, this study aims to understand how these tropes can be viewed as symbolic building blocks that hold units of energy in the text. These tropes help release the symbolic and transformative power of the myths, making it evident that myth is not something to be passively received, but rather actively expressed, experienced and co-created. This entails a three-way engagement between author, the narrative and the reader.

Addressing the gap in an epistemic and depth psychological understanding of how tropological and rhetorical devices can contribute towards transformation, both in characters and readers, this study places at the center, the possibility that texts can change real-life contexts when responded to and engaged with in specific ways. Rhetorical devices assist in the formation of a grammatical code that engages the psyche and allows it to open up to a process of integrating deeply rooted resistances. By engaging in a creative process by which some of these resistances can find words or images, a process of collaborative myth-making is possible. This process makes the engagement with myth a meaningful, transformative act.