He Said, She Said. The Representation of Female Voices in Male-Authored Hellenistic Poetry

Abstract

This master thesis studies how, when, and to what effect male poets in the Hellenistic period depict female voices within their works. This is done by analysing poetry from three different male authors who have all created distinctly female characters: Theocritus, Herodas and Apollonius Rhodius. Drawing on theoretical insights from multiple disciplines (sociolinguistics, gender studies, narratology, literary studies, cognitive sciences), the assumption behind the research question is that male authors reflect women’s speech through male constructs when writing female characters and (implied) female first-person speakers. These constructs are based on literary, societal and cognitive influences.