The Return of Proserpina - by Sarah Spence (Paperback)

About the Book

"In this book, Sarah Spence explores the role of Sicily in the European imagination through the myth of Proserpina, who was abducted by the god of the underworld from the same Mediterranean island. Drawing on the author's training in both classics and medieval studies, the book explores how mythic narrative reflects ideas about ancient and medieval empires and engages with debates about the nature of the classical tradition as it evolved during the Middle Ages. Spence argues that the narrative structure of the Proserpina myth, the history of Sicily, and ideas about empire come to reflect, refract, and refine one another through literature, including works by Cicero, Vergil, Ovid, Claudian, and Dante. More broadly, Spence considers the way in which literature offers a space for political deliberation and imagination. While Roman poets focus on Proserpina's abduction as a means for discussing the problems of imperial expansion, for example, high medieval renderings of the myth-invoked in discussions of a new Christian empire shaped by the Crusades-instead focus on the loss of Proserpina, her eventual return, and the necessary negotiations her return involves. In this way, the tale of Proserpina and the history of Sicily trace the changing needs and understandings of empire, literature, and the complicated links between the two"--

Book Synopsis

Sicily and the strategies of empire in the poetic imagination of classical and medieval Europe

In the first century BC, Cicero praised Sicily as Rome's first overseas province and confirmed it as the mythic location for the abduction of Proserpina, known to the Greeks as Persephone, by the god of the underworld. The Return of Proserpina takes readers from Roman antiquity to the late Middle Ages to explore how the Mediterranean island offered authors a setting for forces resistant to empire and a location for displaying and reclaiming what has been destroyed.

Using the myth of Proserpina as a through line, Sarah Spence charts the relationship Western empire held with its myths and its own past. She takes an in-depth, panoramic look at a diverse range of texts set on Sicily, demonstrating how the myth of Proserpina enables a discussion of empire in terms of balance, loss, and negotiation. Providing new readings of authors as separated in time and culture as Vergil, Claudian, and Dante, Spence shows how the shape of Proserpina's tale and perceptions of the island change from a myth of loss to one of redemption, with the volcanic Mt. Etna playing an increasingly central role.

Delving into the ways that myth and geography affect politics and poetics, The Return of Proserpina explores the power of language and the written word during a period of tremendous cultural turbulence.

Review Quotes

"Spence tells her story with a sure sense of forward direction and ultimate destination made all the more compelling by the significant twists and turns that occur at every stage. Readers of many different backgrounds and interests will enjoy the journey, and virtually everyone will benefit from the immense range of learning that sustains both the story and the reader every step of the way. . . . It is [a] book to be read widely and thoroughly by readers open to reflection and inspiration."---Joseph Farrell, Vergilius

About the Author

Sarah Spence is Distinguished Research Professor Emerita of Classics and Comparative Literature at the University of Georgia. Her books include Texts and the Self in the Twelfth Century and Rhetorics of Reason and Desire: Vergil, Augustine, and the Troubadours.