The Myth of Apollo and Daphne from Ovid to Quevedo: Love, Agon, and the Grotesque

Duke Monographs in Medieval and Renaissance Studies

by Mary E. Barnard

The transformation of the myth of Apollo and Daphne in literary treatments from Ovid through the Spanish Golden Age are studied in theme and variation, showing how the protean figures of the myth meant different things to different ages, each age fashioning the lovers in its own image. The Myth of Apollo and Daphne focuses on the themes of love, agon, and the grotesque and their transformations as the writers, through a kind of artificial mythopoeia, invent variants for the tale, altering the ancient model to create their new, distinctive visions.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published March 3, 1987

About the author

Mary E. Barnard is associate professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University. She is the author of The Myth of Apollo and Daphne from Ovid to Quevedo: Love, Agon, and the Grotesque (Duke University Press) and co-editor of a collection of essays, Objects of Culture in Imperial Spain. Her articles and reviews have appeared in PMLA, Renaissance Quarterly, Hispanic Review, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos and Romanic Review.