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# 7 Classical reception

Classical reception is an approach that you have been using throughout this course, without using its name. When you compared the painted pot with the Ovidian text in Activity 14, that was classical reception, and when you examined different artists’ versions of the Actaeon myth throughout the previous section, that was classical reception in action too! Now you will learn more about this approach, practise applying it with more precision to some modern poetry, and find out how it helps us to understand why Ovid is still relevant to the modern world.

Figure 21 ‘Yellow (Diana and Actaeon)’ by the contemporary Cuban-American artist Lino Bernabe. This painting was made to change under different colours of light. The image shows what it would look like under white light, but under different colours of light other details become more apparent. This reflects the variety of ways readers have interpreted the myth.

## Activity 15 What is classical reception?

This activity should take about 10 minutes

Watch the following video introducing you to classical reception. Then, write a single sentence summary of what you understand classical reception to be.

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Transcript
(A text entry box would appear here, but your browser does not support it.)

### Discussion

There are many different ways that you could sum up classical reception. For example: classical reception is an approach that tries to understand the way that ancient things (stories, artefacts, ideas) acquire their meaning as they travel through time and space.

Let’s dig into some specific versions – or receptions – of the Actaeon story, and put what you have learned about classical reception into practice. In the next two activities you will study two paintings by the Italian painter Titian, who died in 1576 CE, and a poem that responds to these paintings by the British-Nigerian poet Patience Agbabi. Now that you know Ovid’s version of the story of Actaeon quite well, you can focus on how Titian and Agbabi adapt it and provide new interpretations.

Between 1551 and 1562 CE, Titian painted six large paintings which he called his ‘poesie’ (poems) for Philip II, who was then King of Spain. The story of Diana and Actaeon takes up not one but two paintings in this series. Look at the paintings carefully now, and see whether you can identify which moments in the story of Actaeon they represent.

In 2012, a series of poems was commissioned in response to these two paintings by Titian. These poems showcase something important about classical reception. They make clear that reception is not just a conversation between something ancient and something modern. It is a dynamic process that can involve multiple webs of texts, art and ideas and it can make loops in time that connect up multiple historical moments.

One of the poems that was commissioned in 2012 was a poem called ‘About Face’ by Patience Agbabi. It takes as its subject one of the figures in Titian’s painting – the Black woman who is on the right of the ‘Diana and Actaeon’ painting. In this next activity you will engage with Agbabi’s poem and the way it transforms Ovid’s myth of transformation by responding to Titian’s painting.

## Activity 16 About Face

This activity should take about 20 minutes

Watch Patience Agbabi read her poem ‘About Face’ and read along in the transcript if you would like to. You will engage with this poem multiple times as part of this activity.

## Transcript

> Actaeon, you’ll pay the price for looking
> like a god; athletic, proud, immortal.
> Diana, goddess of the hunt, will hound you.
> She is too harsh; you should have looked at me.
> I am her shadow, black yet fairer than
> the mistress, clad in cloth finer than cirrus.
> I want you, Actaeon. I wish I were
> shroud white; O that you’d notice me and mouth
> each monumental curve. Her handsome face
> off-guard, you brushed aside the drape to see
> how cool she bathed; with the pool’s spray, she cursed you
> for looking. In this pine-sweet grove, you turned
> from man to horned and dappled stag: sentenced.
> Look how your fate reflects itself in water.

> Look! How your fate reflects itself in water
> from man to horned and dappled stag, sentenced
> for looking. In this pine-sweet grove, you turned.
> How cool she bathed! With the pool’s spray she cursed you.
> Off-guard, you brushed aside the drape to see
> each monumental curve, her handsome face
> shroud white. O that you’d notice me and mouth
> I want you. Actaeon, I wish I were
> the mistress clad in cloth finer than cirrus.
> I am her shadow, black yet fairer than
> she is. Too harsh! You should have looked at me.
> Diana, goddess of the hunt, will hound you
> like a god, athletic, proud, immortal.
> Actaeon, you’ll pay the price for looking.

The first time, simply try to make sense of the poem. What is it about? What ideas and emotions does it convey? Then listen to/read the poem again. This time, pay close attention to the way the poem is structured, and to the characters that Agbabi directs our attention to in the poem. Then answer the following questions.

1. Whose point of view is Agbabi writing from, and how does this change the reader’s perception of the story?
2. What do you notice about the structure of this poem that makes it particularly effective?

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### Discussion

Here is an example answer:

1. Agbabi is writing from the point of view of the Black woman who appears on the right-hand side of Titian’s painting. This changed the way I viewed Titian’s painting, because it made me realise that all of the other characters had been assumed by the painter to be white. It also changed how I thought about Diana, because in Agbabi’s poem this character calls her ‘too harsh’ in her punishment of Actaeon.
2. The poem is in two halves, with the first half reflecting the second half – this is called a mirror poem. I found this to be particularly effective because it draws attention to the importance of water in Ovid’s story, and the reflection in the water that we can see in Titian’s painting.

This poem could be read as Agbabi re-imagining Ovid’s myth through Titian’s re-imagining of it. Classical reception is constantly being influenced by these kinds of choices, which are themselves shaped by the choices of earlier writers and creatives as well as broader societal contexts. The meaning of ancient texts and artefacts is constantly changing in response to new kinds of interpretations and re-imaginings. Here we see another of Ovid’s big questions: why do myths continue to matter in the modern world? And classical reception provides us with as many different answers as there are different re-imaginings of these stories. If you have found studying this poem interesting, you might want to return to it in the ‘Taking it further’ section, where you will find more resources to explore it.

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OpenLearn - Exploring Ovid’s big ideas
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