Satiric Grotesques in Public and Private: Juvenal, Dr Frankenstein, Raymond Chandler and <i>Absolutely Fabulous</i>

Braund, Susanna; Raschke, Wendy J.

doi:10.1093/gr/49.1.62

Cited by 2 publications

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“…Identifying the corpse as a zombie is also common even in more casual references to the episode; cf. Braund andRaschke (2002): 77 andJoseph (2017): 119 for examples. 40 Cf.…”

Section: Laying the Corpse To Rest: Erictho And The Bellum Civilementioning

confidence: 99%

Courtesy for Corpses: Erictho's Disturbing Decency in Lucan's Bellum Civile

Cruz¹

2023

Classical Journal

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Erictho's reputation as a grotesque witch seeping with malevolent power has long captivated readers of Lucan's Bellum Civile. In this paper, I explore how the poem implicitly works against this reputation even while explicitly endorsing it. After first illustrating how her behavior in the narrative action contrasts with the original description of her character and abilities, I turn specifically to Erictho's considerate promise to lay the reanimated corpse in her necromancy to rest. By fulfilling this promise, Erictho spotlights unsettling conversations of agency and bodily autonomy in Lucan's poem: especially as her behavior contrasts with Lucan's own as he populates his epic with reanimated corpses of a different kind.Anyone who were to encounter a blood-splattered figure prowling around human graves, biting at dead flesh and occasionally stealing organic material from humans both living and deceased, might very understandably wish to beat a hasty retreat. This is very likely not a person from whom we might expect a pleasant conversation but instead a physically and morally revolting creature we could do very well without. Thanks to her participation in such activities, the witch Erictho in the Bellum Civile has become a striking representative not only for the pestilent malevolence that seeps throughout (and out of) Lucan's poem but also the grotesque heights to which Latin literature can aspire.Erictho's reputation as the goriest of them all has served her well. Readers of the poem have consistently identified the witch as one of the fundamental hinges upon which Lucan's epic * I would like to thank

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“…Identifying the corpse as a zombie is also common even in more casual references to the episode; cf. Braund andRaschke (2002): 77 andJoseph (2017): 119 for examples. 40 Cf.…”

Section: Laying the Corpse To Rest: Erictho And The Bellum Civilementioning

confidence: 99%