Lamia

Lamia

1. Key Narrative Events

   • Hermes, having fallen in love with a nymph who has become hidden from him, hears a voice longing to be mortal and beautiful.
     • The speaker is revealed to be a beautiful yet awful serpent (Lamia). She tells Hermes that she hid the nymph for the nymph's safety, but will make her visible to him if he restores her to her woman's body, to which Hermes agrees.
       • The nymph becomes visible to Hermes, and Lamia undergoes a painful transformation to become a mortal woman and disappears.
         • While in her serpent form, Lamia had the power to send her spirit wherever she wished. While doing this she had seen a Corinthian youth, Lycius. Now, as woman, she returns to a road near Corinth along which she knows Lycius will come on his way to the city.
           • When he arrives she asks him if he will leave her all alone where she is. Lycius looks at her and immediately falls in love with her, seeing her as a goddess. Together they travel - part walking, part by magic - to Corinth.
             • Along the way they come across Apollonius, Lycius' old tutor. Lycius attempts to hide from Apollonius, resulting in Lamia questioning A's identitty and Lycius revealing his distrust of him.
               • Lamia leads Lycius to a grand mansion in which they shield themselves from the outside world.
   • The two remain happily hidden together until Lycius is reminded of the outside world and Lamia feels that he is becoming too distracted from her. Lycius decides they should marry and invite their friends to the wedding. Lamia is opposed to this plan but Lycius persists. She eventually concedes, agreeing on the condition that Lycius will not invite Apollonius.
     • While Lycius is absent inviting kinsfolk to the wedding, Lamia uses her magic to summon invisible servants to decorate the banquet room with trees and plants, and fill it with rich foods. She then closes the room away in anticipation of the somewhat chaotic event to follow.
       • When Lycius' guests arrive they marvel at the mansion, unaware of such a palace in Corinth. Among the guests is Apollonius, who has come uninvited. Apollonius enters the mansion and apologises to Lycius for his intrusion, claiming that although rude it was entirely necessary
         • The guests become increasingly intoxicated and rowdy, and all (including Lamia, Lycius and A.) are decked in wreathes
           • During the feast Apollonius begins to stare at Lamia, who becomes extremely uncomfortable. She refuses to answer to Lycius' increasingly desperate questions as to why she appears ill. The celebration comes to a stop. Lycius commands Apollonius to stop staring at Lamia, insulting and cursing him. Apollonius then repeatedly calls Lycius a 'fool', and proclaims: 'from every ill / Of life have I preserv'd thee to this day, / And shall I see thee made a serpent's prey?'. Looking at Lamia again, repeats: "A serpent!". Lamia then vanishes, and immediately after/ simultaneously Lycius dies.

2. Methods (AO2)

   • foreshadowing
     • Romantic irony
       • narrator reminds us this is a story
         • ''Twould humour many a heart to leave them thus'
         • 'Upon a time' - @ beginning
           • 'It was the custom then'
     • intertextual references
       • references to various Greek myths - act as reminder that this is a story
         • Orpheus & Eurydice
           • 'He did [look back] - not with cold wonder fearilngly/ But Orpheus-like Eurydice'
             • O loved E, wanted to rescue from underworld, but failed when he looked back as they were about to escape so lost her
         • Apollonius - Apollo slayed Python (a snake)
         • Proserpine (Persephone)
           • taken to underworld and could return for 6 months a year
             • disconnect from world she belongs in - be that mortal or immortal
   • oppositions/ juxtapositions
     • makes it obvious they are doomed to fail - incompatible
       • mortal vs. immortal
         • Lamia, forest to Corinth
         • 'Nor they [Hermes & Nymph] grew pale as mortal lovers do'
       • public vs. private
         • 'revels rude, when guests would come to spoil her solitude'
       • order vs. chaos
       • reality vs. 'fantasy'
         • Love woke Lycius from 'death' to 'amaze' - reality = death
       • rational thought vs. emotion/ feeling
         • Apollonius vs. Lamia & Lycius
   • symbolism
     • snake/ biblical
       • Eve took from the snake in Eden which caused the 'fall of man'
       • Alternatively, snake in Eden = Satan
         • 'Some Demons mistress, or the demons self'
           • She is half woman/half snake - multi faceted and complex character
     • colour
       • used to evoke emotions/ enhance meaning
         • snake - cool colours, during transformation - red = pain eg 'scarlet pain'
         • 'phospour glow' follows her - she's never going to escape her past
     • wreath of willow and adders tongue - sadness, snake form she never escapes
       • vase of myrtle dies - like love - when she discovered
     • eyes
       • motif throughout
         • Tragic blindness & realisation
           • Apollonius eyes are a threat [his logic]
             • 'demon eyes', 'juggling eyes', 'sharp eyes', '

3. Aspects of Tragedy (AO3)

   • catharsis
     • Lycius has end, more drawn out, Lamia dies in a single line so little catharsis - we dk what happened to A
   • fate/ tragic inevitability
   • hero/ victim/ villain
     • the exact roles of the protagonists in this poem are very ambiguous
       • Lamia
         • victim
           • pathos
             • her transformation was drawn out and painful, she's isolated, is betrayed (?) by Lycius, and dies
               • 'she writhed about, convulsed with scarlet pain'
               • 'nothing but pain and ugliness were left'
               • 'With frightful screams she vanished'
               • 'do not bid Old Apollonius - from him keep me hid' '[Lycius] Led the old man through the inner doors'
             • semantic field of sadness and fear towards the end, following the proposal
               • 'meek', 'sorrows', 'pain', 'trembled', 'dress the misery in fit magnificence', 'tender-personed Lamia', 'poor lamia'
         • hero
           • tragic isolation
             • she has no family or friends, is separated from her immortal origins, and hides herself and Lycius away from the rest of society
               • 'but this fair unknown had not a friend'
               • 'shut from the busy world
           • tragic fall
             • She nearly had a happy life until A discovered the truth
           • at odds with her environment
             • she is an immortal being trying to exist in the mortal plane
           • not noble, but imortal
         • villain
           • manipulative/ deceptive
             • she deceives and manipulates Hermes and Lycius to get what she wants
               • 'She threw the Goddess off, and won his heart/ More pleasantly by playing womans part'
             • 'Her throat was serpent'
           • selfish
             • she reveals the nymph for her own gain, despite having hidden her for her safety and comfort
               • 'Give me my woman's form, and place me where he [Lycius] is... And thou shall see thy sweet nymph even now'
               • the nymph 'faded before him, cowered, nor could restrain her fearful sobs'
           • leads Lycius to his fall (?)
           • 'The cruel lady, without any show/ Of sorrow for her tender favourites woe'
       • Lycius
         • hero
           • tragic blindness
             • he is blinded by his love for Lamia, and perhaps blinded intentionally by Lamia
               • 'by blinded Lycius' & 'and he never thought to know'
               • 'But left a thought, a buzzing in his head, for the first time'
           • pride (arguably his tragic flaw)
             • his need to show Lamia off to the wider public is what spurs forward their fall
               • 'what mortal hath a prize, that other men...'
           • tragic isolation
             • he and Lamia are isolated from the rest of society, and in being with her he is raised to a higher, blissful state of being
               • 'tonight he seems the ghost of folly haunting my sweet dreams'
               • 'but none but feet divine could e'er have touched there' - transcended
         • victim
           • pathos
             • we pitty him for his blindness and his eventual, very drawn out death, and fear for him as we see Lamia as somewhat of a dangerous villain
               • drawn out death, 'And, in this marriage robe, the heavy body wound'
               • 'even as thou vanishest so shall I die'
           • often passive in the events of the poem, usually led by Lamia or Apollonius
             • he rarely takes an active role, only doing so when proposing to Lamia (the action that lead to his fall)
               • 'and you forgive me' - and he does w/o question
               • 'Bending to her open eyes'
       • Apollonius
         • villain
           • antagonist to Lamia and (arguably) Lycius
           • -ve semantic field encourages a less sympathetic reading
             • 'sharp eyes', 'smooth bald crown' - eagle or bird of prey?
             • Lycius calls him a 'ruthless man' & 'wretch'
             • intelligent - rational thought destroys beauty - 'severe' and 'austere'
               • 'Do not all charms fly at the mere touch of cold philosophy?'
   • peripetaia
     • When Appolonius arrives & when Lycius comes out of dreamlike state
       • 'Came a thrill of trumpets...left a thought buzzing in his head'
       • When Apollonius solved the 'knotty problem'

4. Interpretations (AO5)

   • Feminist Theory
     • Victim
       • they could have been happy despite her lies
       • with the nymph she used power for good but had to take chance of happiness - desperation?
         • self preservation?
     • Powerful
       • 'femininity can be as powerful as masculinity and women as cruel as men' - CRUEL Women in Keats
         • 'there is not such a treat amongst them all as a real woman'
   • Romantacism
     • dichotomy of Lamia as supernatural mysterious being fill of contradiction and Apollonius as voice of cold logic
       • philosophy 'clip an angels wings' & 'unweave a rainbow' - like her scales
         • 'That but a moment's thought is passions passing bell'
     • natural to unnatural world [chaotic, w/o privacy]

5. Narrative/ Poetic Form

   • Narrative Poem
     • lots of detail, slow pace, heightens the tragedy as prolongs suffering
   • very opinionated speaker, can voice opinions and affect the readers' interpretation
     • can prefigure sympathetic or unsympathetic reading