a week of Sacrificial Virgins

James Murray, editor and philologist (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Spent the week putting in a little work every day collaborating with Lauren on our paper on Sacrificial Virgins in the Whedonverse, of which we now have a complete draft, approximately twice as long as anything we'd actually be presenting; so stage two, cutting it down to size and adding pictures, is next week.

We're comparing sacrifice of virgins in Greek tragedy to the same persistent trope in the Whedonverse.( Or do we mean motif?  And what is the difference?  Must check my Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (1), which I just downloaded (2)(3)(4)...)


I am running into a problem with our basic premise.  Sacrifice of virgins is a motif that shows up absolutely everywhere.  Andromeda for a start.  Every fairytale where the knight saves the princess from the monster-of-the-week.  I've just checked the Stith-Thompson searchable online index (http://storysearch.symbolicstudies.org/ ) and there are 318 motifs involving "princesses"; 159 involving "maidens"; 98 involving "virgins" (and another 95 involving the Virgin Mary).  Most of these aren't about virgin sacrifice, but the prevalence of stories about virgins/maidens/(always virgin) princesses demonstrates the persistent fascination Western culture has always had with the post-pubescent pre-marital phase of the female life cycle.  Sacrifice of women in that phase is always represented as particularly powerful in several ways (both magically or religiously efficacious, and emotionally wrenching), because of the supreme value of the victim, sacrificed at her moment of greatest desirability and perceived worth to the community.


But we are comparing only virgin sacrifice in Greek tragedy to the numerous twists on the trope in the Whedonverse (5). And the problem I'm having is, how do we justify this?  The fact is that we chose Greek tragedy and the Whedonverse because those are two areas we both know a lot about; but that is an external reason for the choice, springing from our chance interests, not integral to or springing from our argument. That's not a good reason to be making that particular comparison; it's just the only comparison we're equipped to make.

I suppose this is the general Comp. Lit. question all over; why ever compare literary object a) with literary object b)? And the answer usually seems to be some combination of  "to show how the same X means the same thing in different contexts, and how is that?", or "to show how the same X means something different in different contexts, and how is that?" (Because if it's a completely different object X in a completely different context Y, you've got no points of comparison.)

But there is another Comp. Lit question I'm struggling with here: why compare a) with b) instead of a) with c) through x)? The answer "because I don't know anything about c) through x)" may be my starting point, aka my problem, but it isn't necessarily going to produce an interesting reading except by accident.  I suppose the answer needs to be "because that produces an interesting reading." Maybe those other comparisons would too, and someone else is welcome to do them.   This is good for a start, but I am as always overwhelmed by how much I need to know, that I do not know, to do a good job on this project.

Cover via Amazon

So perhaps the basis of the paper needs to be "virgins are fetishized throughout Western culture, as are virgin sacrifices. Here are two treatments of that motif, vastly separated in in historical and cultural context.  See how the difference in the treatments of virgin sacrifice in the Whedonverse and Greek tragedy casts light on its function in both."

Which allows us to get in the word "function", after which, in my experience, we can get away with anything we like.

Of course now I want to add another 3000 words to a paper, which would make it 3x as long as we have space for.


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Cover via Amazon

(1)And the ODLT distinguishes between "motif" and "trope" as follows:  a "motif" is a "situation, incident, idea, image, or character-type that is found in many different literary works, folktales, or myths".  Well, clearly "sacrificial virgin" is a motif.  "TV Tropes" ought to be renamed "TV Motifs". Except that "trope" is considerably more interesting.  Apparently "trope" is initially just a "figure of speech", something that changes the meaning of the word with a "turn of sense".  Except that a "trope" thus is a use of a word that has figurative sense, and in that sense is particularly used of e.g. spiritual meanings concealed behind the literal meanings of religious scriptures.  And what our paper is really about is not just "oh look! there are sacrificial virgins in both tragedy and Whedon!" but "what do all these sacrificial virgins mean and why are they here?" - so, figurative.  Perhaps we mean "theme" (which according to the ODLT is "a salient abstract idea that emerges from a literary work's treatment of its subject matter ... often emerges indirectly through the recurrence of motifs".  

(I don't have this one on my iPhone.  Yet. )
Dictionary German-Latin-Slovenian-Italian (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(2),  mostly so as to have the pleasure of having on my iPhone the following:

• LSJ Greek dictionary (entire, except the supplement; in 2 formats, one reverse-searchable)
• Lewis and Short Latin dictionary (as above, one reverse-searchable)
• Oxford English Dictionary (the whole thing!  on my iPhone!)
• Oxford Hachette French Dictionary (with audio for pronunciation!)
• Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms

I don't have this one yet either, but I am eyeing it.
Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(3)The ODLT has not been as useful as I had hoped, though, since it has not told me what "subjectivity" means.  Or "fetish".  I await the update. 




(4)I am thinking of downloading a German dictionary, though I honestly don't read German very much if ever, and an Italian dictionary since in theory I'm going to learn Italian on my study leave.  Though I have to say I haven't started yet. Even without those, however, a friend says that if anyone is ever verifying my nerd credentials all I have to do is show them my iPhone. 

(5) the different ways the story is told and also the different things it is made to mean.  (So both a motif AND a trope. Hah.)

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