Myths Retold: A Corpus-Assisted Analysis of the Literary Trend of Gynocentric Graeco-Roman Retellings

The present thesis examines the representation of female characters in the trend of gynocentric Graeco-Roman myth retellings. As the trend is commonly tied to contemporary feminist politics by the publishing industry, the authors, and the readers, I investigate the discourses present in marketing blurbs, twenty novels that belong to the trend, and reviews. Analysing these three perspectives, I employ corpus tools to identify linguistic patterns indicative of underlying hegemonic discourses. These tools enable detailed analyses of large collections of texts through methodological triangulation, supporting the development of a holistic understanding of what constitutes the literary trend. I use the Sketch Engine software and its Collocation, Concordance, Word Sketch, and CQL tools to analyse the language contained within the trend. My results reveal that although women are centred in both the publicization of the novels and in reviews, the novels themselves fail to demonstrate commitment to consistent and diverse representation of female experiences in Graeco-Roman myths. Commonly, the authors focus on the suffering of female characters and their lack of agency, as opposed to illustrating a wider range of experiences and characters. The authors critique the patriarchal status quo for the suffering it imposes upon women, yet they do so without presenting a more multifaceted or nuanced representation of womanhood. Despite many of the novels’ attempts at representation and female empowerment, many patterns identified in the corpora evidence a persistent presence of misogynistic metanarratives. Additionally, while some readers express appreciation for the more gynocentric orientation of these narratives, others criticise the way female characters are represented, calling for more explicit feminist themes and clearer more consistent ideological positioning.