Seeking the Mothers in Ovid's "Heroides"

Seeking the Mothers in Ovid's "Heroides" explores Ovid's reconceptualization of the heroines' maternal experience. Rather than aligning them with the stereotypical roles of Roman women, motherhood enables the Ovidian heroines to challenge traditional norms with irreverent perspectives on gender categories and familial relationships. To confront these perspectives and overcome the dialectic between the (male) voice of the poet and the (female) voice of the heroines, Seeking the Mothers in Ovid's