Metamorphosis of female voices: A study of the violation of women in Greek and Roman mythology and feminist rewritings reclaiming the narrative

This thesis aims to study feminist revisionist rewritings of selected ancient Greek and Roman myths to show the violation of women in myth, its links to today's society and how feminist rewritings change the narration and empower mythological and real women by giving these mythical women voices to tell their own versions of the stories. The mythical women in question are; Daphne, Pygmalion's Statue, Circe and Medusa. They are all studied firstly through Ovid's Metamorphoses, then secondly the other ancient texts (Virgil's Aeneid, Homer's Odyssey, Parthenius's Erotika Pathemata etc.) that have originated or added to their myths and lastly some feminist rewritings of these myths by contemporary writers in different genres such as; Carol Ann Duffy, Ann Stanford, Nina MacLaughlin, Alicia Stallings, Madeline Miller and Micheal Kasenow with the use of feminist theories and theories about the psychology of violation of women. Keywords: rewritings, mythology, feminism, violation.