Document Type
Article
Article Version
Publisher's PDF
Publication Date
Winter 2015
Abstract
This essay recovers the cultural and historical significance of Baltic amber and introduces a new, untragic model of female subjectivity and trauma in Andrew Marvell’s “The Nymph Complaining for the Death of Her Fawn.” Given amber’s impact in European economic history, I argue that its Ovidian origin in the Heliades’ tears is significant, for these trees ironically create a superior, imperishable resin that exceeds that of healthy, nonweeping trees. Renaissance poets who refer to the Heliades’ amber tears expand our understanding of the period’s configurations of mourning by validating symptoms of trauma often seen as unnatural or pathological.
Publication Title
SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900
Repository Citation
Kelley, Shannon, "Amber, the Heliades, and the Poetics of Trauma in Marvell's 'The Nymph Complaining" (2015). English Faculty Publications. 70.
https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/english-facultypubs/70
Published Citation
Kelley, Shannon. "Amber, the Heliades, and the Poetics of Trauma in Marvell's 'The Nymph Complaining'." SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 55.1 (2015): 151-174. DOI: 10.1353/sel.2015.0005
DOI
10.1353/sel.2015.0005
Peer Reviewed
Comments
Copyright 2015 Rice University