Neque ... sine numine uincis: Thetis, Medusa, and (Literary) Creation in Ovid’s Metamorphoses

This chapter explores Ovid’s account of Thetis in Metamorphoses 11 to reconsider her literary agency. As a character in the Metamorphoses, Thetis shows significant similarities with another female figure in the Ovidian poem - namely, Medusa. Similar to Medusa, Thetis is a victim of rape and seems to be overcome by superior divine forces and designs. Distinct from Medusa, however, Thetis does not completely lose her agency. By conceiving Achilles, the central character of Homer’s Iliad, Thetis resituates herself at the dawn of classical literature, thus becoming a metapoetic symbol of generative literary force. Through this metapoetic agency, Ovid has Thetis regain, at least on a narrative level, that ancestral power that was bestowed upon her as a pre-Olympian deity.