Seventeenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

“Hungry Man” is a series of songs based on “Erysichthon,” a mythic tale from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. This presentation considers the creative process and aesthetic choices used to re-envision the ancient narrative. In Ovid’s telling, an arrogant king cuts down a tree in the sacred grove of Ceres. The goddess curses the criminal with insatiable hunger. To finance his ravenous appetite, Erysichthon sells his daughter over and over again. In the end, the all- consuming king devours himself. “Hungry Man” deconstructs Ovid’s text. Set in the twenty-first century, Erysichthon is a developer who destroys a community park for a real estate project. Although his daughter is again sacrificed, she asserts personal agency–choosing to leave her father to suffer his own fate. In Ovid’s time, the myth was intended to be a cautionary tale about the dangers of mortal hubris towards a powerful goddess. Today, “Erysichthon” can be understood as an allegory for unbridled consumerism and the catastrophic consequences of our human-made climate crisis. “Hungry Man” will be analyzed using an interdisciplinary approach informed by environmental studies, literary theory, and psychology including: Timothy Morton’s concept of dark ecology; Linda Hutcheon’s theory of parody; and Carl Jung’s understanding of participation mystique. The presentation includes listening to excerpts from the project.