Arachné: le féminin à l’oeuvre

Abstract

Arachne, the young and famous weaver of Lydia, is the woman at work and not only at her loom; she is too the human creature by which art signifies her independence. Her destiny, a horrible one after her suicide because of Athena’s wrath who changed her into a spider, signifies her unlimited task. Her unwilled come back to life commands her to escape from folly or silence by the thread; with pen, a substitute for needle, writing the feminine is textualizing it under the symbol of a female animal busing for her own. Here comes another version of cursed artist, by which this Ovidian myth of – divine – power is transforming into a feminist – liberator – one; impregnated with an Amazonian color, Ovid’s imaginary text has inspired contemporary poets and prose-writers for the sake of women.