NEW VOICES IN CLASSICAL RECEPTION STUDIES
Issue 5 (2010)
R O BE R T B R I D G E S ’ M AS Q U E D E M E T E R
AN D
O X F OR D ’ S P E RS E P HO NE S
©Amanda Wrigley, Northwestern University, USA
AB S TR ACT
This essay takes as its focus Robert Bridges’ masque Demeter and its first performance in
1904 by the women students of Somerville, Oxford as part of the official opening ceremony
for their new Library. It considers how Bridges’ elegant retelling of the myth of Persephone—
which draws on the Homeric Hymn to Demeter—provides an appropriate allegory of wisdom
and maturation and a suggestive commentary on how the higher education of women at this
time was understood to prepare them for their future roles in society. The paper also shows
how the occasion as a whole raised the profile of this all-female hall amongst the
overwhelmingly male colleges and University of Oxford. Women students were very far from
being on an equal footing with their male coevals at this time, not only in terms of educational
status but also in terms of recreational opportunities. The performance of Demeter, however,
set a firm precedent for dramatic performance within women’s halls. The paper describes
how, soon after the performance, women scholars of Somerville contributed to the more
decorative aspects of the Oxford University Dramatic Society’s Greek play productions from
1905; and how the classicist Gilbert Murray—who was actively involved in the education of
women at Oxford, enjoying a long and special relationship with Somerville in particular—
vigorously and practically encouraged the performance of Greek plays in translation and
adaptation in the women’s halls.
www2.open.ac.uk/newvoices