Echoes of the Past: Classical Literature and David Malouf’s An Imaginary Life

At first glance, An Imaginary Life by David Malouf appeared to be merely the fanciful imaginings of the author of the work and not, as I would have hoped, the astounding literary account I had looked forward to. The work seemed short-sighted, even mundane at times; I found the piece as a whole entirely too “circumstantially bound” to the life of Ovid and to this one solitary occurrence in that life as a whole. Hoping against hope, however, I read on. It was then that I realized that I had, as Thoreau would say, been reading the times when I should have been reading eternities. Hereafter, as layer upon layer of meaning revealed itself, the astounding literary merit of Malouf’s work, especially in relation to the content of this particular class, became increasingly irrefutable.


Nearly all imagery in this little book harkens back to the act of transformation or metamorphoses, a theme thoroughly explored by Ovid in his Metamorphoses. One line begins quite simply the miraculous transformation of Ovid the cynic in exile to Ovid the spiritual being. That one line, “I love this poppy. I shall watch over it” parallels the short story we read earlier entitled “A tree. A rock. A cloud.” (32). In this same passage, Malouf makes direct reference to the myth of Persephone. Here we see the act of love as a transforming agent. By it, we become something more than what we appear to be; we actually change our mental or emotional makeup to become divine, as Ovid in effect becomes Persephone, that “flower-faced” girl.


Furthermore, through this fictionalized Ovid’s eyes, we witness the transformative powers of ritual practice and ceremony. Ovid recalls the ceremonies of his youth in which he “will have replaced him,” here speaking of his brother’s death merely by believing in the ceremony for an instant of time (87). Malouf then references Hector of Troy, that tamer of horses, in his description of the old man later identified as Ryzak and his relation to the ceremonies performed by the men to the dead and the gods themselves (40). Just as in the Eleusinian mysteries when a simple ear of corn is transformed into something awe-inspiring, through ritual, Ovid and this hunting party are transformed, themselves, becoming “part of the woods. We are mushrooms [. . .] I am a pool of water” Ovid dreams (61).


Perhaps the most astounding classical reference, however, is the recurrence of the five states of drama identified by Steiner in his analysis of the play Antigone. The men of the village and the women separate themselves from one another, struggle with, and against, each other keeping their sacred ceremonies and rituals completely private. Here, the concept of the ever-chaste Diana hiding her nakedness from the prying eyes of Actaeon comes to the foreground. Age and youth are at odds as can be seen in the interaction of the Child and his elders, and in the strained relationship between Ovid and his father. Ovid, himself, represents the individual striving against the will of state in his exiles, both decreed and self-imposed. The wild Child’s struggle to exist in Ovid’s world embodies this struggle as well. The fear and reverence inherent in the villagers to the dead brings to light yet another Steiner conflict This conflict presents itself most horrifically in the death ritual performed on Ryzak. Finally, the traditional rituals to appease the gods as well as Ovid’s previous skepticism of these beings true existence create the final parallel to the dramatic themes identified by Steiner.


In Malouf’s Imaginary Life we see a mother’s grief at the prospective loss of a child, so similar the tragedy of Andromache’s plight in The Trojan Women among countless other references to the great works we have studied in classical literature. The novel as a whole depicts a transformation. We ourselves are transformed in the reading. And out of the death of our previous existence comes yet another new and glorious beginning. In the words of Malouf himself, “What else should our lives be but a continual series of beginnings, of painful settings out into the unknown, pushing off from the edges of consciousness into the mystery of what we have not yet become” (135). Herein lies the myth of our lives, the ultimate convergence of past and present in wondrous unity. By letting go of our previous states, we are reborn. In this way every ending becomes merely a beginning and our first hesitant step on the path to ultimate oneness.