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Abstract

In her paper, "The 'Teucer Paradigm' and the Eastern Other in Western Literature," Maria Beatrice Bittarello argues that modern representations of characters with mixed-blood heritage (Western and Eastern) are rooted in classical representations of the Middle East and that such representations are thematically re-cast from a literary thematic archetype elaborated on in the ancient Greek and Roman cultures. Bittarello examines how Greek and Roman authors portray the Greek mythological hero Teucer, son of Telamon and the Trojan princess Hesione. Teucer's liminal position allows him to be used in already in Greek and Roman culture both as colonizer and "bridge" between Greece and the Oriental world. Bittarello proposes that the mythology of Teucer and its interpretation in Greek and Roman literature re-emerges a thematic archetype in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Western novel and she exemplifies her notion with novels such as by Joseph Conrad, Emilio Salgari, James Fenimore Cooper, Thomas Mann, and Jean Rhys. Bittarello proposes that the "Teucer paradigm" invites further study as to its occurrence in Western narratives altogether.

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