Laocoön at the Frontier, or The Limit of Limits

Abstract

Almost all the classical myths — the House of Atreus, Return of Odysseus, Medea, Oedipus — providing impetus for modern versions and offshoots have been transmitted in literary form as dramatic or epic poetry. An interesting exception is the Laocoön, which exists spatially as something seen — a sculptural myth less remembered for its narrative content than for the immediacy of a single visual anecdote.