Livia, Messalina e Laura. 'Picture Queens' tra storia, finzione e vita in 'I,Claudius' e 'Claudius the God' di Robert Graves

In building the character of Livia, and later of Messalina, Graves borrowed heavily on Riding’s feminist theories and ideas, sometimes parodying them, sometimes embracing their disruptive potential. Livia acts like an avantgarde proto-feminist poetess, a pioneer of women strife to freedom, to self-definition and of their rights to reject marriage and pregnancy: she sabotages male dominance from within, keeping the outer appearance of patriarchy and, secretly, turning it into a de facto matriarchy. Through an in-depth analysis of the narrative function and representation of Livia in I, Claudius and of Messalina in Claudius the God, I will try to piece together the fragments of the dialogue, often a quarrel, between Graves and Riding on matriarchy and patriarchy, on muses and poetic inspiration, on the unbridgeable gap that separates male identity from female ‘difference,’ that ‘residue’ of otherness bound to remain forever unknown to the male gaze.