I Thought of you, Andromache

Delve into the Baillieu Library special collections and explore what – if anything – we think when we think of Andromache. When Baudelaire opened his famous poem The Swan with the line, ‘Andromache, I think of you!’ Nineteenth-century readers could have been expected to have a wealth of associations with this mythic heroine. This collection viewing introduces the Trojan woman and some of her vivid afterlives through prints and rare books from the Baillieu Library’s special collections.

What to expect:

A 60-minute viewing of the University of Melbourne special collections.

This event is supported by several teams across the University of Melbourne, including Archives and Special Collections and Collections Management in Arts Teaching Innovation, Faculty of Arts.

Being Human 2025

This project was produced in collaboration with the 2025 Being Human Festival. Founded in the UK as the only national festival of the humanities, Being Human is now a global celebration dedicated to demonstrating the breadth, diversity and vitality of the humanities.

View the full Being Human program here

Your Facilitator

Dr Miranda Stanyon is a Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Melbourne. A scholar of literary cultures in the long eighteenth century, she taught at King's College London and was a Junior Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge before returning to Melbourne. Her publications include Resounding the Sublime (Penn) and the collections Music and the Sonorous Sublime in European Culture (ed. with Sarah Hibberd, Cambridge UP), and Amplifying Antiquity: Music as Classical Reception (ed. with Emily Pillinger, Oxford UP). Her current ARC DECRA project focuses on classical receptions in European literature, music, and art during the Romantic era.

Image credit: Pietro Testa (1611–1650), Achilles Dragging the Body of Hector.