From Agent to Spectator: Witnessing the Aftermath in Ancient Greek Epic and Tragedy

346 Pages·2016·2.15 MB·English

by  Emily Allen-Hornblower

TCSV
30
F E Emily Allen-Hornblower
R m
We tend to associate the act of witnessing with bystanders who have not O il
M y FROM AGENT
played an active role in the events that they are watching. The present
A
monograph considers characters from Homer’s Iliad and Greek tragedy that A l
G l
are looking on and reacting (in word, deed, or both) to their own actions. e
E n
It closely examines those scenes in which they are put in the position of a N - TO SPECTATOR
H
spectator, witnessing the aftermath of their deed(s). T
o

T r
n
O
b
S lo WITNESSING THE AFTERMATH IN
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ANCIENT GREEK EPIC AND TRAGEDY
THE SERIES: TRENDS IN CLASSICS – SUPPLEMENTARY VOLUMES E e
C r
The journal Trends in Classics, and the accompanying Supplementary Volumes
T
publish innovative, interdisciplinary work which brings to the study of A
Greek and Latin texts the insights and methods of related disciplines such as T
O
narratology, intertextuality, reader-response criticism, and oral poetics.
R
Both publications seek to publish research across the full range of classical

antiquity.
TRENDS IN CLASSICS
www.degruyter.com
ISBN 978-3-11-043906-9
ISSN 1868-4785
Emily Allen-Hornblower
From Agent to Spectator
Trends in Classics –
Supplementary Volumes
Edited by
Franco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos
Scientific Committee
Alberto Bernabé · Margarethe Billerbeck
Claude Calame · Philip R. Hardie · Stephen J. Harrison
Stephen Hinds · Richard Hunter · Christina Kraus
Giuseppe Mastromarco · Gregory Nagy
Theodore D. Papanghelis · Giusto Picone
Kurt Raaflaub · Bernhard Zimmermann
Volume 30
Emily Allen-Hornblower
From Agent
to Spectator
Witnessing the Aftermath in Ancient Greek Epic and
Tragedy
ISBN 978-3-11-043906-9
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-043004-2
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-043009-7
ISSN 1868-4785
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
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♾ Printed on acid-free paper
Printed in Germany
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Preface
This monograph started out as my PhD Thesis in Classical Philology, which I
wroteatHarvardUniversity,andsubmittedin2009.Iwishtoexpressmywarm-
estthanksandadmiringgratitudetomyadvisor,GregoryNagy,aswellastomy
committee members, Albert Henrichs and Gloria Ferrari, for their attentiveness,
wisdom,andthemanyilluminatingexchangestheygenerouslymadetimefor.I
wrotethethesisin“cotutelle”withtheuniversitédeParisIV–Sorbonne,andde-
fendeditbeforea“jury”ofreaders,allofwhomgavemevaluablefeedback:Paul
Demont, Christine Mauduit, Ioanna Papadopoulou, Philippe Rousseau, and
Monique Trédé. I had the opportunity to revisit and rework the manuscript
thankstoasemester-longresearchfellowshipfromtheCenterforHellenicStud-
ies in Washington, DC, and one that I received from the Loeb Classical Library
Foundation. I am extremelygrateful for both.
Ihadthegreatfortuneofreceivingencouragement,stimulation,suggestions
and advice of various kinds over the years from a number of colleagues and
friends,mostnotablyLowellEdmunds,DougFrame,RenaudGagné,GiulioGui-
dorizzi,MarianneHopman,RichardMartin,LeonardMuellner,KirkOrmand,Sil-
viaRomani,SethSchein,LauraSlatkin,andEireneVisvardi.Severalsectionsof
thisbookwerepresentedinearlierversionsatanumberofconferencesandlec-
tures. I want to express hearty thanks to all those who participated in these
eventsandraisedimportantquestions,aswellastothetwoanonymousreaders
for the Press, for their insightful observations.The editors of Trends in Classics,
FrancoMontanari andAntonios Rengakos,wereimmenselyhelpful and provid-
edvaluable guidance in bringing this book through to its final stages.
I also wish to express deep thanks to those who inspired me to devote my
life to the Classics in myearly years: mademoiselle Rousseau and Jean Gruber,
both outstanding teachers and inspiring figures. In fine, there are no words
that can adequately express my gratitude to my family for their continuing
love, support, and patience.
This book is dedicated to Calypso, who sat by me as I wrote every word,
heavingonly an occasional sigh as the time for awalk came around.

Contents
Introduction 1
The powerless spectator: Witnessing the limits of the human
condition 5
Voicing their vision: Emotional response and character 6
Time, knowledge, and power 8
Narrative in tragedy, tragedyas narrative 11
Perceptions and values 12
Chapter Outline 15
Chapter One: The Helpless Witness: Achilles, Patroclus, and the Portrayal of
Vulnerability in the Iliad 18
Methodology 22
Watching through the eyes of philoi 23
Seeing and pitying 25
Helpless spectators, mortal and immortal 29
Zeus’s helplessness: Regarding the death of Sarpedon 31
Looking on from the walls of Troy: The death of Hector 36
The Death of Patroclus 44
No witness, no pity? 44
You, Patroclus 46
Calling out to the threatened warrior: The Patrocleia and Patroclus’s
doom 49
Apostrophes and turning points: danger or death 55
The downfall of Patroclus 64
Negativity and absence 65
Apostrophes and the poetics of helplessness 71
Absence and presence: The Voice of the Helpless Spectator 74
Achilles’ delayed vision 81
Mortal Achilles 87
Chapter Two: Spectatorship, Agency, and Alienation in Sophocles’
Trachiniae 94
Watching through Deianeira’s eyes 98
Pity and Vulnerability 107
From spectator to agent: Playing Aphrodite 117
Watching Deianeira watch Heracles burn 127
The divine agent and spectator: Cypris 140
VIII Contents
Watching Deianeira die 145
Watching Heracles die 149
The silence of Heracles 158
Divine agents and spectators 166
Chapter Three: From Murderer to Messenger: Body, Speech, and Justice in
Greek Tragedy 171
Part One: The Murder of Agamemnon: Imagery and vision 177
Clytemnestra’s moment of truth 177
Part Two: Matricide: Speech and the Body 199
The Death of Clytemnestra in Aeschylus: The Tyranny and the
robe 201
Sophocles’ Electra: Viewing Clytemnestra’s body through other
eyes 210
Euripides’ Electra: Motherhood destroyed 224
Chapter Four: Neoptolemus Between Agent and Spectator in Sophocles’
Philoctetes 247
The healing presence of a witnessand interlocutor 255
Pain and its perceiver 261
A blind eye and a deaf ear: The averted gaze and selective hearing of
Odysseus 273
Watch yourself, young man 283
The sounds of Neoptolemus’s moral awakening 285
How to “act?” 300
Bibliography 311
Index 327
Introduction
“Themanofactionisalwaysfreeofconscience;
theonlypersonwithaconscienceistheobserver.”
(DerHandeldeistimmergewissenlos,
eshatniemandGewissenalsderBetrachtende.)
—Goethe¹
Fornearlyeveryfigureaccomplishingamajordeedorenduringagreatblowon
the Homeric battlefield or on the tragic stage,there is someone lookingon – a
witness,watchingandreactingtotheactionsand misfortunesunfoldingbefore
hiseyes.InbothGreekepicandAttictragedy,awidevarietyofinternalspecta-
tors, divine or mortal, present events to their audience from a specific vantage
point, through which the audience sees events unfold. Countless examples of
suchwitnessescometomind,suchastherarelycompassionate,oftendetached,
and at times downright sadistic divine audience,or the Chorus,which sees, re-
actsto,andcommentsontheactioninarolesocomplexandvariedthatcritics
stillstruggletopinpointordefineit.Greektragedyisrifewithmessengers(usu-
ally anonymous or secondary characters such as nurses, tutors, children, her-
alds,andthelike)whogivesubjectiveeyewitnessaccountsofwhathasoccurred
offstage.²
These internal audiencesarecentraltoboth ofthe genresunderconsidera-
tion in the present book, and have already received abundant attention.³ The
bibliography on the Greek Chorus is considerable.⁴ The divine audience and
its responses (or lack thereof) to a situation are a pervasive point of interest
for critics concerned with questions of responsibility and justice, whether in
epicortragedy.⁵Studiesdevotedtovisionandthegazeacrossgenreshavecon-
 Goethe–,,(no.).
 SeveralmonographshavebeendevotedtothoseminorfiguresofGreektragedythatdeliver
messengerspeeches,includingrecentlyDeJong;Karydas;Barrett;Markanto-
natos;Yoon.
 Iuse“audience”toreferbothtotheHomericaudienceoflistenersandtothespectatorsof
Greekdrama.Thedifferencesineachoftheirexperiences,basedonthenatureoftheperform-
ancebeforethem,willbecomeapparentinthespecificanalysesthatfollow.
 OntheChorus’sfunctions,seee.g.,Calame.RegardingtheChorusas“intermediarybe-
tweenvariouslevelsofreference,”seeGagnéandHopman(forthequotationseethein-
troductiontotheeditedvolume,p.).Visvardiprovidesanoriginalandmuchneededex-
aminationofthecollectiveemotiontheChorusgivesvoiceto,withsubstantialbibliography;see
alsoRutherford,ch..
 SeeforinstanceLloyd-JonesandGriffin.