gamos in archaic and classical greek poetry theme, ritual and metaphor

329 Pages·2013·1.79 MB·English

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
DEPARTMENT OF GREEK AND LATIN

GAMOS IN ARCHAIC AND CLASSICAL GREEK POETRY
THEME, RITUAL AND METAPHOR

STYLIANI PAPASTAMATI

Thesis submitted to the University College London
for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

December 2012
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I, Styliani Papastamati, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where
information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated
in the thesis.

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Abstract
Marriage is everywhere in Greek poetry of all periods. Yet the poetic use of marriage
receives only partial and occasional attention in modern scholarship. The present study
seeks to fill this gap in part by examining the use of marriage in archaic and classical
Greek poetry from Homer to Menander. My interest is in the ways marriage in its
various forms contributes to the thematic concerns and purposes of the poetic genre in
which it is employed. Though the focus is not primarily historical, the project is
influenced by New Historicism, in that it seeks to explore the use of marriage within the
experiential and conceptual frameworks of the first audience(s). It also draws (less
markedly) on feminist criticism and on research in archaeology and socio-political
history.
Chapter 1 addresses the use of marriage imagery in Pindar to promote the
acknowledgement of victory and delineate the athlete’s new status in his community.
Chapter 2 examines the use of marriage as an ending in Greek drama, both the (often)
formalist use in the Euripidean deus ex machina interventions and its climactic use in
comedy as a means to encapsulate the comic hero’s success. Marriage as plot ending
reaches its peak in New Comedy, where it forms the natural and inevitable resolution of
the plot. Chapter 3 deals with the motif of missed gamos in Greek tragedy both to
generate pathos and to articulate themes of choice, distortion, and destruction of oikos
and polis. Chapter 4 looks at the way the perversion of marital norms in Aeschylus
extends to the gradual destruction of oikos and expands to the polis. Chapter 5 is
engaged with good gamos. This is to a large extent a poetics of absence, in that ideal
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marriages in Greek poetry are depicted in the impending or actual separation of the two
partners.

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Contents
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... 3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................ 8
EDITIONS, TRANSLATIONS AND ABBREVIATIONS ....................................... 12
INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 14
1. Preamble ................................................................................................................................................ 14
2. Greek marriage ..................................................................................................................................... 14
a. Definition ........................................................................................................................................... 14
b. Ritual ................................................................................................................................................. 16
c. Ideology ............................................................................................................................................. 20
3. Previous scholarship on marriage and its contexts ............................................................................ 25
a. Historical works ................................................................................................................................ 25
b. Literature .......................................................................................................................................... 26
4. Aim of this thesis ................................................................................................................................... 32
5. Material and methods ........................................................................................................................... 34
CHAPTER 1: GAMOS AND VICTORY IN THE PINDARIC EPINICIAN .......... 39
1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 39
2. Marriage as telos ................................................................................................................................... 48
3. Mythologizing gamos: The winning of the bride ............................................................................... 52
4. The public celebration .......................................................................................................................... 64
5. Song ........................................................................................................................................................ 73
6. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 82
CHAPTER 2: GAMOS AS TELOS IN DRAMA ........................................................ 84
1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 84
2. Tragedy .................................................................................................................................................. 87
a. The device .......................................................................................................................................... 89
b. Closural position and thematic relevance: marriage, and destruction and irregularities in the
oikos ....................................................................................................................................................... 91
c. Remarriage as closure .................................................................................................................... 104
d. Gamos as telos in Sophocles ........................................................................................................... 109
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3. Comedy ................................................................................................................................................ 115
a. Aristophanic gamos, hieros gamos and the comic genre ............................................................. 116
b. Aristophanic gamos and the creation of utopia: a case of Aristophanic myth-making ............ 128
c. Aristophanic gamos and the victory of the comic poet ................................................................ 133
4. New Comedy and Menander .............................................................................................................. 137
a. Marriage as an element of the plot ................................................................................................ 138
b. Marriage as a metaphor ................................................................................................................ 145
c. Menander in his contexts ............................................................................................................... 148
5. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 152
CHAPTER 3: MISSED GAMOS ............................................................................... 154
1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 154
2. Enhancement of pathos ....................................................................................................................... 155
3. Prohairesis ............................................................................................................................................ 165
4. Articulating loss: the individual, the oikos and the polis in the case of male lost nuptials ............ 178
5. The language of non-gamos as an expression of distortion and perversion ................................... 186
6. Marriage as microcosm ...................................................................................................................... 193
7. Articulating the missed passage to completion ................................................................................. 201
8. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 207
CHAPTER 4: PERVERTED MARRIAGE IN AESCHYLUS ............................... 209
1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 209
2. The Oresteia ......................................................................................................................................... 210
a. Perversion of marriage and the cycle of destruction of the oikos ............................................... 211
b. The case of Clytemnestra: from the destruction of the oikos to the destruction of the polis ... 218
c. Marriage and telos: the closure of the Oresteia ............................................................................ 225
3. The Supplices ....................................................................................................................................... 233
a. Marital aberrance: views and behaviours .................................................................................... 235
b. Exploring marriage through its perversion ................................................................................. 242
c. Marriage as device for addressing other thematic concerns of the play-trilogy ....................... 249
4. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 251
CHAPTER 5: GOOD GAMOS .................................................................................. 252
1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 252
2. Epic ....................................................................................................................................................... 253
a. The Iliad .......................................................................................................................................... 253
b. The Odyssey ..................................................................................................................................... 262
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3. Tragedy ................................................................................................................................................ 273
4. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 285
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 287
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................ 289

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Acknowledgements
This dissertation would never have been possible without the support of many people.
Firstly, I wish to express my sincerest gratitude to my supervisor Professor Christopher
Carey. He kindly agreed to supervise me and then excelled in his duties; he never denied
me help and spent many hours assisting me in times of distress. Words fail to describe
my debt to him for all he has offered to me, help, knowledge, insights.
My heartfelt thanks also go to Dr Stephen Colvin for his continuous support and reading
of successive drafts of my work and Dr Emmanuela Bakola for challenging discussion
on issues of interpretation. I am grateful to Dr Ita Hilton for proof-reading my thesis.
Parts of this dissertation were presented in the Annual Meeting of Postgraduates in
Ancient Literature, the Classical Association Conference in Durham and the Menander
Conference in Nottingham. I thank the audiences there for their feedback. I also thank
the Department of Greek and Latin, UCL Graduate School, Thomas Wiedemann Trust
and the Hellenic Society for funding my presentations at these conferences.
To conclude with those nearest and dearest to me, I would like to express my
thankfulness to those people without whose help this dissertation would never have been
brought to completion. Aspasia Skouroumouni was always at the other end of the line
for me, and consoled and advised me in both academic and non-academic issues. My
brother Yiannis was constantly comforting me and was there for me whenever I needed
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him; his brotherly support was priceless. Last and certainly not least, Maria Spanou and
especially Evangelia and Orestis Vamvakas put up with and stood by me during the
most difficult phases of my studies here, from their very beginning until their
completion. They made my life here enjoyable and the burden of my research lighter.
Without them I would have been a different person. I cannot thank them enough for
their love and friendship.
Nevertheless, this dissertation is in many ways the result of my parents’ expenses and
sacrifices. They supported me beforehand and throughout, and at much cost to
themselves. Alongside his academic duties my father had literally taught throughout
Greece to help me financially. To my mother I owe even my love for ancient Greek. She
initiated me in Greek Language and Literature and diligently took care of my education,
teaching me Greek from the time I was a young child until my University entry. Without
her moral support I would never have pursued postgraduate studies here. Both my
parents did not hesitate to deprive themselves of any comfort they deserve and have
worked for, in their concern for my well-being here, fulfilling my dreams in every
possible manner. To them I dedicate this dissertation as ἐλάχιστον ἀντίδωρον for their
unfailing love and all their sacrifices.
London, December 2012

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