Euripides Thesis Public Notebook

No Updates mean Busy Al

2005-05-23T01:23:00.000-04:00

Back to it, a little more than a week later. My on-line absence has not reflected a similar lack of scholastic motivation: on the way to and from work this week, I finished up Alcestis (I didn't realize how short of a play it was... Medea was comparatively much longer than the three other Tragedies included in the Greene and Lattimore edition). Then I went on to read The Heracleidae and Hypollitus. After reading these "off-the-beaten-track" plays, I'm beginning to see more clearly why people (and institutions and countries, etc.) have favorite plays that return again and again to the stage while other shows sit by the wayside. Producing the Acharnians a year and a few months ago made me realize how infrequently the show was performed, especially in comparison to Lysistrata and perhaps even the Frogs (note to the reader, a truly aquatic performance of the Frogs was done in a U-M Swimming Pool over 50 years ago... Kate Bosher in the Classics Department has the details, but I'd love love LOVE to see the pictures!

So, onto my "immediate" interpretations (made without rereading, or even having the text with me now as I type this). Alcestis, as a stock character myth, seems to me totally underplayed--what an amazing "type" of woman, who volunteers to die for the sake of her husband. Medieval male scholars surely would've cited this as one of the few cases when women acted bravely AND well (as opposed to ones like Medea and, at least in part of her final outcome, Phaedra). However, the play was somewhat weak: the plot rolled-up and un-rolled, but the "recognition scene," at least in the text and without a visual, seemed unfulfilling and nearly anticlimactic. From the production of The Winter's Tale I was involved with in Fall 2004, I know how much a physical "re-appearance" can hold the audience in thrall: but I feel like Shakespeare's "recognition" scene, although maybe slightly overwrought, had much more emotional and dramatic power: perhaps because Hermione had been absent from the plot for decades, and the play for over an hour and a half--and because there is no hint of her being secretly alive under the care of Paulina. From Herakles's speech as he exits, however, we know what's going to happen--though I did have a hard time believing it.

In the end, I suppose my disatisfaction came from what seems like an inbalance in the calculus of justice--death truly gets cheated. Perhaps we can take Alcestis's re-animation as the reward of Admetus's "pious" action in taking Herakles in, even in the greatest abyss of his personal mourning--but from the Chorus's reaction to Admetus's hospitality, and my own sensibilities (however anachronistic and culturally myopic), I feel that Admetus should have been upfront with Herakles about his grief, but somehow made accomodations for the son of Alcmene. However, it must be granted that death, or more abstractly Fate, is the real loser here: he was supposed to get a soul: first Admetus's, then Alcestis's, but in the end he was beaten by Herakles! And Death's loss was through no deception or by Admetus's cunning: I remember being told a Mayan myth where two brothers, Medea-style, were able to cut themselves apart and then heal themselves. They were sent to the underworld for some reason, and the chthonic deities wouldn't let them escape--but the brother's showed off how they could be dismembered and then re-animated, and the deities were jealous, and all asked to undergo the same process. And similiar to Pelias's fate, the deities allowed themselves to be cut apart, but the two brothers didn't make them whole again.

To look in other Greek analogues however, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice comes first to mind--there, the male lover takes an active role in bring back his bride, but fails at the last minute, almost corroborating the conceptual finality of death and reinforcing it's inescapability, despite all efforts. Odysseus and Aeneas go to hell and back, but never take or Antikleia or Anchises back to the surface. In Alcestis, though, Death is cheated by brute force--something which would never happen in Homer, and even seems strange in Tragedy. I appreciate it's novelty, but I'm having a hard time digesting it as successful.

As for the Heracleidae, I was happy to know that Hercules, the Kevin Sorbo TV Series, was mythologically correct in making Iolaus the Sancho Panza to Herakles's Don Quixote. The introduction talked about it's place as a potential historical comentary on a death sentence without trial in the Pelopponesian War, and I support the hypothesis, because the play had too many peculiarities in structure and plot which seem almost incoherent without feeling a sympathy with the enemy. I hope the play was successfully received in the 5th Century--it deserved it.

And today I read Hippolytus, but I'm tired and need to work in the morning, so I won't go on in detail. My first question (???) though is that I thought Hypollitus was the son of Theseus and Hypollita, a captured Amazon (cf.Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream and Chaucer's Knight's Tale) and was surprised to see that she had a different name here (and no, I don't mean his stepmother, Phaedra).

What an awesome plot, and what a virtuous/wicked woman. Her psychology would do well to undergo comparison with Medea's--starting in a position of the Chorus and the Audience's sympathy, but quickly changing. I think Medea's position is (although more fatal) understandable to the audience--until she kills her children. Phaedra might be responding as a spurned lover--but I'lll need to re-read for a better sense of the motivation behind her suicide note.

However, I'm glad suicide notes have been around since the beginning of writing. Something I wouldn't have really thought about until now.

Bonne nuit, tout le monde.

Almost done with Alcestis

2005-05-15T17:10:00.000-04:00

I get most of my reading done not at home (when it's cloudy and rainy as it has been, I shut myself up in my room and busy myself in updating my computer, archiving MP3s etc., which is partly inane as Comcast is down), but on the bus to and waiting for my shift to start at Briarwood. I'm waiting for the sun as an excuse to read out on the porch while tanning, but it's being a coy mistress at the moment.

Alcestis is progressing along satisfactorily, however: having almost finished the play, I've realized that I'm going to need to read all of Euripides's "complete" works (texts like Bacchae included) before I even turn a sharp focus on the fragments. After Medea and the Bacchae, and now almost through Alcestis, I'm starting to see the themes crop up: the Chorus's non-chalant misogamy, the inner struggle of the mind, the debates of propriety and themis (a theme in all Greek drama), etc. I'm really impressed by Alcestis, but am currently wondering why it's Alcestis and not Admetus, her brother and the central figure of the play. Perhaps name recognition: Alcestis willful suicide for the sake of her husband is one for the record books (it would fit in well among the catalogue of virtuous woman in Chaucer's Merchant's Tale). Perhaps this overshadows Admetus--his guilt (which he tries to displace on his father) of being less manly than his wife and more afraid of death is entirely the result of Alcestis's unbelievable decision.

I was also impressed by the structure of Alcestis, which seemed to be winding itself up strangely, from the opening speech of Apollo, to a personified Death (I wonder what the Greek conception of Death was--and if it was at all similar to the Grim Reaper [I'm sure it was black]). To Admetus and Alcestis and her death, to Herakles, to Pheres, Admetus's Father, then back to Herakles, who then will take on death in order to win back Alcestis for his giving xenos.

I'm excited to see how it all turns out: Lattimore's translation is excellent.

Obligatory Update

2005-05-13T18:06:00.000-04:00

This post is basically to keep me from going inactive: I've been pleasantly distracted from thesis work for the last few days working in the Honors Office, the UAC Office, and starting at American Eagle. Started reading A Comedy of Errors by Billy Shakes, and Alcestis (Lattimore translation). Those are both going well: I hope to read all of the Shakespeare plays I haven't touched yet this summer--fairly ambitious, but not at all outside the realm of possibility. That means a lot of histories though, so hopefully I can keep up my motivation!

Finished up an outline for my Honors 135 course on Wednesday, so now that's even more in the works. I'm going to need to do more research in the Classics Library in the next few weeks and pick specific readings. I've been on a bit of a classics moratorium lately, and really need to return.

Well, with very little to update on, I'll keep this post short.

Philoctetes - The best thing I've read in a while

2005-05-10T16:03:00.000-04:00

Although I had first started by translating the first fifty lines or so from the Greek, I caved last night and read completely through R. C. Jebb's translation of Sophocles Philoctetes, and was amazed by its dramatic power. My first contact with the piece was auditing a lecture at U-M in Winter 2002 with my good friend Sarah--she was a Freshman at U-M, and I had just made my decision to come to Michigan in that Fall, so I was doing the campus tour (it was April 4--and there was a snowstorm... I should've known there and then....)

I don't remember the specific course, or who was teaching it, but I remembered specifically that Odysseus had a "negative" portrayal in later Greek and Roman works--his "cleverness" became closely associated with "guile" -- perhaps as a response to the sophist-movement that Homer could hardly have anticipated while singing the Iliad and Odyssey. I also remeber wondering why the "c" was silent--it's a pleasure to now, revisiting the work, know that it was indeed pronounced in its original tongue.

I was happily impressed by the characterization in this play by Sophocles. Although Oedipos Tyrannos and Antigone were both impressive in their own ways when I first read them in high school, I had never been touched on a personal level by Sophocles (as I had by Euripides, Aristophanes, and to a point, Aeschylus) until I read the Philoctetes. I find Neoptolemos's depiction particularly real and moving. Philoctetes suffering seems to me not less impressive, dramatically, than that of Prometheus, if perhaps less grandiose (the Achaians sack Troy, instead of mankind having fire, stolen from the gods).

It is a wonderful tragedy, and perhaps the first I have read in which the only mortalities are the doves Philoctetes shoots down, and the Greek war-heroes who have died before the plot begins, that Philoctetes receives as fresh griefs from the mouth of Neoptolemos. In such a mundane plot (the dramatic delay of Philoctetes' departure seems almost interminable--until the deux ex machina Herakles gives the final edict), I am deeply impressed by the interest Sophocles invests into Neoptolemos and Philoctetes' narratives to each other. Odysseus, although guilefully, is brilliantly portrayed as the initial mover, knowledgeable, and pro-videns in his approach to win the bow of Herakles. Writing this now, I'm overcome with parallels between the story of the apple in Eden: Odysseus, the perceptive, intelligent, and rhetorically capable "deceiver" of sorts, Neoptolemos as an untried Eve-figure, and Philoctetes, a man whose tale proves his worth, as an Adam-figure: not to be beguiled by the snake Odysseus himself, but only through a medium.

I know from last semester's production of the Bacchae that overtones of Christ have been seen in Euripides's portrayal of Dionysos (twice-born, beyond the control/knowledge of authority, etc.). I wonder if anyone has written on the comparisons between Christian mythology and that of the Ancient Tragedians (or Greek Myth in general) ??? (these triple-question marks will be something I can search for at a later date to recall questions I've posed to myself in the course of the blog).

So, there is still much to tackle in reading Philoctetes in the Greek, but I'm glad I read through an English translation of the work first, if only to secure my interest in the work.

It's another gorgeous, 80-degree day in Ann Arbor, and I'm going to spend the rest of it on the porch with a book. À bientôt!

First Post - Many more to come

2005-05-07T13:39:00.000-04:00

In archê, logos

This is the beginning of my on-line public notebook as I go through the process of researching and composing my senior thesis. The theory behind using a blog is threefold: one, it allows me to have an easily accessable, searchable, and secure "research notebook" where I can scribble down thoughts as they come to me whether I'm living in my sublet on Hamilton St., working in the Fishbowl, at home in Farmington, or anywhere else in the world. No pens. No notebooks. No fuss. Two, it is a public notebook, for friends, peers in my courses, and professors--anyone who has the patience to sit through my work, and provide more or less real-time feedback throughout the next year. Third, and perhaps the most important, by being public, there is some pressure for me to stay up-to-date and not let my studies flounder as I focus on work, friends, etc. I've witnessed enough of my friends procrastinate their theses until February of their graduating year, and I'm not eager to repeat that process. A preemptive-strike thank you to all who read and contribute to this blog--I look forward to witnessing how this will develop.

Onto the goal then: I hope to write my thesis on the production of some Euripidean fragments which rarely (if ever since their original, complete productions) have been attempted to be staged. At the moment, I don't know exactly where this will take me. There are numerous books on the production of Greek Tragedy: works by P. E. Easterling, Oliver Taplin, Ruth Scodel, etc., but I'd really like to be a trailblazed in uncharted territory. Professor Scodel has been helpful in proposing a few select fragments to consider, but I'm still in a quagmire of information with which I must first become familiar, and then make strides in a certain direction.

One direction has already been chosen, however: in the Fall, I will be teaching an Honors 135 one-crediut seminar to entering Honors students on the history and production of Greek Drama. The course will be, in part, a practical supplement or "humanities lab" to either Great Books 191 or Classical Civilization 101. First-year Honors students are required to enroll in one of those two courses, so I hope enrollment in my course will fill up. I hope to have the capstone experience of the course be a modest, yet thoughtful production of the fragments by the students, sometime in November or December.

For the moment, I plan on familiarizing myself with the classics of Greek drama as much as possible. I rented a production of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex from the public library this week, performed in the 1950's by the Stratford (Ontario) Festival... beautiful, stylized masks and costumes, and very flexible set. Seemed a bit bare-bones to me, but definitely not a bad production. I'll have to look into more productions (movie versions too) and perhaps pick a few for the mini-course to watch, either in part or in toto.

For now, off to enjoy a beautiful summer's day with some reading in the Arb. Until next post!