That’s only because I’m just not there yet! I feel I need a lot more work in Attic prose before I’ll be ready for tragedy.
I am sure with your experience you would not find tragedy particularly hard. Medea would be a good introduction and there is an excellent commentary by Mastronarde. Reading at least one Tragedy will enhance your understanding and appreciation of both Vergil and Ovid who often “infect” their epic with tragic strategies.
Thanks for the encouragement! I do have Barrett’s Hippolyta and Hanna Roisman’s Electra on the shelf as well. I had a taste of the Electra as I was going through Cynthia Claxton’s Attica. She includes a very short selection (lines 300-338), hardly enough to “whet your teeth on”, but enough to arouse interest. Medea does sound like it would complement nicely what I’m doing right now with Virgil. Just reading the Iliad and the Aeneid concurrently has been a revelation. Regarding Thyestes, so far I see there are editions by Boyle (very expensive), Tarrant and Guth (German). Any suggestions?
Hi seneca, my thoughts.
Whilst a love for the subject is perhaps something that we can all endorse, it is no substitute for rigorous argument and analysis. Keller’s preference for the Iliad over the Aeneid reflects more a 19th century prejudice than “a responsive heart”. In fact a sensitive reader will find that Homer and Virgil are complementary in their rivalry. Keller rushes to judge and rank rather than understand. A common 19th century approach shared by many today.
Your dislike of judgement instead of understanding doesn’t seem to stop you from making judgements yourself. For example that Keller’s preference of the Iliad over the Aeneid reflects 19th prejudice century. Well, why should it? Maybe she just likes the Iliad better and that’s all there is to it. In fact your statement that the two are complementary in their rivalry seems to me a matter of judgement too instead of just the product of argument and analysis. How could it be otherwise, since there is obviously an element of value judgement about it. Further, You don’t like ranking you say, but it’s clear that you prefer, in other words rank higher, a (post)-modern 20th or 21th century approach above the ‘prejudices’ of the 19th century. I think this is perfectly okay, by the way, you making all sorts of judgements. In literature as in life we cannot do without them. But I do think you are much too harsh on Keller.
I really only used Keller’s piece as a hook to hang my thoughts about those on this board who think (as Keller undoubtedly also seems to) that somehow it is possible to enjoy a privileged unmediated understanding of “the text-in-itself”. The idea that all one needs is the “right spirit” in which to approach a text and then the “true meaning” will stand revealed is to me palpable nonsense. Keller brings her own prejudices to the texts she reads and like all of us is incapable of doing anything else. We who have had an extra 100 years of literary theory and philosophical thought can try to recognise where writers privilege their views but we are likewise stuck in our own literary nexus
I don’t know. I can’t imagine anyone on this forum, nor Keller, to entertain this particular view that they have “a privileged unmediated understanding of “the text-in-itself”. No gnostics here, I guess. Quite a few however might just enjoy reading the Iliad, as does Keller, with or without secondary literature at hand. Your very use of the term ‘text-in-itself’ signals an epistemological position that, when applied to extremes, risks making any meaningful discussion and thus any secondary literature of the Iliad impossible. For of a noumenon nothing can be said.
I used Tarrant as Boyle had not appeared when I read it. If you can’t get it from a University library I agree it is very expensive. Boyle is an ardent champion for Senecan Tragedy I will look at it next time I am in the library. I don’t know Guth and can’t see it in the catalogue.
Tarrant would be fine especially if supplemented with Alessandro Schiesaro The passions in play : Thyestes and the dynamics of Senecan drama Cambridge University Press, c2003. This is well worth reading.
It turns about to be a German translation by Wenzel Alois Swoboda. Karl-Maria Guth is the editor of the series. As best as I can tell, the Latin text is included, but I doubt there’s a commentary, so I’ll pick up Tarrant and Schiesaro at some point. Thank you for the guidance!
I am sure you make a fair point. Just like Keller my enthusiasm leads me to make more forceful statements than are perhaps warranted. My intention is to be polemical and provide an alternative position to the warm bath of Keller’s sentimental approach.
I don’t dislike people making judgements, in fact the more the merrier as far as I am concerned. I don’t have to agree with any of them and don’t expect people to agree with me. I criticised Keller for the judgements she made and for her reading strategy not for having an opinion. I am not censuring Keller or think she should have written or thought otherwise. As I said "Keller brings her own prejudices to the texts she reads and like all of us is incapable of doing anything else. "
Further, You don’t like ranking you say, but it’s clear that you prefer, in other words rank higher, a (post)-modern 20th or 21th century approach above the ‘prejudices’ of the 19th century. I think this is perfectly okay, by the way, you making all sorts of judgements. In literature as in life we cannot do without them. But I do think you are much too harsh on Keller.
Of course we all have personal preferences and interests and I have no problem with that. But when those preferences are represented as absolute judgements I think they need challenging. Things may have moved on now but I have waded though acres of criticism of Senecan Tragedy which endlessly and erroneously bewails its inferiority to Greek tragedy. Often that criticism was not of a strictly literary nature but overtly moral and political. In retrospect it is a fascinating part of the history of Seneca’s reception. It has taught me that one describes works as “great” at one’s own peril. As Martindale says (sort of) canons are for firing.
As to my ranking “higher, a (post)-modern 20th or 21th century approach above the ‘prejudices’ of the 19th century” as I said in the second paragraph above we are all, just as Keller was, trapped in our own time and context and there is nothing we can do about that. It’s not that I rank my views higher but I can see Keller as a product of her time just as I am of ours. I am sceptical about ascribing “innate” or “eternal” values to ancient literature.
Your very use of the term ‘text-in-itself’ signals an epistemological position that, when applied to extremes, risks making any meaningful discussion and thus any secondary literature of the Iliad impossible. For of a noumenon nothing can be said
Well I agree with this. Where we may disagree is that this position is often the one that “traditional” criticism conceals. To quote from the blurb on Martindale’s redeeming the text
Martindale argues, against the positivistic and historicist approaches still dominant within Latin studies, that we neither can nor should attempt to return to an ‘original’ meaning for ancient poems free from later accretions and the processes of appropriation; more traditional approaches to literary enquiry conceal a metaphysics (of the text-in-itself) which has been put in question by various anti-foundationalist accounts of the nature of meaning and the relationship between language and what it describes
I am grateful Bart that you took the time to respond to what I had written. I find it difficult to be concise and clear about what are difficult issues. I hope I have made a small step forward in explaining my position.
acres of criticism of Senecan Tragedy which endlessly and erroneously bewails its inferiority to Greek tragedy
You have clarified one thing for me that I’ve always wondered about: Why you chose the name Seneca2008!
Randy
Seneca, Is there nothing in Martindale that you will not parrot? All your posts are now so very predictable I have to admit I no longer bother reading them. Martindale’s message was quite simple, and can be summed up in a single paragraph (as you illustrate by quoting from the blurb). I’m not denying it was salutary and is still pertinent, and I’m largely in sympathy with it, but it was rather dated even at the time. Need your devotion to it be so exclusive?
No need to answer. My questions are rhetorical, and I know that (and how) you can defend yourself.
For Seneca’s Thyestes I too would recommend Tarrant’s commentary, for experienced readers at any rate. Like Boyle (but less immoderately), he refines T.S. Eliot’s criticism of Senecan tragedy that the characters have no emotional depth, and that they all speak “in the same voice and at the top of it.” Which seems to me essentially true, but Tarrant finds some subtle differences in the main characters’ use of language, something I had never noticed in the overall monotony.
Of course Seneca had much cruder sensibilities than Sophocles. One of my favorite scenes is the final act of his Oedipus, which has the self-blinded Oedipus haplessly stumbling about and in an exquisite piece of symbolism has Jocasta using his sword to kill herself by plunging it into the scabbard of her vagina.
We live in a sick and violent age. Seneca’s time has come again.
Are we off topic yet?
Thanks, Michael. I was thinking perhaps it’s time for something new (at least in Latin) and this sounds like an excellent project.
Seneca, your skepticism about the quest for the “original meaning” of a text is no doubt warranted. In my view however you risk going off the rails in the other direction. That we’re limited by our point of view is obvious. However, you sometimes come across (when writing things like ‘trapped in our prejudices’) as implying we are determined by it. If that’s the case, if our judgements and our prejudices completely coincide, if we cannot look over the wall so to say, discussion boils down to shouting what’s on our side and real argument becomes meaningless. Or so it seems to me.
Bart I can see your point of view. I think the answer is that we proceed by trying to be transparent about what we are saying, accepting that this often (always) is going to involve contradictions. We need to question our “judgements” to see in what way they are a product of a particular way of thinking (“prejudices”). My point about being “trapped” is that all we can do is swap one set of “prejudices” for another, and that is what we do when we refine our thinking. There is no stepping out of time and place. If this seems obvious to everyone I can only say that my engagement with literature began with the kind of “golden age” views found in for example Rose’s two handbooks on Greek and Roman literature. This seems perfectly ridiculous to me now, but was a product of my way of looking at the world at the time. One still encounters these kinds of views and perhaps I attack them with the vehemence of an apostate.
I think real argument is possible because we live at the same time and I can understand and have sympathy with your point of view. Because judgments are a product of prejudices it doesn’t invalidate them. I am not trying to establish a “correct” reading of anything. So Keller’s views have their place even if I disagree with them. I am sorry if my tone is too strident at times, it’s a product of enthusiasm for the subject.
Do I infer correctly from this that real argument with someone from a different era wouldn’t be possible? Your writing (not only here) does seem to suggest that you think the epistemic wall with for example Homers’ point of view insurmountable. If that’s the case, you do turn the Iliad (or any text from the past) into a kind of noumenon, of which nothing can be said except how we perceive it, while how we perceive it doesn’t tell us anything about the Iliad but only about us and our prejudices. So all discussion and secondary literature boils down in the end to reception history. The problem I have with that is that I’m not interested in your or my prejudices, but I am interested in the Iliad.
What exactly are these “prejudices” you speak of? To me the whole concept you are referring to sounds nebulous thus far: can you provide some actual examples of, say, my “prejudices” when it comes to interpreting a text, or, failing that, your own or those of somebody else? What do these actually look like, that you should think the colour they bring to interpretation inevitable?
That objectivity is impossible (or, let’s say, that the quest for objectivity is futile and thus unworthy of our effort & time) seems far from obvious to me.
I’ll clarify briefly that I feel the concept under discussion arises from English and European criticism, where it was perhaps partly warranted, due to the abundance of high-quality critical attention texts of great interest in these (modern) languages have received - as a result of which “the obvious” has long since been stated and firmly known.
Not so for the classical languages, for which literary analysis of genuine quality is a relatively new thing, and in that time has (1) not received comparable attention, (2) been held back by the difficulties of the languages. So it turns out that a lot objective remains to be said by the next generation(s) of scholars, on, say, the Aeneid or the Iliad.
I am at a loss to know how to reply to what you and Callisper have written.
If there is something called " Homers’ point of view" then I have no idea how we would discover it. All we have is a text, the history of how that text has been interpreted and our interpretation. If you look at the history of the reception of any text you can see that people have thought often radically different things about the same text at various times. Any attempt to find " Homers’ point of view" will depend on a set of assumptions or methodology which you bring to the text. I don’t think it’s possible to have a methodology which delivers the kind of “objective truth” you are looking for. Please feel free to put me right on this account if you think you have one. It may be that all readers in a particular period come to the same conclusions but I don’t think that’s the same as discovering " Homers’ point of view" as being something which you believe is inherent in the text.
I don’t regard this as a handicap or something to be dismayed about. Texts are rather like old buildings that have been altered and added to and at times partially knocked down. One is left with a composite. With care one can distinguish the layers and enjoy all the accretions and attempts at cleansing and celebrate the rich object we have.
Nor of course do I think we have to treat all interpretations as being of equal value. Some will be of more interest than others.
I shall end what could be a very long post before I open myself to further attacks for stating the obvious or repetitious parroting. But I do fear that what I have written won’t satisfy you. If you are interested in Philosophy then I recommend Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1975) Truth and Method, trans. G. Barden and J. Cumming. London
I find it fascinating that people are bringing up precisely the same sort of hermeneutical issues with regard to Homer as are often brought up with biblical interpretation. That says something about the value we place on Homer, I should think. As for authorial intent and perspective, well we can say that authors had them. How recoverable are they? We can read the text and attempt to recreate the context in which the original author wrote, but we end up filtering that through a lot of lenses, and the farther back we go, the more we don’t know. Remember Menander’s Dyskolos? I recall that there were various suggestions offered regarding the ending based on the fragments preserved, but few if any of them matched up to the actual ending once a nearly complete manuscript was recovered in 1952. That’s a good analogy to our knowledge of the ancient world in general, and any conclusions we draw have to be tentative at best.
Well of course Seneca is right, but he seems to be only confirming Bart’s point.
(And I’d say not only that some interpretations are more interesting than others but that some are better than others. But that would take us back to square one, which is where we always seem to end up.)
I think Barry’s post may incidentally make a worthwhile point. Many of our texts—not Homer, fortunately—are fragmentary, and scholars work with the remains in an attempt to recover the original text, whether small parts of it (missing words and so on) or the overall gist of the whole thing (as with reconstructing the action of a tragedy from a few isolated quotations from it). These attempts are often confirmed or disproved by subsequent discoveries. Could we say that the degree of success correlates with the degree to which the author’s point of view has been understood? What if we didn’t have Iliad 24, say, but only bks.1-23? Someone who could correctly guess what happens (and could even reconstruct the text!) would be someone capable of discerning Homer’s point of view, capable of looking over the wall as Bart put it?
I find it fascinating that people are bringing up precisely the same sort of hermeneutical issues with regard to Homer as are often brought up with biblical interpretation.
In fact, immediately following the passage I quoted, Helen recounts her experience with the Bible:
I began to read the bible long before I could understand it. Now it seems strange to me …
No, on second thought, I don’t think I’ll bother with that.
I think it is more womb than vagina but that isn’t the point I wanted to make and vagina certainly makes a more striking (sic) image especially with the idea of a scabbard.
Seneca has in Oedipus 1034-7 :
socer est. utrumne pectori infigam meo.
telum an patenti conditum iugulo imprimam?
eligere nescis vulnus: hunc, dextra, hunc pete
uterum capacem, qui virum et natos tulit.
Tacitus (12.VIII) has Agrippina ventriloquise (parrot?) Seneca’s Jocasta:
Iam in mortem centurioni ferrum destringenti protendens uterum “Ventrem feri” exclamavit multisque vulneribus confecta est.
I think this is a striking parallel and illustrates what I have been saying about intertextuality and “authorial intentions”. Whether Tacitus “consciously Intended” a reminiscence here is to me irrelevant. The parallel between the incestuous Jocasta and Agrippina is to me too powerful to ignore. To underline the complex way in which texts relate to each other I read the Tacitus first and when I read Seneca year or so later I was very forcibly reminded of the “later” text.
On a separate point Barry and and mwh make good points about the state of survival of texts. In my analogy of an altered building I was thinking more metaphorically of the different interpretations of a text although I can see it suggests the state of preservation perhaps more forcibly.