BMCR 2009.03.15, F. J. Campos Daroca, Las personas de Euri/pides

F. J. Campos Daroca, F. J. Lo/pez Cruces, L. P. Romero Mariscal (ed.),
Las personas de Euri/pides. Classical and Byzantine Monographs, 65.
Amsterdam:  Adolf M. Hakkert Editore, 2007.  Pp. xxii, 347.  ISBN
90-256-0638-5.  EUR 84.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Esther Paglialunga, Universidad de Los Andes, Venezuela
([email protected])
Word count:  1735 words
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This book is the result of the project "Argumenta Dramatica: The
Theater as Rhetorical and Philosophical Argument", developed at the
University of Almeria between 2002 and 2005, with contributions from
the Universities of Coimbra (Portugal), Me/rida (Venezuela) and Naples,
Federico II (Italy). All the articles were originally written in
Spanish or translated into Spanish from the original Portuguese or
Italian. The volume comprises an Introduction and eight essays grouped
in two sections. The first section, entitled "Personae", includes six
essays which develop the central issue of the research. The second,
entitled Lives contains two chapters: Life and Lives of Euripides and
the translation of the Lives of Euripides. In addition we have a
Bibliography, three Indices (passages, names, modern authors),
abstracts of the six essays of the First Part and a General Index.

In the Introduction, entitled 'Voice, Auctor and Persona', F. J. Campos
Daroca explains the theoretical principles that guided the research.
First, he elucidates the meaning of the word persona, as an approximate
Latin rendering of the Greek <greek>pro/swpon</greek>, in its two
meanings of "mask" and "face". He affirms that the purpose of the mask
is not to hide the real face, but to further dramatic enunciation and
to make visible to the public a voice that speaks from a given place
and from within a given story. Campos Daroca explains that the author's
character is here investigated from the theoretical perspective of
Nehamas,[[1]] who maintains that the "author" is an abstraction
prompted by the interpretation of the text when it is read as a play,
i.e. the author is the result of a productive act. The editor then
summarizes the contents of all six essays, emphasizing the ways in
which the contributors explore the ups and downs of Euripides'
authorship. They elaborate on the different personae which critics
ancient and modern have identified with Euripides: he has been seen as
a philosopher, a misogynistic, or an atheist, and, more recently, as a
social critic or even as a war reporter.

The section of the introduction entitled "The Idiosyncrasy of
Euripides" deals with two perceptions of Euripides in antiquity, namely
the picture of the poet as a wise old man, which bears witness to the
fact that Euripides was regarded as a sententious author, and the image
resulting from the so-called Vitae, where, within the generic
conventions of ancient biography, the poet's character is singled out
as being "different" from his predecessors.  The final section of the
Introduction ("Euripides and Tragic Enunciation") focuses on the poet's
dismissal of actor performance, which explains  "the author's
characteristic loneness among his own fictions, which have a difficult
and controversial relation with the public" (p. XVII). Euripides'
singularity in the persona of the author is complemented by the closing
article of Section I (pp. 223-252), in which Campos Daroca studies in a
detailed and novel way the Vita Euripidis of Satyros, thus contributing
to a revalorization of his biographical writing.

The six articles forming the core of the book are all structured as
close readings of specific texts, with presentation and analysis of
excerpts from Euripides' tragedies, including the fragmentary ones. In
doing so, the book offers the reader, above all the specialist, a new
resource and fresh insights into the playwright's work. All discussions
are supported by a large and up-to-date bibliography.

In "Euripides the Musician: Antiope and the Rewriting of Musical Myths"
(pp. 3-37), Juan Lo/pez-Cruces offers a reconstruction of the tragedy
in question. The author aims to prove that this play is a rewriting of
Greek musical myths that had already been performed on the stage in the
form of tragedies, comedies, or satyr plays. Euripides would
accordingly have attempted to outdo Aeschylus and Sophocles, who had
both authored a play on Niobe, wife of Amphion, and on mythical
musicians such as Thamyras and Orpheus. The purposeful reference to the
Sophoclean drama by Euripides -- as shown by Webster (The Tragedies of
Euripides, London, 1967, p. 16)--leads L.-C. to revise the
documentation on the lost tragedy Thamyras, and thus to highlight
parallels between the two works. Amphion is presented in the Antiope as
free from the faults attributed to him by Aeschylus and Sophocles, and
deserving of position higher that Orpheus' and Thamyras', who were both
enemies of the gods.

In "Euripides as a social critic" (pp. 39-83) Romero Mariscal focuses
on the perception of Euripides as attacking the idea of nobility,
<greek>eu)ge/neia</greek>. M. concentrates on the categories
determining the social status of characters, their inclusion or
exclusion, and their dramatic correspondence with the fate of tragic
personae. M.'s discussion of the conflicting scholarly views of
Euripides's interest in social commentary[[2]] leans towards the
position of Castoriadis.[[3]] The question of nobility involves
richness and poverty, ancestry and upbringing; this is why M. offers a
concise analysis of related ideas as they occur throughout Euripides'
works. She invokes the typically agonistic nature of Euripidean drama
to account for the fact that the statements issued by the different
characters are more often than not contradictory. The textual evidence
is given in twelve appendices at the end of the article, where the
author comments on select passages. Special attention is given to the
theatrical value of the word <greek>xarakth/r</greek>, which becomes a
recognition technique, a kind of 'anagnorisis'. In the section entitled
"The Middle-Class Theory", M. deals with Euripides' idea of a peaceful
co-existence among classes in a mixed society, as exemplified in the
Erechtheus, and illustrated in the character of Theseus in The
Suppliants, and in the figure of <greek>au)tourgo/s</greek> in Electra.
Regarding the invention of a hero dressed in rags, M. argues that it
was a resource employed by Euripides for the recognition of the hero in
his unluckiest moments as much as an appeal to the viewer's compassion.

In "<greek>*K*R*A*T*W*N *N*O*M*O*S</greek>" (pp. 85-104) M. Nava
Contreras shows the impact on Euripidean drama of historical changes
brought about in Athens in the second half of the 5th century B.C.,
especially the impact of contemporary reflection about
<greek>no/mos</greek>. N. C. reminds us that a key issue in the
controversy between <greek>fu/sis</greek> and <greek>no/mos</greek> was
the relativity of the laws according to particular uses and customs,
and he explains how this is reflected in the plays of Euripides.
According to N. C, Euripides was not inclined towards Sophistic
relativism, but rather his notion of <greek>no/mos</greek> was a
fundamental principle organizing not only social and political ideas
but also religious, metaphysical and cosmogonic concepts in a coherent
unity. The five sections of the article -- Law, Justice, and Destiny;
Equality; Law and Human Progress; Slavery; Pathologies of the
<greek>*No/mos</greek>-- relate the concepts contained in Euripides'
texts to previous or later philosophical attitudes, such as the
Stoicism of Chrysippus. N. C. concludes that Euripides represents a
significant stage in the evolution of Greek thought towards naturalism
and cosmopolitism, and that, in establishing a unique principle from
which all beings depend physically, ethically and politically, he
anticipates the coherence sought by the philosophical systems of the
Stoa and the Garden.

In "Euripides: Reporter of War" (pp. 105-131) Carmen Leal Soares
analyzes the theme of war, comparing Euripides' accounts of army
intervention with the function of present-day war reporters and TV
cameras.  The representation of reality in contemporary mass-media is
characterized by exaggeration and by the exclusion of feelings; these
features, the author argues, can also be observed in the
poets-playwrights of Classical Greece. The aim of this analysis is to
single out the discoursive resources used by Euripides to give
different perspectives on a subject absent from the stage: the army. L.
S. identifies the following discourse elements in relation to the
multiple voices taken up by Euripides in this role: a) the author of
the enunciation; b) time; c) focalization; d) stylistic resources.  The
off-stage army scenes are eight passages found in four plays:
Phoenician Women, Heracleidae, Iphigeneia at Aulis and The Suppliants.
The author shows how these moments/places correspond to specific and
recurrent patterns of narrative, i. e. 1) the repose of the warriors;
2) the encampment and war preparations; 3) the march to battle; 4) the
clash of the troops. These elements are then analyzed in detail for
each play, emphasizing the Euripidean innovations regarding the
messenger's speech, and his ability to offer the spectator a vivid and
emotive narrative of events.

"Euripides the Misogynist" (pp. 133-190) by Maria de Fatima Sousa Silva
is not only the longest essay in the volume, but also the only one
lacking internal subdivisions to organize the contents and guide the
reader. The author is undoubtedly familiar with gender studies on
Euripides, but her method is neither the most appealing nor the most
original. This article is a narration of the numerous passages in which
Euripides deals with female figures, with some commentary on the plays
quoted. The passages are fully cited and analyzed in order to reveal
the duties imposed by society on married women (e.g. the devoted wife
in Alcestis); the complaints of men (and women themselves) on female
fickleness, as in Hippolytus and Medea; or, vice versa, the heroism of
women such as Polyxena and Iphigeneia, who sacrifice themselves for the
common good.

Lorenzo Miletti's "Euripides <greek>fusiolo/gos</greek>" (pp. 191-218)
discusses the biographical evidence for the ancient perception of
Euripides as a disciple of Anaxagoras. This evidence is identified in
Euripides' arguments <greek>peri\ fu/sews</greek>. Miletti studies the
interpretation given by Satyros and other biographers to the fragments
that deal with physical, cosmological, geographical and biological
phenomena. A line from the Phaethon is adduced as evidence for the
theory on meteors; some interpretations of <greek>*Melani/pph
sofh/</greek> are offered as an application of the rhetoric device of
<greek>lo/gos e)sxhmatisme/nos</greek>; and the quaestio regarding Nile
tides is discussed. Miletti quotes both Aristophanes and Aristoteles on
Euripides' interest in historia naturalis, but he finds no evidence of
any influence from  Anaxagoras. The conclusion suggests that these
sources show one of the ways in which Euripides' sophia was depicted,
and usually criticized.

The structure of the volume is remarkably good, although one regrets
that there is no consistency in the layout of the essays.

This book offers the reader, above all the specialist, fresh
suggestions for further research on Euripides. It is sustained by a
very original perspective and it contains a wealth of information very
useful both for experts who wish to have an up-to-date account of the
latest trends in Euripidean drama criticism, and for graduates looking
out for new research topics.


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Notes:


1.   A. Nehamas "Writer, text, work, author" in A. J. Cascardi,
Literature and the question of philosophy, Baltimore, 1987.

2.   O. Longo ;"The Theater of the Polis" in J. Winkler, F. Zeitlin,
eds.,  Nothing to do with Dionysus, Princeton 1990, pp. 12-19; J.
Griffin,  "The social function of Attic tragedy", CQ 48.1 (1998) 39-61.

3.   C. Castoriadis, Los dominios del hombre. Las encrucijadas del
laberinto, Barcelona 1998.