EURIPIDES AND THE POETICS OF NOSTALGIA

Branded by critics from Aristophanes to Nietzsche as sophistic, iconoclastic, and sensationalistic, Euripides has long been held responsible for the demise of Greek tragedy. Despite this reputation, his drama has a fundamentally conservative character. It conveys nostalgia for an idealized age that still respected the gods and traditional codes of conduct. Using deconstructionist and feminist theory, this book investigates the theme of the lost voice of truth and justice in four Euripidean tragedies. The plays' unstable mix of longing for a transcendent voice of truth and skepticism not only epitomizes the discursive practice of Euripides' era but also speaks to our postmodern condition. The book sheds new light on the source of the playwright's tragic power and enduring appeal, revealing the surprising relevance of his works for our own day.

Gary S. Meltzer was Assistant Professor of Classics and Humanities at George Washington University and Associate Professor of Classics at Eckerd College, where he held an endowed chair. Currently teaching humanities at Villanova University, he has contributed to Classical Antiquity, Transactions of the American Philological Association, Helios, Classical and Modern Literature, and Text and Presentation.

EURIPIDES AND THE POETICS OF NOSTALGIA

GARY S. MELTZER

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

Cambridge University Press
32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521858731

© Gary S. Meltzer 2006

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2006

Printed in the United States of America

A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Meltzer, Gary S., 1951–
Euripides and the poetics of nostalgia / Gary S. Meltzer.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-521-85873-1
ISBN-10: 0-521-85873-9
1. Euripides – Criticism and interpretation. 2. Justice in literature. I. Title.
PA3978.M42    2007
882^′.01 – dc22    2006008214

ISBN-13 978-0-521-85873-1 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-85873-9 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for
the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or
third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such
Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

To my beloved Jill, Emily, and Rebecca

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book was written during the enjoyable years I spent teaching at Eckerd College, a lively, friendly, and intellectually engaged campus. I owe a debt of gratitude to Dean Lloyd Chapin, who approved grants that supported my research and took an active and informed interest in my work. I am pleased to think that this book will be displayed in his office alongside those written by other Eckerd authors. Among my colleagues at the College I would like to thank Jewel Spears Brooker, Howard Carter, and Carolyn Johnston for the confidence they placed in my scholarly endeavors.

   I am grateful to Eckerd College for granting me a hexennial leave that allowed me to complete a draft of the entire manuscript. I was fortunate to have spent two months of my leave as a visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome, a wonderful setting for research. As I brought the manuscript through its final phase, the Core Humanities program at Villanova University provided me a stimulating and congenial place to teach and discuss matters of common interest.

   I would like to thank many others who helped bring this book to fruition, including friends and colleagues who encouraged and inspired me in its early stages: Curtis Breight, Lillian Doherty, Carol Gould, Jim Lesher, and Tara Wallace. I benefited from helpful comments and bibliographic suggestions offered by Karen Bassi, Tim Beal, David Corey, Elizabeth Fisher, Jim Goetsch, Valerie Lester, Nancy Rabinowitz, Elizabeth Scharffenberger, David Schindler, Froma Zeitlin, and John Ziolkowski. I also benefited from the sharp-eyed editorial and technical assistance offered by Susan Barnes, Natalie Bicknell, Brian Bowles, Tristan Bradshaw, Kate Mertes, Shana Meyer, Bill Stoddard, and Theresa Walker.

   Tom Davidson, Cliff Roti, and the anonymous readers for Cambridge University Press and several journals gave detailed criticism for which I am most grateful. I am grateful as well for permission to reprint articles, in revised and expanded form, that have been published previously. The original version of Chapter 2 appeared as “The ‘Just Voice’ as Paradigmatic Metaphor in Euripides' Hippolytus," Helios 23.2 (1996): 173–90. Chapter 5 originally appeared as “‘Where Is the Glory of Troy?' Kleos in Euripides' Helen," Classical Antiquity 13.2 (1994): 234–55 (Copyright 1994 by the Regents of the University of California). An early, condensed version of Chapter 3 appeared as “The Body's Cry for Justice in Euripides' Hecuba,” Text and Presentation: Journal of the Comparative Drama Conference 21 (2001): 1–12. Small portions of the introduction and epilogue appeared in “The Importance of Debate in Euripides – and of Debating Euripides,” in Approaches to Teaching the Dramas of Euripides, edited by Robin Mitchell-Boyask (New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2002), pp. 103–11.

   I owe special thanks to Beatrice Rehl, my editor at Cambridge University Press, and Mary Paden, the project manager, for providing indispensable help and guidance. I am also fortunate to have had the unstinting support of my wife Jill and children Emily and Rebecca for my research and writing. Finally, I would like to acknowledge a debt of gratitude to the late John Herington, mentor and friend, for instilling in me an appreciation for the scholarly ideal of “getting it right.” I am grateful to all who helped me achieve this ideal, and I take responsibility for any areas where I may have fallen short of it.

NOTE ON THE USE OF GREEK

To help specialists, scholars, and those with some knowledge of Greek follow my argument, the original Greek text of important quotations that are translated in the body of the book will appear in the footnotes. (The line numbers of these Greek quotations do not always correspond exactly with the line numbers of the English translations used, due to the exigencies of translation.) I also provide English transliterations of key Greek terms and phrases in both the footnotes and the body of the book.