Euripides: Trojan Women (review)

With the Companions to Greek and Roman Tragedy, Duckworth has effectively cornered the market on what is presumably a popular commodity: introductions to individual Greek and Roman tragedies, written for nonspecialists. Not that this monopoly enforces any strict uniformity, for the Duckworth Companions are a mixed bag, and in the best possible sense. (For a review of the series, see JHS 128 [2008], 192-93.) It is, of course, fair to say that certain features—common to Goff's Trojan Women volume as to the rest of the series—render them essential reading for comparativists. Firstly, all Greek is transliterated; Greek and Latin terms are translated, with glossaries included also. Secondly, trends in scholarship are outlined. Nor is detailed knowledge of ancient theatrical practice assumed, although some (such as Hanna Roisman's exemplary Philoctetes volume) explain more than others. Thirdly, historical and cultural contexts are detailed clearly. Finally, and this is perhaps of most import for readers of Comparative Drama, each includes an account of noteworthy productions and adaptations.

Within these parameters, then, Goff does not so much introduce a new reading of Trojan Women as model a new way of reading Trojan Women, combining historicism and close reading with, crucially, a major emphasis on Rezeptionsgeshichte. "My strategy will be to set the play in its historical and cultural context, before proceeding to a close reading that allows a full appreciation of its dramatic development, and finally to an account of twentieth-century receptions" (10-11). I have no qualms with such a strategy per se. It mirrors precisely the fourfold aim of the series itself, viz., to cover themes, historical context, critical history, and reception history. I do, however, question the manner in which this schema is deployed. Note the relative weighting of material: "Twentieth-Century Receptions" spans fifty-eight pages, "Contexts" thirty-five, and "The Play" a mere forty-two. On the one hand, I endorse the use of reception history (à la Jauss) to illuminate classical literature, and I subscribe to the notion that any reading of classical literature is conditioned by reception (à la Charles Martindale). On the other, Goff neither explains quite why twentieth-century receptions merit more discussion than the play itself, nor establishes a clear enough link between these sections, in my opinion. Ultimately, she gives comparatively short shrift to her own enlightening analysis of the Euripidean text.

What discussion there is of Trojan Women is uniformly excellent, and the first section ("Contexts," 9-35) does a particularly good job of introducing the necessary historical and critical contexts in which to embark on close reading. Goff first discusses possible modern perspectives on the text (9-16): Trojan Women as static, anti-theatrical non-tragedy; Trojan Women as popular, often-performed theatrical work; feminism and "women's voices"; the dialectic of victory and defeat, guilt and innocence; and audience response. These notions recur throughout, and could have constituted a helpful frame of reference for the book as a whole.

An outline of the situation in Athens in 415 BCE follows: Athens and Sparta under the extreme pressure of war; Athenian mature radical democracy; sophistic interest in rhetoric and the power of speech. Goff next discusses tragedy in 415 BCE, making a pointed connection between later Euripides and the later Athenian empire. Trojan Women is to be considered mature, radical, and extreme theater, in which Euripides eschews the spectacular stage effects commonplace by this time: multiple entrances and exits involving the three speaking parts, elaborate scene-painting, the crane (mêchanê), the wheeled platform (ekkuklêma), and the deus ex machina. "Its poverty of device is like the destitution of the women themselves, throwing the play on the resources of the actors in the rhythms of song, speech, and orchestrated action" (23). Finally, Goff provides a thoughtful discussion of the "Melos interpretation" (27-35): the claim that Trojan Women in some way expresses Euripides' feelings after the Athenians conquered Melos and killed all the adult male inhabitants. Goff navigates this unavoidable controversy with aplomb, offering...