The Art of Aeschylus by Thomas G. Rosenmeyer (review)

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 155 ~~~~:s~ty G~f ~~~i~~r~~:E~r'ess , Th t98trt p~f. ~~I~~h~~Ut· C~;;hk,eleJ~ $34.95, ISBN 0-520-04440-1. Paper, US $12.95, ISBN 0-520-04440-1. Scholars familiar with Professor Rosenmeyer's work in Classical Literature and Comparative Literature will expect of his study of "The Art of Aeschylus" originality of approach, unusual and illuminating (if sometimes idiosyncratic) insights and a certain comprehensiveness in the grasp of his author which allows him (and his readers) to keep the whole of Aeschylus ' art in mind even when concentrating on one particular aspect of it. In none of these expectations will they be disappointed. R. 's originality appears first of all in the unusual structure of his work. The book is divided into five sections: Hard Data (1. Text and Transmission 2. Verse, Delivery, Evident Structure 3. Stage and Action); The Poetry (4. Style 5. Speech; The Larger Dimension); The Agents (6. Chorus 7. Communication 8. Characters); Responsibility (9. Gods 10. Guilt, Curse, Choice); The Drama (11. Plot, Tension, Time 12. Trilogy, Trial, Resolution). Two useful Appendices follow ("The Life and Times of Aeschylus" and "Comparative Table of Dates and Events"). There is also a Select (but generous and well-organized) Bibliography and a Subject Index. How (the reader may ask, as he glances at this Table of Contents) is it possible to discuss "Plot" separately from "Choice" or from "Characters"? Or "Style" separately from "Communication"? Or "Gods", "Guilt", "Curse" separately (in Aeschylus' case) from "Trilogy", "Trial", "Resolution"? The general answer is, of course, that the author does not discuss these topics as discretely as the Table of Contents suggests. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the connections and interrelations of these topics will appear at times a shade tenuous and fleeting, particularly to the general reader. In discussing R.'s dense and complex treatment of Aeschylus' dramatic art, the reviewer must, of necessity, limit himself to a few of its more striking or (in some cases) more controversial aspects. 156 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS In his interesting discussion of the Chorus in Aeschylean Tragedy, R. discusses its compound function, as narrator, as enunciator of wisdom, and as potential agent. Since he views the root function of the Chorus in Greek Tragedy generally to be that of "witnesses, commentators and representatives of the community", he does not find that the more personal, or "characterized", function of the Chorus operates exclusively even in those plays, such as Suppliants and Eumenides, where the specific group personality of the Chorus clearly informs the action of the play. " there is always [R. claims] an underlying choral psychology which binds all choruses together and which emerges now and then in all the plays" (168). Thus R. tends to dissociate from the Chorus' individual personality in its play such passages as the second stasimon of the Eumenides (the Furies' celebration of the value of to deinon in the state), the much-debated "second-thoughts-on-Love" passage which the Chorus (or at least half of it) sing at ~.1 034ff., and even the prayers of the placated Furies at Eum. 919ff. In each case, R. feels, it is the voice now of the poet, now of the community, which is heard expressing the choral norm, the resistance of all forms of excess. There is much to be said for this view which R. argues with eloquence and clarity, though my own feeling is that Aeschylus tends to respect the dramatic personality of the Chorus (particularly in those plays where it has a major effect on the action) rather more consistently than R. would accept. On the question of "character" and "characterization" in Aeschylus, R. comments: "They [the characters 1 are the temporary means ... which the drama discovers for itself to enumerate certain truths demanded by the action" (214). This seems a somewhat pallid description of, for example, Clytemnestra in Agamemnon or even of Eteocles in The Seven: there is surely a wider range of possible character presentations in Aeschylus than the (currently accepted) "agent of the myth" label and the (rightly rejected) "au tonomous personality" label imply. Certainly Aeschylus' Clytemnestra admirably fulfils her function...