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Appendix B: Albin Lesky and Alkestis
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Appendix B Albin Lesky and Alkestis Alkestis has been a touchstone of Euripidean criticism for many years. The work of one of the most prominent figures in German scholarship on tragedy, Albin Lesky, was almost wholly dominated by this play. While Lesky produced valuable articles, particularly on the psychology of Euripidean drama, he wrote little criticism of individual plays, limiting himself largely to the play with which he had begun his scholarly career in Euripidean studies, Alkestis (Alkestis. der Mythos und das Drama [1925]; see reviews by Morel [1926], Ebeling [1927], and Drexler [1927]). Alkestis seems peculiarly suited to force the antinomies of Euripidean critical positions into sharp definition, as Lesky was aware (1957 - 58, 345; cf. 1976, 217): ••An den Schwierigkeiten, die hier fUr uns gegeben sind, scheiden sich nach wie vor die Interpreten in einer Weise, in der Entscheidendes fUr die gesamte Euripidesdeutung enthalten ist." By the strong emotion it provokes, Alkestis' death scene makes a particularly marked contrast with succeeding scenes, an anomaly that earlier criticism had attempted to explain by the anomalous generic position of the "prosatyric " play (see Bloch [1901, 11.114- 18]). But later critics, who felt that they had detected rationalism and irony or "satire" in Euripidean drama, were quick to point out that such traits were not limited to Alkestis. And, in their turn, critics concerned to interpret Alkestis as a portrait of Alkestis' love and sacrifice refused to allow the tragic content to be dismissed, as it would be if the play were to be understood as essentially comic. (This was basically 324 Albin Lesky and Alkestis 325 Lesky's position [1925, 80, 85]. For an earlier anticipation, see Bloch [1901, 11.113]: Euripides wrote the play wholly for the sake of the charming portrait of Alkestis that it afforded.) The major obstacle to the straightforward interpretation of the playas a romantic drama is the role of Admetos. When he repudiates his father in acrimonious language over the body of his wife, it is hard to overlook the painful inappropriateness of such unfilial behavior at such an occasion. A further exacerbation is the fact that funerals in Greek culture were important precisely as solemn reminders of the solidarity of the family and of the bond between parents and children, which Admetos here tries to forswear (662-65). (See the telling point made by Lennep [1949, 112] that severe provocation, such as selling a child for prostitution, removed the obligation for support but did not remove the obligation of the son to provide burial for the father.) Further, the retorts of his father seem to place Admetos in an even worse light. Lesky argued that the scene at the funeral should simply be overlooked as a rhetorical exercise without further meaning (1925, 82. See later repetitions: 1938, 143; 1956, 160.). As Verrall had used religious arguments to excuse the omission of certain parts of the plays from his interpretation, Lesky used structural studies to argue that the independence of separable parts in Euripidean style permitted his interpretation (1938, 143). Similarly, he later suggested that the work of T. v. Wilamowitz and W. Zurcher invalidated the attempts of psychologically oriented critics to interpret Alkestis' behavior in a cynical light (1956, 159-60; cf. 1957-58,345-46). Lesky's own articles on the psychology of Euripidean plays, while they were valuable in themselves , also provided a support for this continuing polemic, since it was on the Labilitiit (1958, 45) of the Euripidean psyche that Lesky had built his interpretation of Admetos (1956, 160; for psychology in Euripides, see Lesky [1958, 127ff.; 1960; 1972.2]). While Lesky's views on the play underwent some modification, he remained convinced that the dissonant elements in Admetos' role were a minor flaw that must be overlooked in a correct interpretation of the play. (See [1956] 1972.1, 298; "Der angeklagte Admet," 1964, 210-13; 1976, 216- 17). The dissonance, Lesky believed, stemmed from an "Antinomie" that lay deep in the personality and work of Euripides, in fact in the traditional split between "poet" and "thinker" (1956,207. In the third edition of Tragische Dichtung the term reappears [(1956) 1972.1, 512]; as does the heading "Dichter und Denker.") In a real sense one might say that such an interpretation, while designed to save the playas a work of art worthy of serious attention, does so in a paradoxical way by impugning the artistic [54.234.124.70] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 12:32 GMT) 326 AppendixB...