Space and Time in Ancient Greek Narrative (review)

Purves explores narrative perspectives of space and time from archaic epic to fourth-century prose. Contrary perspectives are already evident in Homer: the Iliad looks down upon human events synoptically from on high while in the Odyssey events tend to be viewed from a human, ground-level, perspective. The Iliadic bird’s-eye orientation is exampled both in the Muses’ comprehensive overview and in Zeus’ summary narratives, and shared—for a brief time—by Achilles, as suggested by the composite vision of the world on Hephaistos’ shield. The temporal and spatial dimensions of the Odyssean narrative, by contrast, are most evident in Odysseus’ description of events as they unfold piecemeal and sequentially in books 9–12.

Purves applies this mode of analysis most effectively when describing Odysseus, carrying an oar, on his inward journey to appease Poseidon’s wrath. From the Odyssean earthly perspective, the hero appears “lost,” until he plants his oar in the ground, a turning point in the journey and in self-definition as he regains a sense of direction and heads homeward. Prior to that moment, Odysseus had become a “nobody” among people who know nothing of the sea—and thus nothing of epic either. Other Odyssean passages, however, fit Purves’ schema less effectively, in my view. Aspects of Odysseus’ narrative in books 9–12 suggest a Muse-like overview, as when the traveler-poet, like the Muse at Od. 1.10, asks himself what he should say first, what last (9.14), or when he juxtaposes one adventure with another (9.47–49, 12.200–204), a small-scale example of the Odyssean narrator doubling Odysseus’ story with Agamemnon’s.

Comparison of these contrasting epic narrative perspectives leads to interesting questions when discussing prose writers. Unbounded by metrical constraints, they must discover their own stylistic forms and, deprived of divine guidance, they must map out their own narrative strategies. Purves first looks at prose writers who were either mapmakers as well (Anaximander and Hecataeus) or designers of cosmic order, as was Pherecydes when describing Zas’ marriage cloak for Chthonie as an emblem of the earth/Ge. Purves then turns to Herodotus, who explicitly rejects Hecataeus’ schematized map (4.36), preferring instead a “countercartographic” narrative that meanders like an itinerant traveler from place to place. That narrative meandering is echoed stylistically in Herodotus’ “strung-along” style, seemingly without telos. Delphic oracles and prophecies (portents and dreams should be added) offer a “cognitive map of the whole,” providing a divine-like authorial overview that keeps the reader from getting lost.

Purves’ last two examples come from Xenophon, whose Anabasis presents an extreme example of narrative meandering, as Xenophon, the author, captures the off-trail disorientation of Xenophon, the person, and of the leaderless and mapless march of the Ten Thousand making their way step by confused step through an unknown landscape to a familiar Sea. Purves likens the experience to Odysseus’ inland travels with the oar, but an opportunity seems to be lost when she might also have compared it to the “lost” Odysseus on Ogygia, where at the navel of the sea he could also lose his name. In contrast to the Anabasis’ meandering, in the Oeconomicus Xenophon describes the meticulous arrangement and implacable cataloging in the mind’s eye of every last item in the house. This recalls an Iliadic synoptic perspective, but, unlike the Iliad, this well-shaped and remembered “world” is static and paralyzing, “lack[ing] the dynamic paths of narrative.”

Comparison of contrasting narrative orientations in epic to prose narrative perspectives and styles makes for compelling reading: how do prose authors navigate their way without divine guidance; how might we compare efforts at mapmaking to narrative attempts to situate humankind in the scheme of things; what correlations might we find between cartography and travel literature and prose style; how do authors combine a synoptic and primarily aerial view with close-up attention to specifics and life’s experiences (a...