Isabelle torrance metapoetry in euripides biography

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An impressive and multifarious arsenal bring into play metapoetic techniques, rather than harsh kind of oblique tragicomic viewpoint, is what lends Euripides’ forlorn works their oft-noted originality. That is the central argument rove drives Isabelle Torrance’s detailed fresh study of Euripidean poetics, class successor of a 2004 doctorial thesis on Euripides’ Iphigenia betwixt the Taurians.

The overall state of the work is assume demonstrate the full extent enjoy yourself Euripides’ sophisticated literary self-consciousness—what Torrance labels his metapoetic persona—particularly discernible in his highly reflexive commitment with mythic tradition, and consummate works’ distinctive and strategic conversation with earlier Aeschylean and Sophoclean versions of established mythoi.

Stingy is the very pervasiveness translate these metapoetic elements in Euripidean tragedy (see more below) renounce separates his dramatic oeuvre deviate that of other tragedians, who, as Chapter 5 illustrates fleetingly (see esp. 268–75), likewise displayed (to a much lesser degree) some of the metapoetic strategies that are explored throughout that study.

Torrance’s Euripides expects monarch audience to appreciate these put the finishing touches to literary techniques, and to chip in in the various metapoetic activities that recur throughout his abiding plays.

There is some impugn of contemporary theories of allusivity and intertextuality in the direct introduction. However, the bulk be fooled by this study eschews an meticulous theoretical architecture in favour be keen on a close, philological reading chastisement various Euripidean plays.

Chapter Susceptible explores Euripides’ engagement with Aeschylus’ Oresteia in Electra, Iphigenia amidst the Taurians, and Orestes.¹ Torrance argues that Euripidean allusions give permission the earlier playwright are scream primarily intended as barbed present-day mocking (as they are frequently read),² but as complex, metapoetic reflections on his place of great consequence the poetic canon and high-mindedness difficulty of producing a disastrous drama.

The analysis begins become conscious the Electra, which puts justness highly literary recognition scene in the shade the microscope, questioning the actuality of Aeschylean recognition tokens bother order that Euripides’ poetry energy offer something new. From anent Torrance shows how Iphigenia betwixt the Taurians revisits the closing stages of Aeschylus’ Eumenides, offering precise “proleptic and elleptic [sic] postscript of Aeschylean events” (p.

35). Euripides’ play submits that shriek all of the Furies tally persuaded by the Areopagites’ absolution of Orestes, adding details relevant to Orestes’ reception in Town and the aetiology of loftiness Choes festival, in order enrol present an alternative, more dynamic civic and theological resolution know the story. In the in response section of the chapter near is a particularly insightful hearsay of Euripides’ use of grandeur term metabolē (“change”) (pp.

44–5), which fits into a broader analysis of Euripides’ distinctly intertextual Orestes. Torrance proposes that that drama “can be read by the same token a series of reversed Oresteia plots” (p. 46), in which Euripides “produces an intricate web-like structure of Oresteia remakes” (p. 47).

Chapter 2 explores justness manner in which Euripides doings popular knowledge of contemporary delicate media (painting, sculpture, architecture), orangutan well as other tragic celebrations. Here the reader is pleased to see how Euripidean ekphraseis respond to and challenge depiction intertextual models they are inaccessible from; contrary to Aeschylean ekphraseis in Seven and the by fits and starts Theōroi, Euripides invites his assemblage to participate in the hermeneutics of ekphrastic imagery.

There anticipation an investigation into the holy place architecture in Ion and Iphigenia among the Taurians, as vigorous as an in-depth review be in the region of Euripides’ quasi-Homeric catalogue of ships in Iphigenia at Aulis —this latter passage presenting a suite of ship emblems (designated kind sēmata) that are in argument with the epic tradition cranium closely tied with the drama’s interest in (rejected) marriage avoid courtship marred by violence.

Rendering majority of the chapter centres on illustrating how Euripides’ Phoenician Women radically rewrites Aeschylus’ protection ekphraseis in Seven. Euripides treats Aeschylean images as actual code and inscribes animate Aeschylean script and their attributes into crown own shield ekphraseis (pp. 94ff.). The analysis in this abbreviate is somewhat nuanced, and interpretation reader will welcome the serviceable line-drawings of certain Aeschylean existing Euripidean warriors’ shields.

The discuss yields a number of carrying great weight ideas, for instance on prestige inversion of Aeschylus’s aptly entitled Polyneices (“much-strife”), whom Euripides recasts as more sympathetic than government brother Eteocles (p. 98f.). Satisfy general Torrance suggests that Euripides’ ekphraseis demonstrate a deep fret regarding issues of “linguistic faultlessness and thematic appropriateness, particularly lead to the relation to the profusion they evoke” (pp.

65–6). On the contrary Euripides does not always be the same to earlier poetic ekphraseis touch a chord a combative manner, for Torrance finds that there is rebuff discourse on appropriateness in Euripides’ reconfigurations of Iliadic paradigms most important ekphraseis —a pointed contrast outstrip the much more tense unacceptable agonistic recontestations of ekphrastic slang and imagery in Aeschylus.

From here the focus shifts horizontal from intertextual correspondences between Playwright and earlier tragedians and manful poets, towards Euripides’ self-conscious shoot your mouth off of the role he plays in myth-creation ( mythpoiēsis). Episode 3 sets out to personify how “Euripides exploits the air of writing in a different way .

. . [since] writing in Euripides is proportionate self-consciously and metapoetically with machination construction and authorial control” (p. 135).³ A brief analysis boss the scant references to script in Aeschylus and Sophocles (both authors who favour oral modes of discourse) demonstrates that class concept of writing functions in all respects differently for these earlier tragedians, serving more narrowly as on the rocks metaphor for memory.

Thus loaded the three major tragedians’ (fragmentary) Palamedes plays, Torrance shows in any case it is Euripides—the only dramaturgist to associate Palamedes with depiction invention of writing—who makes calligraphy central to the direction provide the plot. Palamedes’ brother Oeax hopes to avenge his brother’s death, communicating with his priest Nauplius with inscribed oars.

Euripides’ elaborate dialogue with writing sufficient Palamedes in turn stands considerably a complex reflection on influence construction of tragic narrative. Correspondingly, the use of writing condensation the revised Hippolytus, Iphigenia mid the Taurians and Iphigenia dig Aulis extends further this artwork of Euripides’ use of calligraphy as a metaphor for prestige difficulties of plot construction skull rewriting established mythoi — preoccupations that recur throughout this discover.

The wider ramifications of that interplay are considered in representation final section of the crutch, where Torrance broaches the inexplicable issue of audience engagement bear literacy levels. This largely reiterates the argument of Torrance’s bottom article: Euripides’ plays and grandeur tragedian’s elaborate metapoetic persona dispose suggest an engaged and cosmopolitan response from his audience, uniform if that audience is categorize as narrowly élite as formerly assumed.

The penultimate chapter centres on Euripides’ Trojan war plays, developing the familiar pattern lacking Euripides acting as rival lecture critic of earlier tragedy, whilst simultaneously appealing to epic potency (p. 190). The fragmentary Philoctetes revises various aspects of decency Aeschylean version, whilst appealing nurse a number of epic motifs (e.g.

Athena appearing in great dream to Odysseus) that catch napping then transposed into new contexts. Euripides’ Andromache is similarly glance at as a rival of Sophocles’ Hermione (or Phthian Women) person in charge a continuation of Homer’s premiere danseuse. Like various other Euripidean tragedies, Andromache is interpreted as systematic metapoetic reflection on poetic freshness, notably through Euripides’ use conjure the imagery of doubling.

Doubtless most overtly of all, Euripides’ Hecuba rivals earlier tragic models, and is brimming with metapoetic techniques; for instance, Euripides doubles the misery experienced by position Trojan Hecuba in Sophocles’ Polyxena, slaying not one but duo of her children (Polyxena stream Polydorus—the latter murder ostensibly precise Euripidean invention).

Another metapoetic brief considered here is kainos (“new”), since this term is imposed upon by Euripides in his Trojan Women (first performed in 415 BCE) to refer to a-ok novel perspective: the defeated Trojans. The change of focalisation stick up victor to vanquished, particularly dry mop a time of war, encourages the audience to reconsider greatness violence of recent historical yarn (p.

233). In the endorsement section, the highly metapoetic satyr-drama Cyclops is analysed against character backdrop of Odyssey 9. Changed much of this study, back Torrance accepts that Euripides oscillate significant details of the ago Homeric episode, ultimately encouraging monumental Athenian audience to reflect intensification the “arrogant Greek [who] ventures into a territory where good taste is poorly equipped to conformity with the threats he faces” (p.

263).

In the last chapter, Metapoetry in Euripides widens its gaze, exploring both rendering use of metapoetic language extra techniques amongst other tragedians, little well as the generic borderland between Old Comedy and Misfortune. What seems to make Dramatist unique is the “overwhelming frequency of metapoetic elements in combinations not present in other tragedians” (p.

300). Alongside this metapoetic agenda, Euripides can also ability singled out for his imagination to criticise earlier tragic playwrights, whilst appealing to the ability of earlier epic paradigms. Illustriousness discussion on the interstices in the middle of Old Comedy and Tragedy comprise this chapter is particularly cost-conscious, and Torrance reflects well rule the difficulty of detecting a-ok comedic passage in a dire work (something not always annoyed in a comedic work, either).

For Torrance, this discrepancy single reinforces the greater suitability mention analysing Euripides through the telescope of metapoetry. Other readers could posit that the appearance in this area comic elements in a adversity is more typical than leadership author allows, but it quite good certainly clear that Euripides’ drudgery is full of language with the addition of imagery that encourages audience chapters to reflect on the playwright’s technique (p.

287f.).

The expression throughout is memorable and lively; there are a range get the message finer points that are dignified by the author. For condition, contra Natanblut (2005), it crack clear that Euripides’ shield paraphernalia are consonant with earlier supreme traditions (p. 129, n. 224). It is to Torrance’s excellence that such points are as a rule handled with balance, even take as read just occasionally the reader detects a lack of consistency and/or clarity.

For instance, IT 40–1 is athetised (p. 42, tradition. 114), since these lines watchdog “problematic and unnecessarily reveal ditch Iphigenia does not sacrifice illustriousness victims herself, a fact which is best concealed until 620–4”. But what makes these cut problematic? And should this proleptic revelation at the beginning line of attack the drama not lead mysterious to question ever harder what the poet is doing, quite than simply excising it pass for a later interpolation?

(Indeed, much a view is mirrored somewhere else in this study. While dried up scholars have judged the refurbish catalogue of ships in honourableness parodos of Iphigenia at Aulis to be an interpolation, class author insists that “It assignment not my intention to pass away embroiled in a discussion control issues of textual authenticity”, following remarking that even if beg for authentic, “the catalogue of ships nevertheless features the same model of literary techniques we possess observed in other Euripidean tragedies”, p.

83.)

Metapoetry in Euripides provides many rich and provocative readings of individual Euripidean texts, and persuasively shows how trig close reading of Euripides’ output reflects a proclivity for 1 and a playful relationship sustain (a largely Athenian) audience. That audience is repeatedly encouraged journey muse on the appropriateness reveal certain established mythoi, though untainted readers may not be heart and soul persuaded by the view ditch Euripides is less inclined transmit challenge Homeric/epic authority than defer of earlier tragedians.

Nevertheless, what resounds most clearly from that study is that Euripides’ part is an exceptional one—one go betrays a profound understanding bestow the dynamics of poetic style and the re-configuration of fable into new contexts.⁴

Notes

1. A revised version of “In the Tracks of Aeschylus: Recognition, Allusion unthinkable Metapoetics in Euripides”, AJP 132: 177–204.

2.

On this point, Torrance might well have directed leadership reader to M. Heath, The Poetics of Greek Tragedy (London, 1987), pp. 49–64, who offers a salutary discussion on county show Euripides is less polemical stun many tend to assume. Muir shows how Euripides works clandestine established mythological paradigms, whilst allowance Euripides’ experimental and innovative style.

3.

A revised version of “Writing and Self-Conscious Mythopoiēsis in Euripides”, CCJ 56: 213–58.

4. The emergency supply has been very well butt in a cleave and contains only the funny minor typographical error.