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THEOCRITUS and the REVERSAL of LITERARY TRADITION By THEOCRITUS AND THE REVERSAL OF LITERARY TRADITION By AMANDA JANE CATER B.A., University College, London, 1982 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS \, f ... ...; ; We accept this thesis.as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA August 1985 (c) Amanda Jane Cater, 1985 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of CLASSICS The University of British Columbia 1956 Main Mall Vancouver, Canada V6T 1Y3 ABSTRACT My purpose is to demonstrate Theocritus' treatment of traditional literary genres. I show the specialized character of the bucolic genre by concentrating on the combination of epic, tragic and bucolic elements in selected poems of Theocritus. My concern is the portrayal of characters and character-types from myth and literary tradition and how the traditional literary portrayal has been changed. My discussion of Theocritus' poetic technique is divided into two parts. The first section deals with Theocritus' method of "reducing" or down-grading figures who have previously been presented and accepted as heroes. This section is introduced by a brief survey of the changing attitudes towards heroes in Greek literature from Homer to Theocritus. This is followed by a discussion of four poems which illustrate Theocritus' inversion of the standard portrait. This treatment ranges from a humorous recasting of the status of Polyphemos (Idyll 11) and Herakles (Idylls 13 and 24) to a critical portrayal of the Dioscuri (Idyll 22). The second part deals with the technique operating in reverse. In this section, I show how Theocritus juxtaposes epic themes with 'low-life' scenes and how the characters involved are consequently upgraded or 'elevated1. The four poems I select endow their insignificant protagonists with heroic amplitude. In Idyl 1 1, epic and tragic elements are infused into the portrayal of Daphnis the cowherd. Simaetha in Idyll 2 envisages herself as a Medea in a context of bourgeois reality. The mythological material in Idyll 3 achieves humour from the disparity of the goatherd's rustic simplicicy and his awareness of mythological precedents. Idyll 7 expands the anti-heroic material of the i i Odyssey and describes a goatherd with a difference. In my conclusion I demonstrate the coherence of Theocritus' treatment of epic and dramatic narrative with his programmatic statements. The passages referred to are the epilogue of Idyll 22 (212-23), the characters cited in Idyll 16 (36-57), Simichidas' speech in Idyll 7 (45-48) and the description of the herdman's cup in Idyll 1. (29-61). In the light of this, I link Theocritus' poetic method to his attitude to the function of literature and its relation to society. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT v PART I INTRODUCTION 1 THE CYCLOPS 4 HERAKLES IN LOVE 15 BABY HERAKLES 24 THE TWINS 34 PART II INTRODUCTION 46 THE NEATHERD 47 SIMAETHA 54 DELPHIS: A POST-SCRIPT 65 THE GOATHERD 67 TWO COMPANIONS 70 CONCLUSION 84 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 89 i v ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to thank Professor H. Edinger for his time, patience and helpful advice throughout the preparation of this thesis. I am also grateful to Professor A. Podlecki for his reading of my paper. My thanks are also due to CM. Osborne for his careful reading of the text and useful suggestions. v 1 PART I INTRODUCTION The attitude towards the concept of "hero" has ranged from praise in the verse of Homer and Pindar to doubt in Greek tragedy and the epic of Apollonius Rhodius to criticism by Theocritus and finally rejection by the Roman poets. Homeric verse did not question the morality of aggression or killing, since the heroic code dictated that such conduct brought noble renown. One of Herakles' great deeds was to take Geryon's cattle, but he did it without asking or paying. Pindar finds a solution to this qualm about Right and Wrong, since Herakles is ridding the earth of evil and destructive forces. The nature of a tragic drama is such that some heroes must necessarily be cast as villians. Odysseus is often a candidate. His reputation for cunning wins him admiration in Homeric poetry, since he lies out of necessity and seldom has deceitful intent. However his character is blackened by the Greek dramatists. Philoctetes shows his corruption of Neoptolemus and his cruelty to Hecuba.* By the time of Apollonius Rhodius1 epic the only way he can preserve the hero as a sympathetic figure is to strip him of his heroic qualities, thus Jason is typically amechanos while he casts Herakles as an ambiguous figure.2 *In some cases dramatic polarisation can lead to all the Greeks being cast as villains, as in Eur. Tro. 764: "You Greeks, barbarian are the things you do!" Trans. A.S. Way, Euripides I, Loeb Classical Library, 1912. ^He is nominally a hero but kills Thoedamas "cruelly" to provoke a war (Ap. (Footnote continued) 2 Theocritus introduces a new race of suffering heroes whose finest hour is their Liebestod which shows his rejection of the violent hero.3 The contrast is made explicit in the address to Adonis in Idyll 15: "Thou, dear Adonis alone of demigods . dost visit both earth and Acheron. Such lot fell not to Agamemnon, nor mighty Aias, that hero of the heavy anger [ho megas, barumanios hero's] nor Hector . .".4 Even in the panegyrics Theocritus manages to avoid almost entirely the usual praise of bellicosity. Against the figure of Hiero setting out to war girt . proterois isos heroessi (16. 80) is set the overwhelming emphasis on the rural peace Hiero's victory will bring. "Grant that towns which the hands of foes have wasted utterly be peopled again by the ancient master. May these till fertile fields, while sheep in countless thousands grow fat. ." (16. 88-91). Theocritus' highest praise of Ptolemy is reserved for Idyl 1 14, where Thyonichus says he is "The very best - kindly, cultured, gallant as pleasant as may be; knows his friend and knows his enemy even better. As a king should be, he's generous to many and doesn't refuse when asked. ." (61-64) Herakles is presented as a Wunderkind in Idyl 1 245 and an idealised ^(continued) Rh. Arg. 1. 1213-19) and he terrifies the Libyan nymphs (4. 1432f.). ^Such heroes are Daphnis in Idyl 1 1, the Cyclops in 11, Hylas in 13 and Adonis in 15. 4Id. 15. 136-39. All translations from Theocritus are taken from A.S.F. Gow, Theocritus, 2 Vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952) Vol. I. ^G. Giangrande, "Irony in Theocritus: Methods of Literary Interpretation," MPhL 3 (1978): 144. 3 lover in Idyll 13, although his behaviour after the loss of Hylas reveals his ambiguous nature. Idyll 22 presents the greatest problem in that Theocritus goes out of his way to deliberately denigrate the Dioscuri. The best indication of the characters who are most important to Theocritus is provided in Idyll 16, where he praises the individuals whom Homer made famous. "Never had Odysseus won lasting fame, who . came alive to farthest Hades, and escaped . the baleful Cyclops; never would the swineherd Eumaeus have been named, nor Philoetius, busied with the cattle of the herd, nor the great-hearted Laertes himself, had not the minstrels of an Ionian bard profited them" (16. 51-57). 4 THE CYCLOPS "Reduction" is the term I have given to Theocritus' method of presentation in his poems of mythological character. As the term implies, it is the scaling down of a figure who has been generally accepted in literarure as "heroic", who can do no wrong, act in any way he sees fit, even if at another's expense, and in consequence is the saviour of all. Homeric and Pindaric verse is partly "responsible" for this creation of an ideal. The doubt cast upon this ideal by the Greek tragedians is magnified by Theocritus, but his approach is not a new one. he does not introduce in the characters of Herakles, the Dioscuri, or Pentheus (Idyll 26) many aspects which have not been previously entertained. Euripides recognized Herakles as the non-intellectual hero, protector of Man by his brute strength. The incident of the Dioscuri and the Apharidae originated in the Cypria and was set down by Pindar (Nemean 10). Pentheus, in his rejection of the Dionysos cult, received due retribution in Euripides' Bacchae. The novelty of Theocritus' poems is that they shift their focus to particular aspects of these well-known figures which have hitherto been hinted at but not emphasized. Herakles' love for Hylas has little support from earlier literary accounts, but is made the subject of Idyll 13. Herakles was a baby when he strangled the serpents and Pindar devotes a section of the first Nemean ode to this. Theocritus sets the whole scene in the hero's nursery. With the exception of the Apharidae episode in Idyl 1 22, Theocritus rarely invents, he simply concentrates on trivial and remote aspects of his chosen character's life and personality, such as have not previously been exposed, often for reasons of propriety. He shows clearly 5 he 1s not a blind follower of tradition.
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