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Mousikē and Mythos: the Role of Choral Performance in Later Euripidean Tragedy

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Mousikē and Mythos: the Role of Choral Performance in Later Euripidean Tragedy Mousikē and Mythos: The Role of Choral Performance in Later Euripidean Tragedy by Naomi Alison Weiss A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Classics in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in Charge: Professor Mark Griffith, Co-Chair Professor Leslie Kurke, Co-Chair Professor Donald Mastronarde Professor Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi Professor Richard Crocker Spring 2014 Mousikē and Mythos: The Role of Choral Performance in Later Euripidean Tragedy © Copyright by Naomi Alison Weiss, 2014. All rights reserved. ABSTRACT Mousikē and Mythos: The Role of Choral Performance in Later Euripidean Tragedy by Naomi Alison Weiss Doctor of Philosophy in Classics University of California, Berkeley Professor Mark Griffith, Co-Chair Professor Leslie Kurke, Co-Chair This dissertation takes a new approach to the study of Greek theater by examining the dramatic function of mousikē (music, song, dance) in the plays of Euripides. Previous scholarship has tended to see the many references to mousikē in his later work only in connection with the “New Music” (the changes in musical style, language, and instruments in fifth-century Athens), and to disregard their place within the plays themselves, often deeming especially meta-musical choral odes to be irrelevant to the surrounding drama. In contrast, I explore the dynamics of choreia (choral song and dance) and the sociocultural meanings of different musical images in four plays to show how mousikē plays a vital role in directing and complementing the movement of the plot. I demonstrate how Euripides uses traditional as well as new images of mousikē, and argue that this combination of musical motifs is essential to an understanding of each play’s dramatic structure. The dissertation is divided into four studies of individual plays, which span roughly the last fifteen years of Euripides’ career. The first chapter focuses on Electra, the earliest extant tragedy to include multiple, extended descriptions of mousikē. I argue that choreia both frames our understanding of Electra and has a generative power, anticipating and even enacting pivotal moments of the plot. In Chapter Two I examine how Hecuba and the chorus in Troades create the illusion of an absence of choreia, even while they sing and dance on stage, and liken this to the concept of “embodied absence” within Performance Studies. I also argue that the chorus’ proclamation in the first stasimon that they will sing “new songs” refers not only to Euripides’ experimentation at this point in his career, but to musical change within the drama itself. Chapter Three explores patterns of mousikē and choreia in Helen, showing how the dominance of such imagery in the play’s choral odes shapes the audience’s understanding of Helen’s relationship with the chorus. I suggest that the play’s mousikē creates an aetiology not only of Helen’s cult in Sparta, but also of the Dionysiac performance of the chorus of Athenian citizens in the theater. Chapter Four examines the dynamics of chorality and monody in Iphigenia in Aulis, showing how, through the performance of mousikē, the audience’s attention is directed away from the panhellenic choreia of the parodos and toward the sacrifice of 1 Iphigenia. I also explore how representations of instrumental mimesis provide a poignantly vivid impression of pastoral calm before the beginning of the Trojan War, and argue for the authenticity of contested lines at the end of the tragedy on the basis of their style of musical performance. Throughout the dissertation, my methodology centers on the idea that a complex interaction between described and performed mousikē encourages the audience to see and hear a performance in a particular way—a form of aesthetic suggestion through choreia. 2 For my parents, Nigel and Judy Weiss i Table of Contents Abstract 1 Dedication i Table of Contents ii Acknowledgements iii INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1 ELECTRA 17 Electra’s Choral Exclusion 18 Performed Ecphrasis 32 Choral Anticipation and Enactment 46 CHAPTER 2 TROADES 54 Performing Absent Choreia 56 New Songs and Past Performances 67 Performing the Fall of Troy 79 A Play of Absence and Presence 86 CHAPTER 3 HELEN 88 Birdsong and Lament 90 New Music 113 Travel and Epiphany 124 CHAPTER 4 IPHIGENIA IN AULIS 134 Spectatorship, Mimesis, and Desire 135 Past and Present Mousikē 145 Choreia and Monody 165 EPILOGUE Mousikē and Mythos in Euripides’ Bacchae 173 WORKS CITED 176 ii Acknowledgments This dissertation would not have been possible without the support of various teachers, colleagues, friends, and family. First and foremost, I am enormously grateful to my three wonderful advisers within the Berkeley Classics Department: Mark Griffith, Leslie Kurke, and Donald Mastronarde. Mark Griffith has been extraordinarily generous and supportive at every stage of the project, ever since I first became interested in Euripidean mousikē during his seminar on the Electra plays in 2009. Leslie Kurke has the remarkable ability of seeing what I am trying to say before I do, and has made me think in entirely new ways. I feel very lucky to have had her as my teacher. Donald Mastronarde read through various drafts of the dissertation with great patience and attention to detail, and in doing so taught me to be a better scholar. I owe special thanks to Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi, both for her inspiring seminars on Greek mousikē and aesthetics at Stanford University, and for her invaluable comments, which have helped me to articulate the aims and focus of this project. I am also indebted to Richard Crocker for his musical reading of my work and our discussions over tea. Several other friends and colleagues at Berkeley and elsewhere have helped me by discussing and/or reading my work. I am especially grateful to Majel Connery, Lauren Curtis, Armand D’Angour, Albert Henrichs, David Jacobson, Barbara Kowalzig, SanSan Kwan, Rachel Lesser, Pauline LeVen, Virginia Lewis, and Sarah Olsen. Sean Curran has been a constant source of reassurance and inspiration. My final expression of gratitude is towards my family. My parents, to whom this dissertation is dedicated, have supported me at every step of the way with interest, encouragement, and love. Sam, with his unwavering confidence in me, has made the whole process of writing a very happy one. iii Introduction What role does mousikē (music, song, and dance) play in a Greek tragedy? Left with silent texts, it is all too easy to neglect tragedy’s musicality, particularly as we lack a comparable, contemporary dramatic tradition in which mousikē plays a regular part.1 We also lack, at least in contemporary Western European and Northern American society, a “song culture” comparable to that of fifth-century Athens, where choreia (choral song and dance) frequently occurred both within and outside of the theater, and most citizens within the audience had previously been choral performers.2 It is therefore difficult for us to appreciate the musical resonance and impact of the choreia that punctuates every tragedy, even though such song and dance—as well as the accompaniment of the aulos (double pipe)—would for the Athenian audience have been one of the most memorable aspects of the live performance. Whereas fifth-century writers—notably Aristophanes—seem to regard the chorus and its music and dance as absolutely central to a tragic performance and its impact on the audience, 3 subsequent critics of tragedy tend to focus elsewhere. The foremost ancient scholar of tragedy, Aristotle, writing in the mid-fourth century BCE at a time when the preeminence of actors in the theater had reached its height, sheds frustratingly little light on what mousikē does within a play. Though he only briefly refers to lyric in the Poetics, he does seem to view it as an essential element of the genre: he defines tragedy as “the mimesis of an action which is serious, complete, and has magnitude, in language seasoned in distinct forms in its sections” (μίμησις πράξεως σπουδαίας καὶ τελείας μέγεθος ἐχούσης, ἡδυσμένῳ λόγῳ χωρὶς ἑκάστῳ τῶν εἰδῶν ἐν τοῖς μορίοις, 1449b24-26); he then explains that “seasoned” (ἡδυσμένος) refers to “language which has rhythm and melody” (λόγον τὸν ἔχοντα ῥυθμὸν καὶ ἁρμονίαν, 28). On the other hand, in his ranking of the constituent parts of tragedy, he lists its musical aspect, melopoiia, only after plot structure (mythos) or “arrangement of the actions” (σύστασις !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 Although opera might seem to be the most obvious modern parallel to tragedy, it is still a rather different genre: the libretto is often secondary to the music; actors tend to be the primary singers rather than the chorus; and the audience does not typically have experience of performing such music themselves. This is not to say, however, that all operas are equally dissimilar to tragedy: some, such as Glück's Iphigénie en Tauride, include ballet, and modern productions often involve contemporary dance; earlier forms of opera (up to and including Mozart and Verdi) more clearly distinguish between actors’ arias and recitative. On dance in opera, see esp. Albright 2006; Connery forthcoming. 2 On ancient Greek “song culture” and its connection with the Athenian audience’s experience of tragedy, see Herington 1985: 3-5; Bacon 1994; Revermann 2006. Peponi 2012: 5-6 also emphasizes the “cultural inclusiveness” of mousikē in archaic and classical Greece. On the likelihood that many of the citizens in the audience would themselves have performed in a Dionysiac chorus (dithyrambic or dramatic), see Gagné and Hopman 2013: 26. 3 See esp. Ar. Ran. 1249-1363. It is striking that there are almost no representations of actors clearly dressed as actors performing a tragedy from the fifth century BCE, while satyr-play paintings of dancing choruses, such as that on the Pronomos Vase, are fairly numerous.
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