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Vision and Narrative in Apollonius' Argonautica

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Vision and Narrative in Apollonius' Argonautica VISION AND NARRATIVE IN APOLLONIUS’ ARGONAUTICA Keith Penich A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Classics. Chapel Hill 2019 Approved by: James J. O’Hara Janet Downie Al Duncan William H. Race Patricia A. Rosenmeyer © 2019 Keith Penich ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Keith Penich: Vision and Narrative in Apollonius’ Argonautica (Under the direction of James J. O’Hara) This dissertation studies the narrative presentation of Apollonius’ Argonautica and seeks to illuminate the epistemological problems that motivate the poet’s approach to epic song. In addition to presenting a narratological analysis of the poem, the dissertation examines the important role of vision and visualization in the epic, and in particular how the poem’s visual patterns introduce multiple, often conflicting perspectives into the narrative. The study furthermore illuminates Apollonius’ participation in a major cultural project of 3rd century BCE Alexandria. In particular, my analysis shows how the Argonautica seeks to locate the origins of the Ptolemaic kingdom in the mythic past and to figure the kingdom as the end and goal of a Hellenizing progress through history. Finally, this dissertation examines how Apollonius explores the role of a scholar-poet through the Argonautica’s narrative and thereby complicates the traditional task of epic poetry as a means of preserving kleos, or fame. The Introduction establishes important context for understanding the Argonautica’s narrative by relating the narrator’s construction of poetic authority to that of his predecessors in the Greek hexameter tradition, Homer and Hesiod. Chapter 1 examines four essential qualities of the Argonautica’s narrative, of which “self-consciousness” and “positionality” deal with the construction of the narrator’s persona and of the narrative itself within the poem, while “variety” and “recursivity” relate to the narrative’s manner and design as a whole. Chapter 2 treats the visual style of Apollonius’ poem and introduces the concepts of visualization, immersion, and iii detachment in order to facilitate analysis of this aspect of the epic. With this methodology established, Chapter 2 goes on to identify and analyze three important “patterns of visualization” related to major themes of the poem (marveling, voyeurism, and geography). Finally, Chapter 3 explores the intersection of narrative and visuality in the Argonautica’s aetiological program and demonstrates how aetiologies serve to embody the epic’s ideological and philosophical project by connecting the visual experiences of its mythical characters and its contemporary audience. iv To comrades! v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to thank my advisors, and first among these Jim O’Hara. He read every draft of this dissertation and offered excellent guidance throughout the project. Special thanks are also due to Bill Race, under whose mentorship my research in Hellenistic poetry and Apollonius began. I must also express my deep appreciation to Janet Downie, Al Duncan, and Patricia Rosenmeyer, all of whom posed challenging questions and offered valuable insights that greatly improved the final quality of this dissertation. Further thanks are owed to Kathryn Gutzwiller and my fellow presenters in the Hellenistic Poetry session at the January 2019 meeting of SCS for constructive feedback on a paper adapted from this dissertation. Additionally, I would like to thank Daniel Orrells for an encouraging and thought-provoking response to my paper at the 4th KCL-UNC Graduate Colloquium, hosted by King’s College in September 2017. I would not be where I am today without the love and support of so many people. I can hardly express my gratitude and appreciation for my Mom and Dad, my brother Kevin, Baka and Grampa, Mama Jo and Pop, and Yelena, Oleg, and Dennis. Additionally, I must acknowledge the amazing community of friends and comrades I have found in North Carolina. Finally, my love and warmest thanks to my partner Liliya, who has been there since before I knew a word of Greek; whose steadfast support has helped me not only to survive graduate school and complete this dissertation, but also to grow and become a better person; with whom I have shared so many joys, not the least our dog and cat, Percy and Otto. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................1 Witnessing the Argo(nautica) ..............................................................................................1 Visualization from Homer to Apollonius ..........................................................................11 Methodology and Definitions ............................................................................................13 Dissertation Overview .......................................................................................................16 CHAPTER 1: ESSENTIAL ASPECTS OF THE ARGONAUTICA’S NARRATIVE ..................19 Self-Consciousness: Narrator and Narrative Modality ......................................................21 Positionality: The Construction of the Narrative in the Argonautica ................................33 Variety: Inconsistency in the Narrator’s Approach to Story .............................................44 Recursivity: Mythical Allusions in the Fabula and Narrative ...........................................57 Conclusion .........................................................................................................................71 CHAPTER 2: PATTERNS OF VISUALIZATION ......................................................................74 Introduction: Immersion and Detachment in the Argonautica ..........................................74 Pattern #1: Visualizing the Marvelous ...............................................................................87 Pattern #2: Voyeuristic Visualization ................................................................................99 Pattern #3: Viewer and Landscape ..................................................................................109 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................118 CHAPTER 3: AETIOLOGY AND THE ARGONAUTICA’S COSMIC SUPERNARRATIVE ..................................................................................................................120 Introduction ......................................................................................................................120 vii Songs and σήματα ............................................................................................................122 The Cosmogonic Theme in the Argonautica ...................................................................140 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................156 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................158 Chapter Review ................................................................................................................159 Future Directions .............................................................................................................161 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................163 viii INTRODUCTION Witnessing the Argo(nautica) The subject of this dissertation is the narrative experience of the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes. That is to say, it seeks to understand the epic narrative as an experiential relationship between the poet, poem, and audience—and between the narrator, narrative, and narratees (but more on these distinctions in §3 of this introduction). As the poet communicates with his audience through the unfolding text, what impressions does the audience form—of the narrator? of the fabula? of itself, in relation to these? These questions constitute the starting point of my investigation, and they are questions that could be applied to any narrative. On the other hand, the first term in this dissertation’s title – vision – arises from peculiar characteristics of the Argonautica’s narrative, particularly from the ways in which the poet communicates again and again through images and through manipulation of perspective, and thus calls upon his audience to envision the narrative’s contents and to experience the narrative visually through mental imaging. My basic assertion, based on the results of this investigation, is that Apollonius uses the narrative form—and within the narrative form, the visual experience it entails—to explore the problems of poetry and the role of the poet within this mystery. The problems of poetry are already confronted in the earliest surviving works of Greek hexameter verse. In particular, both Homer and Hesiod acknowledge the question of poetic authority and its sources in various ways. As a prelude to the Catalogue of Ships, Homer confesses his reliance on the Muses, who “are goddesses and are present and know everything, while we hear only a report and know nothing” (ὑμεῖς γὰρ θεαί ἐστε πάρεστέ τε ἴστέ τε πάντα, | 1 ἡμεῖς δὲ κλέος οἶον ἀκούομεν οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν, Il. 2.485-486). What is this “report” (κλέος) that constitutes the limit of human
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