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From Ekphrasis to Tsunami FROM EKPHRASIS TO TSUNAMI Longus and his readers Sean K. F. Rafique Classical Studies | Senior Honors Thesis ABSTRACT Over the centuries, scholars have been unable to reach a concrete conclusion as to the nature of Daphnis and Chloe. Believing it to be a nuanced and complicated work, I have examined four key episodes in order to support this belief. These episodes, interspersed from the beginning to the end of Book One, were chosen to show that Longus’ novel both plays with the conventions of second century romance and possesses vast intertexts that the other extant novels lack. After comprehensive analysis, I have concluded that Daphnis and Chloe is an original and entertaining work, parodically interweaving elements of the romance genre and the wider intellectual literary tradition. Special thanks must go to my advisor, Professor William A. Johnson, without whom I would have been no more than a lost sheep, anxious for his shepherd. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface – “The Pastoral Tale of Daphnis and Chloe” 3 Chapter One – A Unique Commencement 6 Chapter Two – Abandonment & Suckling 19 Chapter Three – Dorkon and the Wolfskin 33 Chapter Four – Pirates, Cows, and… a Tsunami? 49 Conclusion – Why Daphnis and Chloe Matters 60 Bibliography 64 2 PREFACE – “THE PASTORAL TALE OF DAPHNIS AND CHLOE” “When you grow up surrounded by goats, you see what they’re up to from a fairly early age, certainly earlier than most kids learn about the birds and the bees. Come to think of it, it was actually very educational.” This was the response of Ezra Mellinger, a young farmer and self-proclaimed “goat boy” from rural Pennsylvania, when asked how much a teenager can learn from goats about the physiology of lovemaking. This question is central to our understanding of Daphnis and Chloe because it helps us to understand the tone that Longus sets. The narrative’s foundations are built upon the quest of two teenage herdsmen to understand how to physically make love to one another. If we believe that knowledge of this should come naturally to those who have grown up surrounded by the frequent lovemaking of goats, then one might take Longus’ novel as mere entertainment – light, laughable, and absurd. Yet, Daphnis and Chloe has been acclaimed for its ability to fuse elements of bucolic poetry with those of romance1, two genres that are infrequently subjected to scrutiny over their seriousness. How, then, are we to understand Longus’ pastoral romance? Modern perception of the ancient novel focuses on the protagonists falling deeply in love, being held apart by external forces, and overcoming all obstacles in order to be together 1 Bretzigheimer draws attention to Longus masterful ability to fuse elements of bucolic poetry with element of the romance novel. For more on this, see Bretzigheimer 1988, 515-520. 3 at last. From my reading of second century romance, this summary of the essentials holds true for all of the core novels bar one: Daphnis and Chloe. As we learn, Longus’ protagonists spend the entire novel at each other’s sides, instead of apart, and initially lacking any understanding that they lust after one another. What is more, upon learning this, they do not know how to fulfil the desires of their lust. This is merely one of many bizarre inclusions and, in this instance, the playful nature of Longus’ novel is highlighted by the simple fact that the act of love must be painstakingly learned in a process lasting over one and a half years. The purpose of this thesis is to highlight several original features that are characteristic of Daphnis and Chloe’s absurd adventure. One such feature concerns why Daphnis and Chloe is so different from the other romance novels of the time. “Everything that the genre of the novel emphasized up to this point … remains present in the background, but is radically and ostensibly transformed on the surface,”2 Bierl comments, suggesting that the focus of this novel is different from those that came before it. Another concerns Longus’ pronounced allusions to more famous literature. It is almost as if Longus challenges his most educated audience to establish how well-read they are, and to evaluate the effect of such inclusions in his pastoral narrative. We know that scholarly evaluations of Daphnis and Chloe vary widely, ranging from “an ironic, evil, and cynical power work of pornography and rhetoric” to “an ideal work of art of noble innocence and silent magnitude.”3 The fact that scholars come to such different interpretation on the nature of the novel is itself telling; this is clearly a work that challenges 2 Taken from Bierl’s introductory remarks about Daphnis and Chloe. For Bierl’s introduction and commentary on myth and adolescence, see Bierl 2014, 441-455. 3 Bierl cites various scholars’ poignant analyses of Daphnis and Chloe. For more on this, see Bierl 2014, 441-455. 4 readers on essential matters like tone and purpose. I myself do not intend to prove what type of novel Daphnis and Chloe is. Rather, the purpose of undertaking this research is to demonstrate some of the ways in which Daphnis and Chloe can be seen as a more nuanced and complicated work than it is usually given credit for. My research focuses on four key episodes from Book One of Daphnis and Chloe, each of which substantially contributes to our understanding of Longus’ authorial program. Some of these episodes are commonly found in the ancient novel, while others are not. All of these, however, showcase how very different Longus’ novel is from extant novels. They do so in two ways: (1) by pushing the literary conventions of second century romance to absurd and bizarre extremes, and (2) by intertextually alluding to the wider literary tradition. By examining these four episodes, I hope to show that Longus authors a work that is original, provocative, and indeed very entertaining. 5 CHAPTER ONE – A UNIQUE COMMENCEMENT “On Lesbos, while hunting, in a grove of the Nymphs, I saw the most beautiful sight I have ever seen, a depiction of an image, a history of love. The grove was beautiful too, thick with trees, brilliant with flowers, irrigated by running water; a single spring sustained everything, flowers and trees alike. But the picture was more delightful still, combining outstanding technique with amorous adventure, so that many people, including visitors, drawn by its renown, came to pray to the Nymphs and look at the image. It showed women giving birth and others dressing babies in swaddling-clothes, babes abandoned and beasts of the flock feeding them, shepherds taking them up and young people making pledges, a pirate raid and an enemy invasion, and much else, all of it amorous. I looked and I wondered, and a desire seized me to respond to the painting in writing. I found someone to interpret the picture, and have laboured hard to create four books, an offering to Love, to the Nymphs and Pan, a possession to delight all mankind, which will heal the sick and comfort the distressed, stir the memory of those who have been in love, and give preparatory instruction to those who have not. For certainly no one has ever escaped Love, nor ever shall, so long as beauty exists and eyes can see. For ourselves, may the god grant us to remain chaste in writing the story of others.” - Longus, Daphnis and Chloe, Prologue4 4 Translation by J. R Morgan (Morgan 2004). 6 Among the Greek romance novels, Longus’ stands apart from the rest at the very outset of its narrative. The mere existence of a prologue, a preface pertaining to the narrator’s authorial intentions, makes Daphnis and Chloe unconventional. Based on the opening lines of the extant novels, we can assume that avid readers of second century romance would have expected neither this foreword nor the ekphrastic remarks made therein. To what end does Longus commence his only known work so uniquely? Why might he labour to specify that his novel is an interpretation of a work of art, a painting that cannot possibly contain such details as are described? Through careful analysis of Longus’ prologue and other literary examples of ekphrasis, perhaps we can suggest some answers to these questions. To begin, let us lay out some illustrative examples of ekphrasis, first from epic, where the tradition of ekphrasis begins, and then from pastoral and romance, in order to understand some of the major topoi of this phenomenon in the genres most allied with Daphnis and Chloe. Summaries of these episodes will be followed by analysis of the core functional features. Homer was first to deploy the device of ekphrasis, in his elaborate description of the Achilles’ shield in Book 18 of the Iliad, and this led to a tradition of ekphrasis in antiquity, conventionally found in epic and offshoots of epic.5 The characteristics of the Iliadic ekphrasis are informing to the tradition: the narrative action is suspended while the poet devotes a hefty one hundred and thirty lines to bring vividly before the audience’s eyes the artistry of the metal work. The scenes depicted on the shield are described concentrically, beginning at the shield’s centre with the earth, sky, sea, sun, moon, and stars, and ending at the shield’s outermost layer with the great 5 For more on the beginnings of the ekphrastic tradition and Homer’s role in this, see Elsner 2002, 1-3. 7 stream of Oceanus. Depictions of the other layers include two magnificent cities full of people, a field being ploughed for the third time, a king’s estate where the harvest is being reaped, a vineyard with grape pickers at work, a herd of cattle under attack by lions, a sheep farm, and the dancing of young men and women.
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