Somatic Landscapes Affects, Percepts, and Materialities in Select Tragedies of Euripides Maria Combatti Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2020 © 2020 Maria Combatti All Rights Reserved Abstract Somatic Landscapes: Affects, Percepts, and Materialities in Select Tragedies of Euripides Maria Combatti This study explores how in central plays of Euripides – namely, Alcestis, Hippolytus, Helen, and Bacchae – bodies, landscapes, and objects (both seen on stage and described in speeches, dialogues, and choral odes) serve as media for assessing affective states, materializing the characters’ feelings and sensations and hence enabling the audience to vividly perceive them. My focus is grounded in the ancient conceptions of bodies and the senses in material from the Pre-Socratic and the Hippocratic writings, including theories about how the surrounding environment influences bodily types. It is also underpinned by theoretical perspectives that have come to prominence in recent research in ancient literature and culture. First, it draws on insights from phenomenology, aesthetics, and affective theory that in ancient drama highlight embodiment, synaesthesia, and the circulation of affects among characters and spectators. Second, it engages with works inspired by the new materialisms, which have produced a new attention to the mutual and symbiotic relationship between humans and nonhuman entities. Finally, it is based on the “enactive” approach to cognition, which makes a compelling case for visualization (e.g., spectators’ imagination of the things sung, spoken, or narrated) as grounded in the active, embodied structure of experience. Building on such theories, I posit that Euripides’ plays illustrate how the characters’ feelings and emotions combine with sensory indicators (sight, taste, smell, and touch), so that they operate as visible marks of states usually conceived of as inner. These states are, I suggest, exteriorized not only on bodies but also in their surroundings, such that landscapes as mapped onto the dramatic stage and objects with which the characters interact function as supplements to embodied affective manifestations. In addition to onstage action, I focus on how Euripides’ language triggers a strong resonance in the spectators’ imagination. In this regard, my argument takes up the insights of ancient critics such as Longinus, who has praised Euripides’ ability to generate “emotion” (τὸ παθητικόν) and “excitement” (τὸ συγκεκινημένον) in the audience through “visualization” (φαντασία) and “vividness” (ἐνάργεια). Thus, I examine how references to onstage performance and visualizing language interact, giving the spectators a full picture of the dramatic action. In Alcestis, I explore how embodiment, sensorial phenomena, and physical interactions put the characters’ feelings of pain and grief on prominent display, eliciting the audience’s sensory reaction. In Hippolytus, I examine how the characters’ emotions blend into the surroundings, such that forms, colors, and textures of landscape and objects allow the spectators to perceive inner states more forcefully. In Helen, I investigate how material and nonhuman things, such as rivers, plants, costumes, weapons, statues, ships connect to the characters as parts of an affective entanglement that heightens the experiential appeal of the characters’ feelings and sensations. In the Bacchae, I regard Dionysus’ action as an affective force that spreads throughout the world of the play, cracks, and mutates things, including human and animal bodies, natural elements, and objects. This action creates an enmeshment between things, which is embodied by the thyrsus topped with Pentheus’ head (mask) that gives the spectators a keen sense of the multiple, productive, and transformative nature of Dionysus’ power. In conclusion, this study argues that bodies, landscapes, and objects represent the privileged sites for exploring the affective exchange between the characters and the audience, refining our understanding of the intensity, impact, and reception of the Euripidean theater. Table of Contents Acknowledgements iii Dedication iv Introduction 1 Chapter One: Alcestis: Embodiment and Tactile Sensations 28 1.1 The Embodied Experience of Death 33 1.2 The Statue, Bilge Water, and the Bed 39 1.3 The Living Body, Turbid Water, and Touch 51 Conclusion 58 Chapter Two: Hippolytus: The Texture and Materiality of Landscape 60 2.1 Aphrodite’s Cosmological Power and the Place of Action 65 2.2. Phaedra: The Robes, the Mountain Space, and Water 68 2.3 Theseus: The Sea, the Tablet, and the Curse 83 2.4 Hippolytus: The Statue, the Star, and the Sea 86 2.5 Artemis’ Epiphany and Hippolytus’ Death: Smell, Tears, and Darkness 96 Conclusion 98 Chapter Three: Helen: The Entanglement between Humans and Things 100 3.1. Helen and Teucer: The Nile, the Tomb, and the Arms 109 3.2 Helen and Menelaus: The Sirens, the Reeds, the Egg, the Statue, the Rags, the Palace, and the Tomb 117 3.3 Helen, Theoclymenus, and Menelaus: The Mask, the Shrouds, the Armor, the Ship, and the Discus 136 3.4 The Exodos: The Ship and Helen Island 150 i Conclusion 152 Chapter Four: Bacchae: The Rhizomatic Molecularity of Dionysiac Experience 153 4.1 Dionysus’ Arrival in Thebes and the Propagation of his Power 162 4.2 Dionysus’ Imprisonment and the Palace’s Collapse 170 4.3 The First Messenger Speech: The Maenads on the Cithaeron, the Sparagmos of the Cattle and the Dressing of Pentheus 176 4.4 The Second Messenger Speech: The Assault on the Tree and the Sparagmos of Pentheus 181 4.5 The Recomposition of Pentheus’ Body, the Thyrsus, and the Snake 187 Conclusion 190 Conclusion 192 Bibliography 195 ii Acknowledgments My deep gratitude goes to Nancy Worman, who has been an inspiring guide during my graduate studies and has spurred me on to become a better researcher. She has helped me to ameliorate my writing and challenged me to deal with theory and scholarship critically. My gratitude is also due to Helene Foley for her precious, insightful, and helpful feedback and to Elizabeth Scharffenberger for her continuous guidance, support, and valuable comments. I also thank Katherine Lu Hsu and Melissa Mueller for reading my dissertation and giving helpful suggestions. The past years as a graduate student have been challenging and stimulating, and I am grateful to all the professors in the department of Classics at Columbia University who have encouraged me from the beginning of the program. A special thank goes also to my colleagues who shared with me joy and preoccupations during these years and to all my friends in New York, Italy, and France. Finally, my utmost gratitude goes to Germano, who has constantly supported me and encouraged me to believe in myself and never give up in moments of discomfort. Thanks to him and to my parents I can now rejoice at the completeness of my doctorate. iii to Germano iv Introduction All my early memories are of forms and shapes and textures. Moving through and over the West Riding landscape with my father in his car, the hills were sculptures; the roads defined the form. Above all, there was the sensation of moving physically over the contours of fulnesses and concavities, through hollows and over peaks – feeling, touching, seeing, through mind and hand and eye. This sensation has never left me. I, the sculptor, am the landscape. I am the form and I am the hollow, the thrust and the contour. Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial Autobiography Barbara Hepworth’ s words are a suitable starting point for the present study which explores how in central plays of Euripides – namely, Alcestis, Hippolytus, Helen, and Bacchae1 – bodies, landscapes, and objects serve as media for assessing affective states, materializing the characters’ feelings and sensations2 and hence enabling the audience to vividly perceive them.3 In this respect, the hills, peaks, and concavities of the West Riding landscape may be seen as stage bodily postures, proxemics, and motions that stimulate affective responses in the audience, by highlighting synesthetic phenomena, such as sight and touch.4 The passage also illustrates how humans view and perceive the surrounding environment. Indeed, according to recent cognitive and perceptive theories we don’t see the external world like a static picture. Rather, we 1 For a discussion about my focus on Euripides and the selection of the plays, see below. 2 The representation of characters or dramatis personae in Greek tragedy has prompted a long debate among scholars. I agree with those scholars who consider tragic characters as constructs that are in a balance with the worldview, conventions, and features of the genre. For an overview on the discussion about character and characterization, see Goldhill (1986) 100-127; Pelling (1990); Worman (2002) 108-48; Thumiger (2007) 18-27; Wiles (2007) 261-285; Rutherford (2012) 283-323. 3 For my consideration of the composition of the ancient audience and its involvement in the dramatic action, see below. 4 Drawing on insights from ancient aesthetics, phenomenology, and affect theory, I consider the audience’s involvement in the dramatic action in terms of an affective embodied engagement. As I will discuss especially in Chapter One, bodily proximities and interactions evoke a strong sense of touch that allows the spectators to undergo a perceptual experience of the characters’ dramatic experiences. On haptic aesthetics,