OUP (2018) h/b 253pp £60 (ISBN 9780198787266)
In his Introduction, G. takes us on a tour of Homeric vividness, or enargeia. He traces the scholarly trajectory on this important topic, introducing the reader to key figures Lessing, Zielinski, and Auerbach, alongside the latest scholarship such as the cognitive approaches of Jenny Strauss Clay and Elizabeth Minchin (a line of enquiry taken up most recently in J. Grethlein and L. Huitink [2017] ‘Homer’s vividness: An enactive approach’, JHS 137: 67–91). Importantly for the non-expert, this is not name-dropping, but an education. It is commonplace for the Homerist to wield terms like ‘Zielinski’s Law’* as convenient shorthand (to the uninitiated’s inconvenience)—but G. takes the time to walk us through the field and explain the various approaches to enargeia, their chronology, and how they fit together intellectually. Overall the book is very accessible: though G. tackles specialist subjects, he situates them clearly within a debate, and though there is a lot of Greek in the book there are translations provided for almost all passages (don’t be put off by the two left untranslated on page 1).
The Introduction sets the scene: a poetic tradition full of vividness, light, and sight, against which the nocturnal mission of Iliad 10 and the murky realm of Hades stand out like sore thumbs. But where Hades goes even further than the Doloneia, and where G. really concentrates his attention, is in the ‘alternative poetic realm’ (13) it provides. Being ‘the invisible one’ (popular etymology for A-idēs), ‘the Underworld poses the greatest challenge for Homer’s poetic gaze’ (14). In what follows, G. explores how that gaze shifts when it moves to the Underworld; what constitutes the alternative poetics of Hades.
Part 1 focuses on the Iliad, in particular Achilles’ dream in Book 23, in which he is visited by the shade of Patroclus. In this part of the book, G. deftly weaves an argument from (relative) silence, noting that ‘despite its overwhelming presence in the narrative, either as a threat to mortals or a destination for the heroes, the Underworld remains in the background’ (15). It is only in the hybrid dream/Underworld environment created in Iliad 23 that we see glimpses of the alternative approach to the epic past that will be elaborated in the Odyssey. Hades is ‘a storehouse of tradition’ (207), of people and their stories. But which stories? In Hades, ‘what remains is a mere eidōlon, an image of the hero with a deeply personalized focus on his own past’ (208). These are the ‘untold’ stories, the (wo)man behind the hero(ine).
Part 2 of the book focuses on the Nekyia (Odysseus’ trip to the Underworld) in Odyssey 11. Over the course of five chapters (on the meetings with Elpenor and Teiresias, the Catalogues of Heroines and Heroes, and other stories), we learn that the alternative poetic space provided by Hades is characterised by freedom of speech; by a truth as valid as that ratified by the Muses; by raw personal narratives; by intimate, emotional moments rather than grand tales of glory; by the suspension of normal social (including gender) roles; by a perspective that has affinities both with lyric poetry and ‘the subjective, emotionally intense, and self-consciously alternative poetics of Greek tragedy’ (213). Hades may be the invisible, the unseen—but through G.’s analysis we ultimately discover it to be the most revealing space of all.
I would draw particular attention to G.’s Chapter 5, on the Catalogue of Heroines. G. argues that in relating the stories of these women, Odysseus ‘reproduces their own very partial narratives, full of personal longing and regret’ (155). Some of these stories are themselves alternative or revisionist. What G. shows is that ‘Odysseus’ visit to Hades allows new voices to be heard and old stories to be told differently’ (156). With the first English translations of both the Iliad and the Odyssey to have been written by women published in the last few years (Caroline Alexander’s Iliad 2015, Emily Wilson’s Odyssey 2017), along with a wave of ‘herstory’ novels offering alternative perspectives on Homeric women (Emily Hauser’s For the Most Beautiful 2016, Madeline Miller’s Circe 2018, Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls 2018), the gendering of Homeric studies and Homeric reception is shifting. G.’s chapter is crucial in showing that these points of intense female interest, these alternative female narratives, are embedded in the Homeric poems themselves.
*Zielinski’s Law, in case you were wondering, holds that when Homer narrates two simultaneous events, he does so in sequential order.
Dr Lilah Grace Canevaro
The University of Edinburgh