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RADICAL COGNITION: METALEPSIS IN CLASSICAL GREEK DRAMA*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2013

Tim Whitmarsh
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Extract

The Hollywood movie Stranger than Fiction (2006) centres on a tax inspector, Harold Crick, who begins to hear a voice inside his head. This voice, he gradually realizes, belongs to the narrator of a book in which he is the central character. As the plot unfurls, the narrator begins to drop hints that Harold will die at the end of the story. Understandably disturbed by these intimations, Harold decides to confront a university professor, and between the two of them they identify the author as one Kay Eiffel. Harold then tracks down the author and begs her not to kill him off.

Type
Figures, guest-edited by Tim Whitmarsh
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 60 , Issue 1 , April 2013 , pp. 4 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2013

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Footnotes

*

All translations are my own, unless otherwise noted.

References

1 Genette, G., Narrative Discourse. An Essay in Method, trans. Lewin, J. E. (Ithaca, NY, 1983), 234Google Scholar; I also borrow from p. 236 the phrase ‘sacred frontier’. Metalēpsis does appear in Greek rhetoric too, either as a technical term of forensic oratory or as the umbrella for the substitutions generated by metaphor or metonymy: see de Jong, I. D. F., ‘Metalepsis in Ancient Greek Literature’, in Grethlein, J. and Rengakos, A. (eds.), Narratology and Interpretation. The Content of Narrative Form in Ancient Literature (Berlin and New York, 2009), 88, n. 4Google Scholar. Other influential theoretical accounts of metalepsis include Herman, D., ‘Toward a Formal Description of Narrative Metalepsis’, Journal of Literary Semantics 26 (1997), 132–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Malina, D., Breaking the Frame. Metalepsis and the Construction of the Subject (Columbus, OH, 2002)Google Scholar; Wagner, F., ‘Glissements et dephasages: note sur la metalepse narrative’, Poétique 33 (2002), 235–53Google Scholar; Fludernik, M., ‘Scene Shift, Metalepsis, and the Metaleptic Mode’, Style 37 (2003), 382–400, reprinted as ‘Changement de scène et mode métaleptique’, in Pier and Schaeffer (below), 73–94Google Scholar; Genette, G., Métalepse. De la figure à la fiction (Paris, 2004)Google Scholar; Pier, J. and Schaeffer, J.-M. (eds.) Métalepses. Entorses au pacte de la représentation (Paris, 2005)Google Scholar. There is a useful summary discussion of the issues at <http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/index.php/Metalepsis>, accessed October 1 2012.

2 See Malina (n. 1).

3 Fludernik (n. 1).

4 De Jong (n. 1).

5 Ibid., 93–7.

6 Comm. in Call. Pin. Fr. 5 Nauck.

7 De Jong (n. 1), 93.

8 These terms correspond to, but are less forbidding than, Pier and Schaeffer's (n. 1) ‘ontological’ and ‘rhetorical’. Genette, Narrative Discourse (n. 1), 234–5, and Fludernik (n. 1) similarly distinguish ‘author's’ from ‘narrative’ distinction, but authors are not the only subjects of ‘strong’ metalepsis: for example, a fictional character can step into the ‘real’ world. What is more, some instances of ‘author's metalepsis’ (e.g. ‘pretending that the poet himself brings about the effects he celebrates’ [Genette, Narrative Discourse (n. 1), 234]) would count in my terms as ‘weak’, i.e. as mere façons de parler.

9 I understand ‘fiction’ in a broad sense that also covers the imaginary representations of tragic myth (i.e. leaving to one side the question of how historically true an ancient audience might have thought it to be).

10 Genette, Narrative Discourse (n. 1), 235.

11 Genette's Métalepse (n. 1), however, understands metalepsis in a much broader sense, and I have derived much from this discussion.

12 See further Whitmarsh, T. ‘An I for an I: Reading Fictional Autobiography’, Cento Pagine 3 (2009), 56–66Google Scholar, <http://www2.units.it/polymnia/iniziative/100pg09.php?link=iniziative&sub=Collezione%20EUT%20CentoPagine>, where I discuss inter alia Theoc. 7, Apul. Met. 9.27, and Lucian's True Stories. I also argue for metalepsis in Lucianic dialogue in ‘Reframing Satire: Lucianic Metalepsis’, in Çevik, M. (ed.), Uluslararasi Samsatli Lucianus Sempozyumu (Adıyaman, 2009), 69–75Google Scholar. For the claim that all fiction is metaleptic, see also J. Bessière, ‘Récit de fiction, transition discursive, presentation actuelle du passé, ou que le récit de fiction est toujours métaleptique’, in Pier and Schaeffer (n. 1), 279–94.

13 Note that metalepsis is to be distinguished from ‘metatheatre’ (see e.g. Ringer, M., Electra and the Empty Urn. Metatheater and Role-playing in Sophocles [Chapel Hill, NC, 1998]Google Scholar; Dobrov, G. W., Figures of Play. Greek Drama and Metafictional Poetics [New York and Oxford, 2001], esp. 9–11Google Scholar; Slater, N. W., Spectator Politics. Metatheater and Performance in Aristophanes [Philadelphia, PA, 2002]Google Scholar), which denotes more narrowly a drama's awareness of itself as drama. Metatheatre can be metaleptic, but the emphasis is on the theatrical medium itself rather than on frame-transgression.

14 Among the numerous influential publications in this area, see Goldhill, S., Reading Greek Tragedy (Cambridge, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vernant, J.-P. and Vidal-Naquet, P., Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece (New York, 1988)Google Scholar; Winkler, J. J. and Zeitlin, F. I. (eds.), Nothing to Do with Dionysus? Athenian Drama in its Social Context (Princeton, NJ, 1990)Google Scholar; Carter, D. M. (ed.), Why Athens? A Reappraisal of Tragic Politics (Oxford, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Not all tragedies were distanced in space (e.g. Aeschylus' Eumenides, Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus, and Euripides' lost Erechtheus) or even time: notable contemporary tragedies include Aeschylus' Persians and Phrynichus' lost Phoenician Women (which also dealt with Salamis: see the hypothesis to Aeschylus' Persians) and Capture of Miletus (Hdt. 6.21).

15 Sourvinou-Inwood, C., Tragedy and Athenian Religion (Lanham, MD, 2003), 31–40.Google Scholar

16 See esp. J. Ober and B. Strauss, ‘Drama, Political Rhetoric, and the Discourse of Athenian Democracy’, in Winkler and Zeitlin (n. 14), 237–70, with detailed discussion of the political-rhetorical language of Antigone at 259–63.

17 Translation adapted from Sommerstein, A., Aristophanes. Thesmophoriazusae (Warminster, 1994)Google Scholar.

18 See the thoughtful discussion in Fludernik, M., ‘Shifters and Deixis: Some Reflections on Jakobson, Jespersen, and Reference’, Semiotica 86 (1991), 193–230CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Translation from Sommerstein (n. 17).

20 As Wilamowitz put it, spectators ‘are completely involved, accept the stage action as truth, yet are mindful of the real world, that the chorus is their chorus and that the festive occasion belongs to their god’ (von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U., Euripides. Herakles [Berlin, 1889–95], iii.148Google Scholar, quoted and translated in Henrichs, A., ‘“Why Should I Dance?”: Choral Self-referentiality in Greek Tragedy’, Arion 3 [1994–5], 67Google Scholar). On theatrical liturgies, see Wilson, P., The Athenian Institution of the Choregia (Cambridge, 2000)Google Scholar.

21 D-K 82 B23 = Plut. Quomodo adul. 15D. Other examples, more narrowly focused on acting, are cited by I. Lada-Richards, ‘The Subjectivity of Greek Performance’, in Easterling, P. E. and Hall, E. (eds.) Greek and Roman Actors. Aspects of an Ancient Profession (Cambridge, 2002), 395–401Google Scholar.

22 P. E. Easterling, ‘Actor as Icon’, in Easterling and Hall (n. 19), 327–41; see also N. W. Slater, ‘The Idea of the Actor’, in Winkler and Zeitlin (n. 14), 385–95.

23 Well discussed by Lada-Richards (n. 19), and further in Easterling, P., ‘Constructing Character in Greek Tragedy’, in Pelling, C. (ed.), Characterization and Individuality in Greek Literature (Oxford, 1990), 83–99Google Scholar. The same duality no doubt attached to rhapsodes, who were in effect multi-part actors. The celebrated magnet simile of Plato's Ion seems to capture this phenomenon: Ion is utterly enthused with Homer's spirit and, in effect, ‘becomes’ Homer; but he also has an entirely distinct identity as Greece's premier rhapsode (541b2).

24 Aul. Gell. 6.5.1–8, quotation at 7. This anecdote is the opening hook for a metatheatrical discussion in Ringer (n. 13), 1–5; on its reception, see Holford-Strevens, L., ‘Polus and his Urn: A Case-study in the Theory of Acting, ca. 300 bc–2000 ad’, IJCT 11 (2005), 499–523CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Widely discussed, of course. See e.g. Konstan, D., Pity Transformed (London, 2001)Google Scholar; Munteaunu, D. L., Tragic Pathos. Pity and Fear in Greek Philosophy and Tragedy (Cambridge, 2012)Google Scholar, with copious further literature on the pity theme in both tragedy and the Iliad (esp. at 14–15).

26 See further Konstan (n. 23), 50–1.

27 Lada, I., ‘Empathic Understanding: Emotion and Cognition in Classical Dramatic Audience-Response’, PCPhS 39 (1993), 94–140Google Scholar, esp. 105–9 on the tragedy, pity, and empathy. Lada cites, in particular, Gorg. Hel. 9 and Pl. Resp. 605d, 606a for the normative link between these.

28 Absence of empathy is one of the key diagnostics of psychopathy (specifically the component known as ‘aggressive narcissism’), according to the internationally recognized Hare Psychopathy Checklist, <http://www.hare.org/scales/pclr.html>, accessed 1 October 2012.

29 i.e. comedy, by metaformation from ‘tragedy’ (hence ‘trugedy too…’ in the following line). See Taplin, O., ‘Tragedy and Trugedy’, CQ 33 (1983), 331–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 For more on Dicaeopolis' multiple literary roles at this point, see Hubbard, T. K., The Mask of Comedy. Aristophanes and the Intertextual Parabasis (Ithaca, NY, and London, 1991), 45Google Scholar; Silk, M., Aristophanes and the Definition of Comedy (Oxford, 2000), 38–41Google Scholar.

31 Silk (n. 28), 48–52.

32 See esp. Bowie, A., ‘The Parabasis in Aristophanes: Prolegomena, Acharnians’, CQ 32 (1982), 27–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hubbard (n. 28); Goldhill, S., The Poet's Voice (Cambridge, 1991), 196–205Google Scholar. Biles, Z., Aristophanes and the Poetics of Competition (Cambridge, 2011), 12–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar, usefully places the parabasis in the context of the contest between poets (but I am not convinced by the explanation offered for the word itself). Among older contributions, Sifakis, G. M., Parabasis and Animal Choruses. A Contribution to the History of Attic Comedy (London, 1971)Google Scholar, stands out for its careful mapping out of choral identities in the various parabaseis.

33 Ketterer, R., ‘Stripping in the Parabasis of the Acharnians’, GRBS 21 (1980), 217–21Google Scholar, argues that the ‘stripping’ may have involved the actual removal of the mask; other, more figurative interpretations are, however, available.

34 For other examples, see Bowie (n. 30) on Acharnians, and more generally Goldhill (n. 30), 196–201.

35 Goldhill (n. 30), 199.

36 For a survey of what is known and a sophisticated discussion, see Wiles, D., Tragedy in Athens. Performance Space and Theatrical Meaning (Cambridge, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Ibid.

38 R. Padel, ‘Making Space Speak’, in Winkler and Zeitlin (n. 14), 336–65.

39 I adapt Jebb, R. C. (trans.), Sophocles. Oedipus Tyrannus (Cambridge, 1893)Google Scholar.

40 See most notably Goldhill, S. D., ‘The Great Dionysia and Civic Ideology’, JHS 107 (1987), 58–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in Winkler and Zeitlin (n. 14), 97–129.

41 Swift, L., The Hidden Chorus. Echoes of Genre in Tragic Lyric (Oxford, 2010), esp. 39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Dawe, R. D., Sophocles. Oedipus Rex (Cambridge, 1982), 186Google Scholar.

43 Dodds, E. R., ‘On Misunderstanding the “Oedipus Rex”’, G&R 13 (1966), 46 (‘the question is irrelevant, and even slightly ludicrous’)Google Scholar.

44 Henrichs (n. 18), 67.

45 Ibid., 90.

46 Genette, Métalepse (n. 1), 60–1.