Performance and Gender in Ancient Greece: Nondramatic Poetry in Its Setting 0691036179, 9780691036175

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Performance and Gender in Ancient Greece

Performance and Gender in Ancient Greece NONDRAMATIC

POETRY IN ITS SETTING

Eva Stehle

PRINCETON PRINCETON,

UNIVERSITY NEW

JERSEY

PRESS

Copyright© 1997 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 Wilham Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Catalogmg-in-Publication Data Stehle, Eva, 1944Performance and gender in ancient Greece : nondramatic poetry in its setting / Eva Stehle. p.

cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-691-03617-9 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. Greek poetry-History and criticism. 2. Women m the performmg artsGreece-History. 3. Oral interpretation of poetry-History. 4. Women and literature-Greece-History. 5. Bards and bardism-Greece-History. 6. Greece-Social life and customs. 7. Oral tradition-Greece-History. I. Title. 8. Sappho-Friends and associates. 9. Sex role-Greece-History. PA3067.S74 1996 881 '.0109-dc20 96-3522 This book has been composed in Bembo Princeton University Press books are prmted on acid-free paper, and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources Printed in the United States of America by Princeton Academic Press 10987654321

For Norman

Contents

Preface

lX

Abbreviations Introduction CHAPTER

119

FOUR

Bardic Poetry CHAPTER

71

THREE

Male Performers in the Community CHAPTER

26

Two

Women in Performance in the Community CHAPTER

3

ONE

Community Poetry CHAPTER

xm

170

FIVE

The Symposium

213

Six Sappho's Circle

262

Conclusion

319

Appendix: Chronologyof Primary Sources

326

TransliteratedTerms

329

Bibliography

331

Index Locorum

353

GeneralIndex

357

CHAPTER

Preface

LIKEGOOD TIMESin the old song, this book has been long, long on the way. It had its genesis in the weekly seminar of the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown University in the fall of 1986. In that stimulating atmosphere it was possible to think about Sappho and Jacques Derrida together. Although in the book as it has evolved Derrida is never mentioned, questions about what speech as a sign of presence meant for Greek performance culture and for Sappho determined the form of my initial inquiry. As it ultimately evolved, the focus of the work is on gendered speech in performance and on subversive rhetorical strategies opened up by the system of writing. One goal served by framing the question this way is to understand Sappho's "difference" as a poet and a woman poet. From this point of view, the first five chapters are preliminary, providing a context for Sappho. The other inspiration for my work is love for live performance, for the energy that passes between actors and audience in dance, theater, improvisation, even a good lecture. Although the physical excitement of the performances that characterized Greek culture of the archaic and early classical period can be recaptured only by our imaginings, I have tried to analyze how the dynamic of performance might have interacted with poetic texts in the eyes and minds of the viewers. From this perspective the first five chapters are not preliminary but central, and Sappho's poetry reveals something of its "difference" by contrast. I hope that the whole adds to readers' appreciation of the complexity of gender ideology and of the relations of speech and writing in ancient Greece. I avoid the question of performance and self-presentation in drama because that is a large topic in its own right and a somewhat different one. Translations are my own unless I indicate otherwise in a note. I can claim neither grace nor vigor for them, but they follow the Greek closely, even to strained word-order on occasion, in an attempt to reproduce the effect ofhearing the original. As for transliteration, I only hope that I have been consistent in my inconsistencies. I use the Latinized form of a personal or place-name if it is a familiar one, stricter transliteration if it is not so well known. When I do use the latter, I also commit the impropriety of attaching English adjectival endings to the Greek, e. g., Keos and Kean. A list of transliterated terms that I use repeatedly can be found at the end of this book. A final note on terminology: when I use the term women, I mean to refer to women collectively, married or unmarried. These two states are distinguished in Greek, and where relevant I also distinguish.

x · Preface The abbreviations indicating editions used and any others found in text, notes, or Bibliography are listed following this Preface. Dates are BCE unless I specify CE. The book ranges over the period roughly from 700 to 300 BCE; it assumes that the function and modes of performance remained largely the same over that period, although developments are discussed in Chapter 1, and the Conclusion sketches the arc of each genre's evolution. For the dates when the various mentioned authors lived, see the chronological chart in the Appendix. In the Greek that is quoted, I use iota subscript or adscript depending on the practice of the edition from which I take the text. A dot under a Greek letter (usually found in texts from papyrus or inscriptions) indicates that the letter is not certain. Square brackets in a translation mean that the Greek text is damaged and a word or more is missing. When a word is enclosed in square brackets, it has been restored in Greek. In translating very broken texts, I occasionally use ellipses rather than brackets because this makes the text easier to read. There are a few works cited in the Bibliography to which I do not refer in the notes. These either appeared too late for me to use, or came to my notice too late, or arc tangential to my specific discussions but have a general relevance to the subject. In the hope that nonclassicists will find the book of interest, I have translated all the Greek and have provided the chronological list of authors and the lists of transliterated terms and abbreviations mentioned above. I have sometimes daydreamed of reaching the moment when I could say thank you to those who have helped me and have composed purple patches of fervid gratitude in my head. But, as Aristotle says, writing is more spare than speech, so I will just say that I truly appreciate all the help and support. First thanks go to my colleague at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, Dorothea Wender, who encouraged, exhorted, and read several chapters. Elizabeth Weed, Associate Director of the Pembroke Center, who invited me to join the seminar and from whom I have learned a great deal, also has my special gratitude. For conversations that expanded my ideas, I owe much to Marilyn Skinner. Ian Rutherford and Joseph Russo read the whole typescript and gave me good advice, saving me from numerous mistakes and omissions. I thank also the Press's anonymous referees, my editors Lauren Osborne and Brigitta Van Rheinberg, and my copy editor Marta Steele for her patience and her eagle eye. Egbert Bakker, Deborah Boedeker, David Konstan, Sara Lindheim, William Mullen, Adele Scafuro, and my University of Maryland colleagues Lillian Doherty and James Lesher read part or all of the work. They have all talked over questions with me and been vital to me in stimulating further thought. My mother, Evelyn Stehle, read an early version and encouraged me to make it understandable to a wide audience, as I hope I have done. She and my

Preface ·

x1

father, Philip Stehle, were understanding and encouraging when the project seemed interminable. Seth Schein, Charles Segal, and John Winkler offered support at an early stage when it was very good to know that someone thought the project looked promising, and so did Matthew Santirocco at a later point. Amy Day, Stephen Lambert, Margaret Miller, Emmet Robbins, and Andrew Szegedy-Maszak answered burning questions, and Jennifer Roberts advised me and spurred me on, as did Joseph and Leslie Preston Day. The codirectors of the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, DC, Deborah Boedeker and Kurt Raaflaub, and the Librarian, Ellen Roth, have all been very generous; I am glad to be able to express my gratitude. Maryland colleagues John Duffy, Judith Hallett, Katie King, Hugh Lee, Gregory Staley, and Marjorie Venit offered practical support as well as the cheerful atmosphere that makes work fun. Ms. Rosalie Wolff of the Solow Art and Architecture Foundation graciously gave me permission to use and obtained for me the photograph on the jacket cover. I owe thanks to various institutions as well. The Arts and Humanities Research Board of the University of Maryland gave me a grant for a semester's leave in the fall ofl 988, when I really began work; I am grateful to them and to Robert Rowland for encouraging me to apply and supporting my work. The Madeleine Clark Wallace Library at Wheaton College has welcomed me back each summer. I wish especially to thank Marsha Grimes for spectacular interlibrary loan services. The Brown University Classics department has been hospitable. The University ofToronto Classics department invited me to join their activities and use their library when I spent a sabbatical in Toronto; my thanks to faculty and graduate students for such a friendly welcome. There are two people who were so generous with their interest that they always buoyed me up and were very dear to me, whom I can no longer thank in person. The first is Jack Winkler. All who knew him must miss him still. The second is my aunt Dorothy Stehle, who read part of the typescript and had all sorts of suggestions, whose enthusiasm was catching, and whose good opinion I treasured. Finally, there is one more whom I must thank, without whose gentle steadiness I would not be finished even now. The book is dedicated to him. Stowe, Vermont July 1995

Abbreviations

EDITIONS

AHS

C CA CEG

DK Dr. FGH

G JG LP LS] MW PMG PMGF PW SIG 3 SLG SM TrGF V

w

Allen, Halliday, and Sikes 1980. Calame 1983. Powell 1970. Hansen 1983. Diels and Kranz 1966-68. Drachmann 1966-69. Jacoby 1954-69. Gentili 1958. Inscriptiones Graecae.

Lobel and Page 1955. Liddell, Scott, and Jones 1940. Merkelbach and West 1967. Page 1962a. Davies 1991. Wissowa 1893-. Dittenberger 1915. Page 1974. Snell and Maehler 1970 or 1987-89. Radt 1977. Voigt 1971. West 1989 or 1992b. W 2 , second edition specifically.

JOURNALS

GRBS HSCP ]HS P. Oxy.

American Journal of Philology. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of London. Classical Philology. Classical Quarterly. Classical World. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology. Journal of Hellenic Studies. The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, a series published under different

QUCC

Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica.

AJP BICS CP

CQ

cw

editors.

XIV

Abbreviations

SEC TAPA ZPE ANCIENT

SupplementumEpigraphicumGraecum Transactionsof the AmericanPhilologicalAssociation. Zeitschrififur Papyrologieund Epigraphik. AUTHORS

Hdt.

Incert. auct. Ach. Anth. Pal. Ath. Pol. Bihl. Hipp. Lys. pap. Colon. pap. Oxy. Rep. Symp. WD

AND WORKS

Herodotus. Uncertain author. Aristophanes, Acharnians. PalatineAnthology, a collection of epigrams by various authors. Aristotle, Constitutionof Athens. Apollodoros, Bibliotheke, or Photios, Bibliotheke. Euripides, Hippolytos. Aristophanes, Lysistrata. Cologne papyrus. Oxyrhynchus papyrus. Plato, Republic. Plato, Symposium. Hesiod, Works and Days.

MISCELLANEOUS

ad Zoe. app. crit. BCE CE eh. col. f fig. fr. n.s. passim pl. rev. S. V.

schol. ser.

referring to a commentary: at the lines indicated. notes printed with a text that record possible restorations, scholia, and other pertinent details. before the common era (equivalent to BC). common era (equivalent to AD). chapter. column. following (indicates the paragraph, not "following," in references to Plato or Athenaios). figure. fragment. new senes. (not an abbreviation) throughout. plate. revised. under the word (referring to a dictionary entry). scholion (pl. scholia), ancient marginal comment in a manuscript. senes.

Abbreviations

test.

tr.

· xv

testimonium (pl. testimonia), i.e., ancient evidence on an author's life and works. Note: in Ch. 6, "Test." (capitalized) refers to the testimonia on Sappho in Campbell 1982. translator or translated by.

Performance and Gender in Ancient Greece

Introduction What is love? 'Tis not hereafter, Present mirth hath present laughter. -song from Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

Greek poetry was not for hereafter but shared in the present mirth and laughter offestival, ceremony, and party. Before the Hellenistic age (and often later), poetry was composed for performance. Men and women, young and adult, had their turns at singing, dancing, parading, or reciting before their neighbors. How can we restore the physicality of body and voice, the energy of interaction between performers and audience, to the nondramatic poetic texts that have survived from ancient Greece? We could begin with descriptions of performance. These are remarkably few because, paradoxically, performance was so common. No one needed to be told what a choral dance looked like. But there are some passages and passing remarks that offer a hold to the imagination. They will allow us to start from performance as an event peopled by members of a community, and sometimes strangers, then ask what the poetic texts add to the occasion-the opposite of the usual procedure, if indeed performance is taken into account at all in the study of non dramatic poetry. I will use the excerpts that follow to throw performers and their audiences into high relief. Athenaios preserves from Philochoros a brief vignette of the City Dionysia at Athens, when tragedies, comedies, and dithyrambic poems were performed: LIKE LOVE,

At the competitions of the Dionysia the Athenians would first eat and drink, then go to the show and watch, wearing wreaths, and all during the whole contest wine was poured out for them and sweets were carried around, and as the choruses were coming in, they poured out wine for them to drink; and as they were leaving after performing in the competition they poured (for them) again. 1 1

Athenaios 11, 464f citing Ph1lochoros FGH 328 Fl 71.

4 · Introduction We gain a sudden glimpse of a reveling crowd, of noise and sticky hands and camaraderie. 2 In the midst of it all are the choruses, the troupes of singer-dancers who performed the round-dance known as the dithyramb or joined the actors in tragedy and comedy. Members of each tribe no doubt cheered when one of their dithyrambic choruses appeared, for each of the ten tribes entered two choruses of fifty dancers each, one of men and one of boys, in the annual contest. 3 Demosthenes adds to our impression of the dithyrambic contest when he recounts his tribulations in serving as choregos,or "sponsor," for his tribe in his oration against his nemesis Meidias (21 Meidias). Elaborate in dance and song, performance required months of rehearsal and afforded Demosthenes' enemy any number of chances to derail the Pandionis tribe's showing. 4 Demosthenes complains that Meidias broke into the goldsmith's shop and destroyed some of the gold crowns Demosthenes was having made for the chorus members (21.16). He corrupted the trainer, and if the pipes-player (21.17) hadn't himself thought it necessaryto hammer together and train the chorus, we would not have been able to compete, 0 men of Athens, but the chorus would have come in untrained and we would have suffered a most shameful thmg. Furthermore, Meidias somehow was responsible for his tribe's not getting the prize even though they were winning (21.18). To top it all off, Meidias struck Demosthenes in public while he was involved in the ceremonies (21.1, 6-7, and 74). Demosthenes' taut competitiveness complements the communaljollity depicted by Philochoros. Women performed as well. In Aristophanes' comedy Acharnians the protagonist, Dikaiopolis, celebrates the rural Dionysia with his family. His daughter is to carry a ritual basket in the procession. As he organizes the participants, he gives her some advice (253-58): Make sure, daughter, that, pretty as you are, you carry the basket prettily, looking sour pickles. For he will be blessed who marries you and begets polecats no less good than you at farting at daybreak. Start off, and guard yourself well in the crowd so that no one sneakily nibbles at your gold. The slave Xanthias is to walk behind her holding erect the phallus on a pole, while Dikaiopolis follows singing a phallus-song. The daughter does not join his ribald song, but young women did sometimes sing in processions. The location of the performance is again in the midst of a 2 Cf. Cole 1993: 27-29 on the D10nysiac aspects of the City Dionysia, with a procession of phalluses and dancing in the agora. 3 Cf. Pickard-Cambridge 1962: 32-38; 1968: 74-79. 4 Cf. Antiphon 6 On the Choreut 11-13 on organizing a boys' chorus.

Introduction

· 5

crowd. 5 Though part of a comedy, this scene must evoke the day of the rural Dionysia, for it is meant to arouse nostalgia in members of the theater audience cut off by war from their country homes. Very different is another kind of performance. In his dialogue Ion, Plato puts into the mouth of the rhapsode Ion an account of his performance of Homeric epic. 6 Ion throws himself bodily into his recitation as he stands on a platform above the crowd. Yet Ion-the character created by Platoalso assesses crowd reaction in a detached way as he recites, since his living depends on his success in moving the audience emotionally (535cd): IoN

Soc.

(Yes, I am inspired,) for when I recite something pitiable my eyes fill with tears, and when (I recite) something frightful or awe-inspiring my hair stands on end for fear and my heart jumps. What then, Ion? Shall we say that this man is in his right mind, who, dressed in multicolored garment and gold wreaths, cries in the midst of sacrifice and festival?

Socrates asks Ion whether he knows that he produces the same effect in the audience, and Ion answers (535e): ION

Indeed I know it well; for I look down each time from up on the platform at people crying and looking awestruck and acting astounded at my words. For it is necessary for me to pay close attention to them, since whenever I set them to crying I myself will laugh when I take the prizemoney, but whenever (I cause) laughter I will cry myself, losing the prize.

Ion uses his body differently from the dithyrambic dancers, histrionically rather than rhythmically (though both are richly dressed), and creates a hypercharged emotional atmosphere that contrasts with the crowd's welcoming revelry in the first two instances. The account that Plutarch gives of Solon's performance of his elegy Salamis is probably (though not necessarily) fantasy.7 In Salamis Solon urged the Athenians to take up their abandoned war to annex the wealthy island Salamis. According to Plutarch Solon started a rumor that he was mad, then rushed out of his house wearing a herald's cap, mounted the herald's stone in the agora (marketplace), and recited his poem. Plutarch gives the opening lines (1 W): I myself, a herald, come from desirable Salamis, setting my arrangement of words as a song instead of a speech. 5 The crowd is only imagined by Dika10polis, who alone can celebrate since he has a private treaty with Sparta, with whom Athens was at war. 6 On the Ion as a description of performance, see Herington 1985: 10-13. 7 Plutarch Solon 8.1-3, quoted in West 1992b ad Solon 1.

6 · Introduction

The poem contravened an Athenian law against speaking about the war with Salamis, says Plutarch, but by this means Solon made his harangue without being held accountable for it. The spectacle of an apparently raving Solon would draw everyone at a run to witness it-and hear his words. Finally, in Aristophanes' Wasps, Bdelykleon tries to teach his father Philokleon the proper etiquette for singing at a symposium, an all-male gathering of friends to eat and then drink. After advice on how to recline, how to compliment the host, how to make conversation, Bdelykleon turns to the proper mode of singing together (1222-39): Bo.

(after listing the guests): Finding yourself in company with these, watch that you take up the songs well. PH. Are you kidding? Like no hillman I will! Bo. I'll find out. Now suppose that I am Kleon; I first start singing the Harmodios song then you will take it up. "No man ever born to Athens was-" PH. "-ever such a miscreant or thief!" Bo. Is that what you'll do? You'll throw away your life, knocked out by the shouting. For he'll say that he will destroy you and ruin you and drive you out of this land. PH. And ifhe threatens, then by Zeus I'll sing another song: "O human, you who are grasping at great power, you will yet overturn the city. She hangs in the balance." Bo. Well, then, when Theoros, reclining at your feet, takes Kleon' s right hand and sings, "Taking to heart the saying of Admetos, 0 comrade, hold dear those who are good," what skolion (little song) will you sing to him?

We can imagine vigorous stage business during this scene. Physical proximity colored and personalized the meaning of songs, and interaction involved bodies-from hand-holding to fistfights-as well as words. Women sang among their female friends in groups like those that gathered at the symposium, as Sappho did and perhaps Korinna, although we have no descriptions of the scene. Vase paintings show women performing for other women in interiors. 8 In these scenes we see how significant for communication the physical and visual dimension of performance was, as well as observing the pressure of the audience and the intensity of its reactions. When we look at performance through this lens focused on the performers, we can see something else as well, a feature that will provide a way to analyze performance in its totality: in each of these passages (except the first), performers are planning or discussing the use of bodies (combined with words) to 8

See West 1992a: pl. 7, 22, and cf. 33 (outdoor scene).

Introduction · 7 make an impression on the audience. Demosthenes arranged for his tribe to be visually splendid and cried foul when they were not judged the best. Dikaiopolis' daughter is showing herself off as ready to be married, for Dikaiopolis' mind leaps from her carriage in the procession to her marriage. Ion calculatedly mimes emotions in order to elicit crowd empathy. Solon stages a theatrical coup in order to ambush the audience with political exhortation. And Philokleon and his son disagree about what attitude he should project toward his drinking companions, while the opening of Kleon's Harmodios song ("No man ever was ... ") could be meant, with the right gestures, to describe himself (as Philokleon certainly takes it). 9 I actually did not pick the passages with this in mind, but what they show is that performance in pre-Hellenistic Greece was in the first instance the self-presentation of performers as social actors to their audiences. Their performances are not simply vocalizations of poetry, but acts of staging themselves. Now, it is a truism that oral performance is inescapably the self-presentation of a performer. Meaning comes to the audience not simply as a fabric of words but shaped by the voice and body of the interpreting performer. But performers may or may not use performance to present their extraperformance selves. It is my contention that nondramatic performance in its lived form in archaic and classical Greece, with physical, visual, aural, as well as verbal dimensions, can best be recreated by envisioning it as a medium in which, among other things, individuals enacted their own identities (actual or idealized) for the audience. To say this is to say that performance was part of the "theatrical" public life of a culture governed by honor and shame. 10 Those who wished to participate in public business acted out a dramatized identity in a variety of ways in agora, public meeting, court and council, on military service, and in the symposium. Herodotus' stories of notable individuals, Plato's dialogues, Plutarch's Lives, among other sources, attest to the quality ofbluff and posturing (to use John Winklcr's words), the staginess (to use Adele Scafuro 's term) that animated social life. 11 Robert Connor has pointed out the importance of dramatic self-presentation in public to those who would 9 As Reitzenstein 1970: 26 pomts out. For more on this scene, see Ch. 5 and cf. MacDowell 1971 ad loc. 10 Mediterranean anthropology highlights competitive posturmg in contemporary societies dominated by constant public assessment of honor and shame: Campbell 1964 and Herzfeld 1985 both emphasize interfam1lial competition in the Greek villages they investigate; Pm-Rivers 1977 treats the Mediterranean basin as a cultural and historical unity with respect to the centrality of shame and honor. Seremetak1s 1991 studies women's response in lament. 11 Winkler 1990a: 4 and passim. He uses the fundamental work of Gouldner 1965, who applies the term zero-sum game to the competition for honor so promment throughout the ancient Greek world. Scafuro forthcommg, Ch. 1.

8 · Introduction

be prominent. 12 To show how poetic performance participates in.the same system is the burden of this book. 13 In sum, if we wish to recapture a sense of Greek nondramatic poetry as it entered the lives of its original audience, we must think of it not as reified texts or even simply as occasional poetry, but as blueprints or librettos for performers' self-presentation. In this book I try to resurrect performers whose appearance and identity interacted with their words to produce the "message" for the audience. In other words, rather than treat the performer as a medium for the poetry, I propose to treat the poetry as a medium for the performer. Attending to performers means attending to audience and context also. The scenes described above attest to the variety of situations in which performers sang or recited. I investigate these further in the next section. Two questions may be troubling the reader by now: given that in general we have only the texts of performed poetry, why and how do I take this approach? As to why, I have two answers. First, it highlights the character of Greek oral culture. Communication was to a significant extent oral in archaic and classical Greece, as scholars have realized for some time, and there are disputes over how much of a role writing played even in preservation and transmission of poetry. 14 But the critical issue for understanding Greek culture in this period is not orality but performance. By focusing on orality as a global condition, scholars of Greek poetry have tended to define the relevant issues and problems as those of style, occasion, and transmission. 15 The physical actuality of performance then drops out of sight, and the specific effects of oral communication are lost to view. So by insisting on putting the performer at the center, we gain an imaginative shift. Second, as I hope this book demonstrates, reconstituting performance enriches rather than narrows the meaning of texts. I do not set myself against effects detected by close 12 Connor 1987. His major example 1s Peisistratos' staged return to Athens in a chariot driven by a tall woman dressed up as Athena (Hdt. 1.60). Of the citizens' response, he notes (46): "[They are] participants ma theatricality whose rules and roles they understand and enjoy. These are alert, even sophisticated, actors in a ritual drama affirming the establishment of a new civic order, and a renewed rapport among people, leader and protectmg divinity." Rehm 1992: 3-11 emphasizes the range and importance of performance at Athens. 13 Cf. Griffith 1990: 191 apropos of the agonistic style in poetic texts: "Poems were usually designed to defeatotherpoems [his italics]" and "[T]he case of the Greeks is special, I thmk, in the prevalence of overtly agonistic mannerisms, and in the extent to which awareness of (an) immediately present judge(s), and the challenge of a viable but contradictory alternative to the poet's present statement, may influence the choice of subject, treatment, and selfpresentauon." 14 Havelock 1963 first made the case for the primacy of oral communication until the late fifth century. Thomas 1992, esp. 101-27, gives an overview of current scholarship. 15 Cf. the major work of Gentili 1988: 3-49, who emphasizes occasion; Nagy 1990a and 1990b, who focuses on transmission; Rosier 1980, who looks at occasion and style.

Introduction · 9 reading, on the grounds that the audience would not have noticed them, but show that in various ways utterances would interact with other aspects of a performance. To begin the answer to the question how, let me mention some of the work that has influenced mine, including recent work on performance in anthropology. I try to unite focus on the speaker with attention to the function and effect of speaking within particular contexts, drawing in part on Ruth Finnegan and the "ethnography of speaking." In her 1977 book, Oral Poetry, Finnegan surveys practices of oral communication from all over the world and emphasizes the importance of realization in performance to an audience, a feature that has been relatively neglected in the study of oral poetry. 16 Ethnography of speaking treats performance as heightened communication taking place within culturally recognized patterns of situation and style. 17 Speaking is a form of power, the access to which and modes of which can be studied. 18 These approaches, combined with the theatrical self-presentation that I have referred to, lead me to the idea that performance is self-presentation within enabling and legitimating contexts. 19 Given this model to orient research, it is still essential to study specific cultural constructions of performance: the mode of self-presentation and the function of performance in various enabling contexts. Here several studies of performance in ancient Greece are very helpful. Richard Martin, in The Language of Heroes, begins from speech-act theory to give an account of mythos as authoritative self-presentation and performance ofidentity in a competitive situation. 20 Mythoi are authoritative speeches falling into the categories of command, boast-and-insult, and narrative of remembered events (for the purpose of persuasion). 21 He calls attention to the description ofThoas (Iliad 15.282-84): Finnegan 1977: 118-26 and passim. Bauman and Sherzer 1989: 1x-xxvii give an overview of the field, which they date from Hymes 1962; another founding text is Bauman 1978. Foley 1992: 282-85 gives a synopsis. The performances studied are often much more informal than the ones I treat. Cf. also Stewart 1989, an ethnographical study of speakmg relevant to my Ch. 5. 18 On this dimension of performance, see Bloch 1975: 1-28. 19 Foley 1992, taking a different tack, proposes to combine ethnography of speakmg with oral formulaic theory, arguing that formulas provide heightened meaning by evoking the whole tradition. See also Herzfeld 1985 on the "poetics" of male self-presentation in everyday life in a Cretan village, esp. 10-19 giving a theoretical background for his study of selfpresentation as social drama. 20 Martin 1989: 14-15, 22-23, and eh. 1 passim. He contrasts mythos with epos, the other common word for speech in Homeric epic. For heroic performers of mythoi, see esp. 82-83 on the contrast between Odysseus and Nestor as speakers and eh. 3, "Heroes as Performers." Martin extends the work of Muellner 1976, who studies the Homeric verb euchomaiand finds that its basic meaning is "say in a marked way." It too directs attention to the speaker. 21 Martin 1989: 47, discussed 47-88. 16

17

10 · Introduction AhWAWV ox'ClQ:1tL'aµj3QO