Greek Literature and the Ideal: The Pragmatics of Space from the Archaic to the Hellenistic Age by Alexander Kirichenko (review)

Reviewed by: Greek Literature and the Ideal: The Pragmatics of Space from the Archaic to the Hellenistic Age by Alexander Kirichenko William G. Thalmann Greek Literature and the Ideal: The Pragmatics of Space from the Archaic to the Hellenistic Age. By Alexander Kirichenko. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2022. Pp. x, 290. Greek Literature and the Ideal presents a sophisticated ideological reading of Greek literature from the archaic, classical, and Hellenistic periods. Kirichenko suggests that this literature originated and developed in response to changing "geopolitical realities" and that it afforded its audiences "conceptual control" over the spatial conditions of Greek culture—the wide dispersal of settlements within and beyond the Greek mainland. Hence the "pragmatics of space" of the book's subtitle. "Heroic essentialism" and poetry, its vehicle, gave coherence to this scattered map in the archaic period and reinforced the authority of aristocratic rulers; democratic Athens presented itself—at least in the minds of its citizens—as the center of an empire; and monarchical Hellenistic Alexandria was depicted as the notional center of the Greek cultural and political world. But Kirichenko importantly complicates this relatively simple picture by showing how, in the first two instances, texts also laid bare the inherent contradictions within these conceptions. Writing clearly and expressively, he elaborates this framework through a series of deft readings. These may not always be new, but he recasts familiar aspects of the texts into a framework that clarifies Greek literature's social and political roles. The first two chapters discuss Homer and Hesiod. In the Iliad, to assert his authority Agamemnon relies on arbitrary symbols (the scepter, numbers of ships, trophies, gifts—Kirichenko is especially good on this) as signs or "indexes" of his qualities, whereas Achilles really is what he appears to be. He alone can carry out his intentions, and this "indexical essentialism" makes him an embodiment of the "Ideal" of the book's title, a [End Page 166] figure of the aristocratic ruler whose authority is supposed to knit together a spatially diverse Greece. Kirichenko, stressing the self-defeating nature of Achilles' exercise of raw power, gives an excellent account of the funeral games and the ransoming of Hector as demonstrating how this ideal can accommodate itself to political and social realities. The discussion of the Odyssey that follows is unsurprising, but it supplements the Iliad's ideological model by showing, through its hero, how essential qualities might lie concealed beneath appearances, how poetry plays a crucial role in maintaining rulers' authority, and how poets, reciprocally, depend on rulers. Chapter Two shows (again unsurprisingly) how Hesiod's Theogony makes this relationship explicit and argues, through an ingenious reading of Theog. 35, that the poem claims for poetry unmediated access to truth. But then the Works and Days destabilizes this symbiosis of poets and aristocrats and transfers the ideal away from the latter to the individual farmer, who lives a life of self-sufficiency in harmony with nature and the laws of Zeus and whose actions therefore always lead to their intended result, like those of Achilles. One might wonder, however, where this revaluation leaves us regarding the "pragmatics of space," if the spatial clarity created by rulers' authority is shown to be precarious and ethical responsibility falls on individuals and households living in presumably dispersed communities. This is left unaddressed. Attention then moves (Chapters Three and Four) to classical Athens as the notional center of an empire, and this spatial construction evidently gives conceptual clarity—at least to the Athenians and maybe some "allies," but what of the many other communities? Kirichenko shows how certain tragedies and fourth-century rhetoric emphasize autochthony as the basis of Athens' unique ability to carry out its intentions, so that the democratic imperial city replaces the archaic heroic ideal. Thucydides, on the other hand, exposes the inadequacy of both this essentialism and the competing justification of Athenian hegemony by the very fact of empire. Athens becomes like its own other in tragedy, Thebes, "doomed to self-destruction by the semiotic instability of its political language" (113). The stage is now set for Plato (Chapter Four), who encourages...

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