Tragic Workings in Euripides' Drama: The Anthropology of the Genre by Synnøve des Bouvrie

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 365 Tragic Workings in Euripides' Drama: The Anthropology of the Genre. By SynnØve des Bouvrie. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. 2018. Pp. 445. This monograph proposes a new anthropological methodology for interpreting Greek tragedy. The first part of the book comprises three sections: an introduction, a chapter on the “cultural-symbolic nature” (47) of Attic theatre, and another on theory and methodology. The first part lays the groundwork for the second, which offers chapterlong readings of seven Euripidean plays. After a brief conclusion, the book includes “Supplementary Notes to Chapter 1” (further bibliographic context), a section summarizing des Bouvrie’s previous work on Attic drama, an extensive bibliography, and a brief index of major concepts and anthropological theorists. A bookmark accompanying the monograph advertises a full index of all the scholars cited, which is available to download from the publisher’s website. Des Bouvrie begins with a sharp critique of modern tragic scholarship. In the introduction (and throughout) she problematizes what she calls the “aesthetic response” (28). By this she means the assumption that the ancient audience’s emotional and intellectual reactions can be reconstructed. Des Bouvrie makes a compelling case that this approach often draws uncritically on modern ideas inflected by Christian and Enlightenment values and sometimes creates interpretive problems (e.g., lack of unity) where none exist. This section of the book, along with its supplementary notes, offers an impressive and exhaustive account of trends in both North American and European scholarship. Most readers are likely to find a scholar they admire critiqued here, which, to be perfectly honest, is initially off-putting. This does, however, effectively underscore des Bouvrie’s point about the calcified assumptions of contemporary scholarship. The second major strand of des Bouvrie’s argument is a justification of her anthropological approach, particularly her use of ritual theory. She touches on the ritual origins and nature of ancient Greek theatre, contextualizing it within the City Dionysia. It is by categorizing tragedy as ritual rather than as literature that des Bouvrie undermines the aesthetic interpretive lens: literature may invoke diverse individual responses, but ritual demands a unified collective one. Relying predominantly on the theories of Tambiah and Rappaport,1 des Bouvrie argues that, as a ritual, tragedy does not encourage its audience to question and critique social norms as modern scholars frequently assume. Instead it upholds what she calls the “socially unquestionable” (85). Tragedy invokes a collective audience response to these foundational values including the integrity of the oikos and polis and the obligation to uphold all forms of philia. Much of the subsequent section on theory and methodology summarizes and integrates ideas from the previous two. Most important here is the introduction of a critical vocabulary for the discussion of specific plays. The “tragic workings” of the book’s title are the ways in which tragedy violates socially unquestionable institutions and, so, evokes Aristotle’s pity and fear (des Bouvrie prefers to translate “shock and horror” [96]). Within each play, attention to the institutional roles of the characters allows us to understand the tragic progression which defines the drama, distinct from the dramatic development to which scholars typically appeal. Des Bouvrie argues that the key to interpreting tragedy 1 S. J. Tambiah, Culture, Thought, and Social Action: An Anthropological Perspective (Cambridge, MA 1985); R. Rappaport, Ecology, Meaning, and Religion (Berkeley 1979); id., Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity (Cambridge 1999). 366 PHOENIX is an understanding of how the play upholds or disrupts aspects of social order; coherence of plot and character are secondary to tragic workings. The analyses of specific plays all follow the same format. Des Bouvrie begins by showing how traditional problems of interpretation stem from methodology, not the plays themselves. She then gives an account of the tragic workings of each play, identifying the most important social institution threatened and tracing it through the drama. As a rule, des Bouvrie lingers longest in the prologue, showing how the play establishes its central concern. Hecuba is considered from the broadest perspective, with the institution in question, reciprocity, manifested through philia and xenia. Andromache and Iphigenia at Tauris focus on threats to the oikos, particularly the continuation of...

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