Motivation and Narrative in Herodotus by Emily Baragwanath

Abstract

438 PHOENIX W. Scheidel propose une analyse comparée de deux modèles monétaires, d'une part celui de l'Occident qui a principalement frappé des métaux précieux et s'est peu à peu imposé à une grande partie du monde, d'autre part celui de la Chine qui a utilisé le bronze et qui fait ainsi figure d'exception : il attribue le second choix au manque de ressources précieuses, aux faibles besoins monétaires d'armées composées de conscrits et au mimétisme consécutif à la victoire de Qin. La plupart des articles, on le voit, présentent des mises au point sur des questions bien connues et sont assurément d'un grand intérêt, mais l'ensemble comporte somme toute assez peu de nouveautés. Le volume est présenté avec soin et élégance. Il se termine par une longue bibliographie et un index. Université Laval, Québec Léopold Migeotte Motivation and Narrative in Herodotus. By Emily Baragwanath. Oxford University Press. 2008. Pp. x, 374. Despite being a revised version of a recent Oxford doctoral thesis (2005), Emily Baragwanath's study displays a maturity of research and layered insight more typical of seasoned scholars' work. The book's central aim is to illuminate Herodotus' portrayal of human motivation and his articulation of individual characters' psychology, a major focus of his inquiry in the Histories. In pursuing this goal, Baragwanath is interested in not only how Herodotus motivates the narrative action but also how he motivates his audience. She thus interprets his authorial strategies as multifaceted, and her discussion reveals much about his apparent desire to bring readers into the process of evaluating expressed motives. One of Herodotus' intentions, she argues, is to delineate for his audience the qualified and provisional nature of his explicit ascriptions of motivation. Her general approach employs analytic techniques and terminology familiar from reader-response criticism, relying especially upon Wolfgang Iser's polar text-reader model of communication,1 as well as the concept of "focalization" from narratology. The result is an overarching concern with Herodotus' prompting of readers to respond actively to his content, and Baragwanath's guiding conviction is that he presents varying perspectives as a means of "enfranchising his readers as capable judges" (20). Echoing Herodotean subdivision, the study consists of nine substantial chapters. The first introduces this notion of active, engaged readership, and it responds to Plutarch's il lustrations of Herodotean inconsistencies by observing the historian's intentional, agonistic framework for assessing varying accounts. Chapter Two explores the Homeric background to the two aspects under consideration in Herodotus' narrative: active reader response and the psychology of motives. Chapter Three then outlines several instances in which Herodotus' characters display psychological interests parallel to his own, emphasizing in a metatextual way his focus on the aitia of the wars. Chapter Four considers the challenges in determining motives, especially the frequent dissonance between intentions and outcomes. Here Baragwanath fruitfully argues that Herodotus' ascriptions of motives can hint at variant readings and foreground ironies in a potentially destabilizing manner. Chapter Five elucidates Herodotus' polarizing technique of presentation via the Athenian digressions of Books I, V, and VI. His uses of alternate versions and changing focalization urge readers 1W. Iser, The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett (Baltimore 1974); id., The Act ofReading: A Theory ofAesthetic Response (Baltimore 1980). BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 439 to examine more skeptically both the motives people claim and the audience's own earlier conclusions. Chapter Six examines Herodotus' portrayal of ideal motives in his Ionian Revolt narrative, and the problematic and complicating nature of rhetorical contexts. Several observations here set up nicely Baragwanath's approach in the final three chapters. The first of these scrutinizes Herodotus' treatment of the Athenians' decision to fight, and its significance in view of the impediments to other states' actions. Chapter Eight evaluates the interaction of Xerxes' failure, especially its precipitating factors, with Herodotus' statements about the king's motives. Here she emphasizes the role of focalization in the historian's discussion of such causes. The book culminates by dissecting Herodotus' presentation of Themistocles' motives. Using this material, Baragwanath...