Représentation et interdiction de l'amour chez Euripide

Abstract

In the eyes of Aristophanes, his perfidious contemporary, Euripides would practically be the inventor or erotic literature. The same opinion has been taken up time and again by the historians of literary culture. Whatever Aristphanes may think, no exaltation of love is ever to be found in Euripides, but rather a representation of it by means of a dialectical process of opposite forces, in which the expressive language of the passion is determined by interdiction even to the point of being identified with the latter : love can be spoken of only on condition that some denial should be expressed, whatever that denial may be. There exist in Euripides several types of denial corresponding to varying depths of interdiction. I here propose to distinguish three main levels of negation, according to the way love is textually negated. Existence (ontological interdiction : Hippolytus). The whole dramatic process in Hyppolytus fully identifies itself with the project of concealing love in silence and when absolute silence is no longer possible the concealment operates through the complementary means of death and lies. Value (axiological interdiction : Medea). Even if love is capable of imposing its own regulations the result is woe and crime condemned by the very person in love. The denomination proper (nominal interdiction : Alcestes). In Alcestes the highest benefit is produced by the exclusive affection of a woman for her husband to whose life she gives preference over her own and the happiness of her beloved children. But she does not call « love » this sentiment and she sounds as though she were weakening its specificity by extending her concern to the wider realm of tenderness. Yet, for all these censuring phenomena, one must admit that Aristophanes is right : the identity of representation and interdiction must be read both ways, in other words all interdiction gives sharper relief to the object under ban : Phaedra's reticence brings forth a long gradual self-revelation ; Medea's guiltiness paradoxically strengthens the emotional sympathy of the onlooker ; Alcestes' puritanical language lends itself to unmasking by Admetos.