Solon and Early Greek Poetry: The Politics of Exhortation by Elizabeth Irwin

Abstract

316 BOOK REVIEWS SolonandEarlyGreek Poetry: ThePolitics ofExhortation. ByELIZABETH IRWIN. Cambridge Classical Studies. Cambridge and New York: CambridgeUniversity Press,2005.Pp. xiii+ 350. Cloth,$90.00.ISBN 0-521-85178-5. Perhaps it is faintpraise to say thatElizabethIrwin's Solonand EarlyGreek Poetry is themostexcitingbook on Solon's politicalelegy ever written. Most ofthe scholarshipdevoted to Solon's poetryhas notbeen remarkably adventurous;certainly ithas had nothingclose to thewhitehot criticalenergythatcracklesthroughIrwin'swork.1 As she notes,Solon scholarshave traditionally put thelawgiverbeforethepoet ; thepoetryhas been treatedas corollaryto thepolitical activity. ButIrwinshows how organicallythepoetryand thepolitics are linked;indeed, themultiform configurations ofthislinkage are her trueabiding theme.The dual careerofSolon offers a richcase studyofpoeticpoliticsand politicalpoetics:he "represents theideal figurethroughwhich to analyse thepoliticalimplicationsof poetic expressioninthearchaicperiod" (p. 87). The semantic,grammaticaland tonal ambiguitiesand discontinuitiesin thepoliticalelegies thatscholarshave traditionally triedto corrector explain away in an effort to preservean unproblematic Solonian "viewpoint"are Irwin'shermeneutic bread and butter.She capitalizes on these details to thefullest,freeingtextssuch as fragment4 (theEunomia)fromthegraycocoons in whichtheyhave been trapped to reveal thedynamicpoikilia ofSolon's poeticand political personae.Irwin'sSolonis a polytropic expertinsemanticcontestation, Lakoffian"framing,"conceptual detournementand recuperation, and subtlycoded doubletalk;he is a bravura self-fashioner, a cunningpoliticaland poetic"masterofthegame." Whatyou see is what you do not get (e.g., "Solon exploitsthelanguage of tyranny while seemingexplicitly torejectit"(p. 243)-such disingenuousdisavowal being a characteristic Solonian maneuver).All thisfurioussignifying and rhetorical sleightofhand will notbe everyone'scup oftea. This Solon may seem to some like too dreamya posterboy fora certain second-generation New Historicist-inflected classicalstudies.I, however ,would takehimany day overthestraight Solon,themeasured statesmanand earnestlyversifying propagandist.Bothare too good to be true,but therecan be no doubt thatIrwin's trickster is more responsiveto the sophisticatedand contentiouspoliticaland poetic culturesofArchaicGreece. Above all, Irwin's Solon is a self-serving manipulatorof poetic traditions.Crucial to her argumentsis an intelligentapproach to ' But see now thestimulating essays,includingone by Irwin,in PartI ofJ.Blok and A. Lardinois,eds., SolonofAthens: NewHistorical and Philological Approaches (Leiden ,2006). BOOK REVIEWS 317 intertextuality and allusion, between elegy and Homer, elegy and Hesiod, and sympoticand public elegy, and the way intertextual engagement allows poets and reperformers to fashion complex sociopoliticalidentities.Irwinis aware ofthespecial methodological dangers in arguing for "strong" intertextuality in orally derived poetry,but succeeds in creatingan "interpretive space betweenthe traditional verdictofstrict allusion and thecountervailing view that reduces all repeated themes... to the categoryof moral and poetic cliches"(p. 115). She channelsStephenHinds here,whose expansive vision of metapoetic interplayin Latin poetry she convincingly importsintothe studyof earlyGreekelegy,whichbadly needs its sophistication.Irwin largelystays away fromargumentsforstrict textualreference, preferring to describethe more gesturalyetultimately richer modes of intertextualacknowledgement through which Solon engages the postures of rival poets, genres and traditionsas shaped bytheirown framesofreception. In PartOne, "The Politicsof Exhortation," Irwinundertakesto read anew the martialexhortation elegy of Tyrtaeusand Callinus. The intertextual engagementbetween this elegy and martialepic allowed sympoticperformers to indulge in "a type of heroic selffashioning "(p. 62). Such narcissistic role-playing belies thepropatria mori sentiments ofthepoetry,whichmostscholarstakeas a genuine expressionofan emergent polisideology.Anything but,arguesIrwin; polis ideologyhas a purelyinstrumental function, toreinforce aristocraticideology . As the Iliadic laos was thereto validate thekleosof thehero,so thed^fmos in elegyconfersstatuson itssympoticsingers intheeyes oftheirfellowsymposiasts. PartTwo, "PoliticalPoetics:Solon's Eunomia,"argues thatSolon critically definedhis public elegyagainstthesympoticelegiac tradition ;theimageryof martialexhortation in the latter,which served the distinction of the few,is detournedin civic exhortation toward thecollectiveconcernsofthepolis. At thesame time,Solon's Eunomiaimplicitlycriticizesthe martialepic (i.e. the Iliad) thatsupports theideologicalorientations ofa Tyrtaeus.Solon's epic modelis rather theOdyssey. Throughthematicand structural allusions,he "recapitulates in elegy" the Odyssey'sown critiqueof the Iliad "throughhis use ofmartialepic and elegiacimageryas foil"(p. 121). Irwinfurther suggeststhatSolon modeled bothhis poeticand politicalstanceson Odysseus, that"masterat controllinghis own reception"(p. 148). She exploresin detailtwokeyepisodes in Solon's biographicaltradition -the "crazylikea fox"performance oftheSalamiselegyand the accountsoftravel-arguing thatbothreflect Solon's success at defining the termsof his reception;theypositivelynarrativizehis selfrepresentation in thepoetryas a cunningOdysseus. (Irwin'ssemiotic analysisofthefelthat supposedly wornby Solon when he sang the 318 BOOK REVIEWS Salamisis a brilliant example ofhow to recoup "culturaltruth"from apocryphalanecdotes.) The sectionconcludes with a long but less interesting discussionofSolon's (well-known)Hesiodic debts. PartThree,"Poetryand PoliticalCulture,"looks at the framing of politicallanguage in the elegies. The primarycontentionis that Solon's politicalactivity is hauntedby thespecteroftyranny, which he does not attemptto exorcize fully.Rather,he performsa coy dance...