The Music of Tragedy: Performance and Imagination in Euripidean Theater by Naomi A. Weiss

Abstract

400 PHOENIX æsow, he argues, is both more consistent with the rest of the play and more rhetorically satisfying. Regarding issues of translation, Finglass focuses on both syntax and semantics. He pays careful attention to the valence of particles and offers extensive lists of parallels for vocabulary, usage, idiomatic expressions, and various tropes and motifs. While parallels from other tragedies are cited most commonly, Finglass consults a huge range of genres across a huge span of time. The commentary also gives full metrical analysis of each choral ode. Where Finglass offers less guidance is in the interpretation of the text once it is translated. Comments that do not concern the text or its translation tend to offer factual information (e.g., the location of cult sites), staging considerations, or what one might call an enriched summary of what is happening, often with reference to the work of other scholars and with attention to parallels elsewhere in the play. Some interpretive comments on plot and theme are offered in brief introductions to each section of the play (prologue, parodos, etc.) and to major divisions within scenes. However, the emphasis here is on the accurate rendering of Oedipus the King. No commentary can cover every facet of a text—Finglass is explicit that his does not attempt to (xi)—and this one decidedly privileges the text itself over interpretation. The volume contains a collection of bibliographies whose contents span the sixteenth to the twenty-first century; these include reference works, editions and translations, and works of scholarship. The commentary is thoroughly cross-referenced making the impractical choice of reading it cover to cover unnecessary. Readers can scan those loci most important to their research questions and trust that Finglass will direct them to relevant discussion elsewhere. The commentary also contains a long index of Greek words as well as an index of subjects. While the formatting of the latter is difficult to parse visually, readers will have no difficulty locating relevant keywords. It is also worthy of note that this book regularly refers readers to discussion or notes in Finglass’s Electra and Ajax (and, indeed, his other work on Sophocles), emphasizing the way in which this edition of Oedipus the King fits within a broad and comprehensive reading of Sophoclean tragedy. In brief, Finglass has done a great service to the discipline in writing another commentary of such high quality. We can only eagerly await the next instalment. Adriana Brook The Music of Tragedy: Performance and Imagination in Euripidean Theater. By Naomi A. Weiss. Oakland, CA: University of California Press (The Joan Palevsky Imprint in Classical Literature). 2018. Pp. xiii, 284. THE MUSIC OF TRAGEDY is an important and delightful study of tragic choral poetry, offering subtle and sensitive readings that illuminate how the words of choral song employ music and imagery for poetic and theatrical effects. It offers a stunning demonstration of careful and creative close reading, revealing important elements of each of the four plays that receive a chapter-length discussion: Euripides’ Electra, Trojan Women, Helen, and Iphigenia in Aulis. In her own terms, Weiss describes mousikē in choreia, and the importance of these concepts is crucial to the ambitions of her project. Choreia involves song and dance that is specifically choral (and so in Athens an organized collective practice of citizens); mousikē is the inseparable complex of music, song, and dance (including choreia, but embracing a wider field of practice and the educational system that produces BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 401 it). Evidence for choreia for the most part comes from the lyrics sung, and so there is much that grounds the investigation in traditional approaches of literary analysis. Weiss’s work draws helpfully on important previous scholarship on choral song, while advancing new interpretations of the choral contribution to plays. To do so, Weiss focuses on choral descriptions of the music of others. It is in the juxtaposition of tragic music and imagined musical performances that a creative tension emerges. This means she can sidestep choral self-reference (15–17)1 while building on the important studies of choral imagery by E. Csapo (8).2 She challenges the characterization of Aeschylus as musically old-fashioned, as seen...