Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-pfhbr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-11T19:53:37.499Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Shield of Achilles: From Metalepsis to Mise En Abyme

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Irene J.F. de Jong
Irene J.F. de Jong*
Affiliation:
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Get access

Extract

The Shield of Achilles (Iliad 18.478-608) can easily be qualified as ‘the mother’ of all ekphraseis, and scholarly interest in this passage has been massive. Scholars have mainly discussed three issues: the relation between the Shield and real shields; the relation between the scenes on the Shield and the Iliad; and the method of description.

In this article I will focus on the third point. As noted famously by Lessing, the description of the Shield is dynamic, both in the sense that we see Hephaestus making the shield and that the scenes depicted become stories, with characters speaking and thinking and events following one after the other. My central question is: who is responsible for these narrativised scenes, Hephaestus or the Homeric narrator? Or to put it more poignantly: who creates the scenes on the Shield? I note the following positions. It is the divine artist Hephaestus who either creates figures which (1a) can really move, like his tripods and handmaids: 18.376f., 418-20 (‘the figures are not merely lifelike, they really live!’), or (1b) at least suggest movement, a suggestion to be decoded by the narrator (‘the consistent transformations of gold into natural image, of image into action, give us to understand that the qualities of sound and movement and emotion come into being through the responsive participation of the spectator in the work’). Or, it is the Homeric narrator who either (2a) cannot suppress a ‘youthful pleasure in animated narration’ and himself narrates stories instead of describing the figures which Hephaestus makes, or (2b) subtly blends description and narration (‘a cycle of scenes wrought in metal—or in words? This description of the shield actually is a poem’).

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , 2011 , pp. 1 - 14
Copyright
Copyright © Aureal Publications 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. For an overview, see Arpaia, M., ‘Bibliografia sullo Scudo di Achille (1945-2008)’, in d'Acunto, M. and Palmisciano, R. (eds.), Lo scudo di Achilles nell' Iliade: esperienze ermeneutische a confronto (Pisa-Roma 2010), 233–45Google Scholar.

2. See for this question Fittschen, K., Der Schild des Achilleus (Göttingen 1973Google Scholar) and Cultraro, M., ‘Echi del passato: lo Scudo di Achille e la grecia della tarda Età del Bronzo’, in d'Acunto, and Palmisciano, (n.1 above), 125–44Google Scholar.

3. See on the one hand Schadewaldt, W., ‘Der Schild des Achilleus’, in Von Homers Welt und Werk: Aufsätze und Auslegungen zur Homerischen Frage (Stuttgart 1959, first ed. 1938), 352–74Google Scholar, Marg, W., Homer über die Dichtung: Der Schild des Achilleus (Münster 1971, first ed. 1957Google Scholar), Reinhardt, K., ‘Der Schild des Achilleus’, in Die Ilias und ihr Dichter (Göttingen 1961), 401–11Google Scholar, Taplin, O., ‘The Shield of Achilles within the Iliad’, G&R 27 (1980), 1–21Google Scholar, and Hardie, P.R., ‘Imago Mundi: Cosmological and Ideological Aspects of the Shield of Achilles’, JHS 105 (1985), 11–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who argue that the scenes are not connected to the rest of the Iliad but form a contrast and complement to it; and on the other hand Anderson, Ø., ‘Some Thoughts on the Shield of Achilles’, SO 51 (1976), 5–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who discusses many points of contact between scenes depicted and the Iliad. A kind of middle position is taken by Gärtner, H.A., ‘Beobachtungen zum Schild des Achilleus’, in Görgemans, H. and Schmidt, E. (eds.), Studien zum antiken Epos (Meisenheim 1976), 46–65Google Scholar, Byre, C.S., ‘Narration, Description and Theme in the Shield of Achilles’, CJ 88 (1992), 33–42Google Scholar, and Dubel, S., ‘L'arme et la lyre: remarques sur le sens du boucher d'Achille dans l'Iliade’, Ktema 20 (1995), 245–57Google Scholar, who argue that the Shield shows the world which Achilles stands to lose, having chosen to fight and die young.

4. Müller, F., Darstellung und poetische Funktion der Gegenstünde in der Odyssee (diss. Marburg 1968), 19 (my translationGoogle Scholar). And cf. Bassett, S., The Poetry of Homer (Berkeley 1938), 95Google Scholar (‘the poet has carefully prepared his hearers for accepting the divine artificer's power to give life and movement to objects of metal’), Frontisi-Ducroux, F., Dédale: mythologie de l'artisan en Grèce ancienne (Paris 1975), 136Google Scholar (‘la description “cinétique” du décor ciselé par Héphaïstos’), Friedrich, R., Stilwandel im homerischen Epos (Heidelberg 1975), 51Google Scholar (‘Hephaestos bereits erzählt: was er in Bildern erzählt hat, wird vom Dichter nur in Worten nacherzählt’), and Laird, A., ‘Sounding out Ecphrasis: Art and Text in Catullus 64’ JRS 83 (1993), 18–30, at 20Google Scholar (‘The Shield of Achilles in the end inclines towards obedience—we could just about visualize how it would be. And the notion that it is a magic shield might help us imagine it, even if there is some sequence and movement in the scenes it contains—perhaps we might conceive of it as a kind of mosaic of little video scenes.’).

5. Leach, E.W., The Rhetoric of Space: Literary and Artistic Representations of Landscape in Republican and Augustan Rome (Princeton 1988), 33Google Scholar. Cf. Schadewaldt (n.3 above), 357 (‘ein Gott, kein irdischer Mensch ist der Meister dieses Schildes’), 360 (‘Die Aufgabe, einen Bilderkreis so zu formen, dass die einzelnen Bilder bedeutungsvoll zu einem Ganzen zusammenklingen, meistert auch für Homer nur der Gott’).

6. Friedländer, P., Johannes von Gaza und Paulus Silentarius: Kunstbeschreibungen Justinianischer Zeit (Berlin 1912), 2Google Scholar (‘der Dichter ist einfach nicht imstande, eine bildmässige Vorstellung, von der er ausgeht…dauernd festzuhalten, sondern er wird von einer durchaus jugendliche Freude an belebter Erzählung beherrscht’). Minchin, E., ‘Describing and Narrating in Homer's Iliad’, in Mackay, E.A. (ed.), Signs of Orality (Leiden 1998), 49–64Google Scholar, argues that narration is easier for an oral poet than description. Cf. also Heffernan, J.A.W., Museum of Words: The Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashbery (Chicago 1993), 12fGoogle Scholar. (‘the picture or pictures said to be wrought on the shield…have been turned so thoroughly into narrative that we can hardly see a picture through Homer's words’).

7. Marg (n.3 above), 26. And cf. Reinhardt (n.3 above), 404, and Lessing, G.E., Laokoon oder über die Grenzen der Malerei und Poesie (1766), XIXGoogle Scholar.

8. See n.4 above.

9. That the Shield passage is not pure narration becomes also clear from the fact that, as scholars have pointed out, the stories depicted in the scenes do not come to an end but are frozen before there is resolution. Thus, to give an example, we do not know who wins the lawsuit. Cf. section 4 below, on the use of the imperfect.

10. Becker, A.S., The Shield of Achilles and the Poetics of Ekphrasis (London 1995Google Scholar).

11. Cf. Marg (n.3 above), 25f.: ‘Aber will denn der Dichter aufzeigen wessen die Schmiedekunst fähig war oder sein könnte? Doch wohl nicht.’

12. Fowler, D., ‘Narrate and Describe: The Problem of Ekphrasis’, in Roman Constructions: Readings in Postmodern Latin (Oxford 2000, original from 1991), 64–85Google Scholar.

13. On account of 18.388, where Thetis is ‘led forward’ by Charis from the forge (πϱόσω ἄγε), 392, where Charis calls Hephaestus to come here (Ἤϕαιστε, πρόμολ' ὧδε), and 416, where he cleans himself and leaves his forge (βῆ δὲ θύϱαζε), it seems plausible that the room where Thetis is received and the forge are separate places.

14. See Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (Zürich 1981–1999), s.v. Thetis VI FGoogle Scholar.

15. Becker (n.10 above) also connects the animadversor to the bard, e.g. pp. 43, 108, but is not radical enough in the implications which this connection has.

16. Not everybody has noted the extent of the narration. Cf. e.g. Edwards, M., The Iliad: A Commentary V, Books 17-20 (Cambridge 1991), 207CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘sometimes he [the poet] looks beyond the materials employed, and mentions the stone seats of the elders…and the soft, finely spun clothing of the dancers…’ (my italics).

17. As Heffernan (n.6 above), 13, aptly points out, Homer might have opted for a gesture which could have visualised the refusal or promise but instead he inserts a reference to the speech act itself. In other ekphraseis the issue will be raised more than once that the figures depicted cannot speak (e.g. A.R. Arg. 1.765f. or Shakespeare The Rape of Lucrece 1457-67). In Hellenistic epigrams and Catullus 64 the figures in the ekphrasis do speak in oratio recta; see Laird (n.4 above).

18. For references to the opus ipsum, cf. 517, 549, 562, 574, 577 (gold); 565, 574 (tin); 564 (glass), 519 (size), 539 (lifelikeness).

19. For details see Edwards (n.16 above), ad locc.

20. Cf. also the frequency of ἔπειτα (‘thereupon’) in the whole Shield passage: 506, 523, 527, 545. Cf. also ὁποτε (‘whenever’, 544), ὁτὲ μὲν…ἄλλοτε δέ (‘at times…at others’, 599-602), and the iterative forms in 546 and 566.

21. The pluperfects ὀϱώϱει/ὠϱώϱει (‘arose’) at 493 and 498 equal imperfects. Becker (n.10 above), 109, 111, in my view incorrectly, interprets them as ‘had arisen’ and suggests that for a brief moment we are transported back in time.

22. Cf. Rijksbaron, A., The Syntax and Semantics of the Greek Verb (Amsterdam 2002, first ed. 1984), 11Google Scholar: ‘Often one or more states of affairs expressed in the aorist indicative are located within a framework given by the imperfect.’ The imperfects in this series seem due to metrical factors: ποιϰίλλε is a hapax, ἐν δ’ ἐθῆϰε does not scan.

23. Cf. Rijksbaron (n. 22 above), 12: ‘We also find series of imperfects, describing a number of more or less simultaneous states of affairs; a “scene is painted” so to speak.’

24. Becker (n.10 above), 108f. Similarly, Lynn-George, K., Epos: Word, Narrative and the Iliad (Atlantic Highlands NJ 1987), 181Google Scholar.

25. See Genette, G., Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, tr. Lewin, J.E. (Ithaca 1980Google Scholar; orig. pubi, as Discours du récit, Paris 1972), 234–37Google Scholar, and Métalepse: de la figure à la fiction (Paris 2004Google Scholar).

26. de Jong, I.J.F., ‘Metalepsis in Ancient Greek Literature’, in Grethlein, J. and Rengakos, A. (eds.), Narratology and Interpretation: The Content of the Form in Ancient Literature (Berlin 2009), 87–115Google Scholar.

27. E.g. Friedländer (n.6 above), Müller (n.4 above), and Becker (n.10 above).

28. Cf. E.g. Hubbard, T.K., ‘Nature and Art in the Shield of Achilles’, Arion 3 ser. 2 (1992), 16–41, at 26fGoogle Scholar. (‘The point-by-point parallellism between Hephaestus’ metallurgical art and the verbal art of Demodocus (and by implication Homer) suggests strongly that Homer had a generalized concept of art’).

29. Marg (n.3 above), 26 (‘Wie Schild und Gedicht, so stehen auch die Schöpfer, Schmied und der Dichter, eng nebeneinander, so eng dass sie fast ineinander übergehen. Einer spricht, schafft für den ander.’), and cf. 32 (‘Der Schild und seine Wiedergabe im Gedicht gehen ineinander über’); cf. Reinhardt (n.3 above), 410 (‘…das Werk des Gottes [wird] eins mit dem des Dichters’) and Palmisciano, R., ‘Il primato della poesia sulle altre arti nello Scudo di Achille’, in d'Acunto, and Palmisciano, (n.1 above), 47–64Google Scholar.

30. This suggestion puts a slightly different spin on the idea already advocated by the scholia that Homer has created an image of himself in Demodocus. See e.g. Graziosi, B., Inventing Homer: The Early Reception of Epic (Cambridge 2002), 138–46Google Scholar.

31. Genette in his book on metalepsis (n.25 above), 82, is remarkably cautious at this point, suggesting that the metalepsis might be simply conventional rather than significant: ‘II est difficile de savoir quelle est ici l'intention de l'aède, qui laisse peut-être simplement courir un topos descriptif déjà conventionnel sans plus se soucier de son prétexte plastique.’

32. Hubbard (n.28 above), 35 (‘Although seldom treated as a focal point of Homer's poetic self-conceptualization, the Shield must be read/heard/seen as a pivotal moment of self-awareness for both the poet's hero and its creator’). In general on Homer's self-consciousness, see de Jong, I.J.F. ‘The Homeric Narrator and his own kleos’, Mnemosyne 59 (2006), 188–207CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33. Dällenbach, L., The Mirror in the Text, tr. Whiteley, J. and Hughes, E. (Chicago 1989Google Scholar; orig. publ, as Le récit speculaire, Paris 1977Google Scholar). See also White, J.J., ‘The Semiotics of the Mise-en-abime’, in Fischer, O. and Nänny, M. (eds.), The Motivated Sign: Iconicity in Language and Literature 2 (Amsterdam 2001), 29–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Dällenbach (76-81) discusses specifically the poetological use of a mise en abyme, i.e. when the embedded work of art is itself a literary text, e.g. in Gide's Les Faux-Monnayeurs, which deals with a character writing a novel.

34. Lines 604b-605a, in which a singer is mentioned, are not in the MSS. Wolf advocated to put them in the text, believing Athenaeus 180d-181d that Aristarchus had removed them from here and inserted them at Od. 4.17b-18a. Modern editors, notably Allen and West, do not consider the story about Aristarchus plausible and keep the lines out of their texts.

35. Schadewaldt (n.3 above), 357; Lonsdale, S.M., ‘Simile and Ecphrasis in Homer and Virgil: The Poet as Craftsman and Choreographer’, Vergilius 36 (1990), 7–30, at 16Google Scholar; Hubbard (n.28 above), 33; Aubriot, D., ‘Représentation plastique et récit poétique: le bouclier d'Achille ou les oeuvres d'art en miroir’, in Chefdor, M. (ed.), De la palette à l'écritoire (Nantes 1997), 17-24, at 33Google Scholar.

36. Becker (n.10 above), 139-41.

37. Cf. Marg (n.3 above), 20 (‘die Selbstaussage über Dichtung’); Reinhardt (n.3 above), 411 (‘so ist doch nicht zu leugnen, dass das gedichtete Kunstwerk auf das Dichten selbst zurückweist, eingegeben und beschwingt durch die geheime Sympathie des Dichters mit dem wunderwirkenden Gott’).

38. For the confusion between enargeia and energeia, see Otto, N., Enargeia: Untersuchung zur Charakteristik Alexandrinischer Dichtung (Stuttgart 2009), 71–76Google Scholar.

39. Ford, A., Homer: The Poetry of the Past (Ithaca and London 1992), 49–56, at 55Google Scholar. Another scholar who has shown, mainly on a linguistic basis, the vividness of Homer is Bakker, E.J., Poetry in Speech: Orality and Homeric Discourse (Ithaca and London 1993Google Scholar).

40. Cf. Hubbard (n.28 above), 17 (‘there is a sense in which the divine artisan Hephaestus stands as a figure for the poet as he sees himself’) and Lonsdale (n.35 above), 12 (‘the poet implicitly compares himself to a visual artist, whose creation, while it may be narrative in content, can be visually apprehended in a glance. The finely worked creation of the artist is a metaphor or analogy for poetic devices such as simile and ecphrasis with which the poet displays his ability to ornament the narrative’). I would not restrict the analogy to simile and ekphrasis but extend it to Homer's narrative style as a whole.

41. Hunzinger, C., ‘Le plaisir esthétique dans l'épopée archaïque: les mots de la famille de thauma’, BAGB (1994), 4–30Google Scholar.

42. Hunzinger (n.41 above), 14 (‘rendre vivant l'inanimé, produire de la vie dans la matière inerte’).