Metal Maidens, Achilles' Shield, and Pandora: The Beginnings of … · 2015-09-23 · THE...

The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The American Journal of Philology.

http://www.jstor.org

Metal Maidens, Achilles' Shield, and Pandora: The Beginnings of "Ekphrasis" Author(s): James A. Francis Source: The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 130, No. 1 (Spring, 2009), pp. 1-23Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20616165Accessed: 21-09-2015 19:28 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

This content downloaded from 150.210.226.99 on Mon, 21 Sep 2015 19:28:54 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=jhup

http://www.jstor.org/stable/20616165

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp



AMERICAN

JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY

METAL MAIDENS, ACHILLES' SHIELD, AND PANDORA: THE BEGINNINGS OF "EKPHRASIS"

James A. Francis

Abstract. Ekphrasis has been a popular topic in recent years among scholars of

both classical and later literature. The latter have been particularly interested in the modern definition of ekphrasis as a description of artwork and the develop

ment of global definitions and theories. Ancient ekphrasis, however, was much

broader in scope. By examining Hephaestus' automaton handmaids and the shield of Achilles in the Iliad, along with the Pandora stories in the works of Hesiod, we can illustrate the nature and character of ancient ekphrasis in ways that call

into question modern theories and demonstrate the vibrancy and complexity of

even its earliest examples in Greek literature.

Ekphrasis has received a great deal of attention in recent

years as both classical scholars and those of later literature and literary theory have probed the relationship between image and text. These latter scholars have focused, not surprisingly, on what can be called the

modern definition of ekphrasis, i.e., the literary description of a work of visual art.1 General theorizing about literature is, however, always a

tricky business, especially if the evidence considered is, from a Classicist's

1 These include an important series in Yale French Studies 61: Beaujour 1980, Hamon

1980, and Sternberg 1980; Davidson 1983; Fowler 1991, offering a discussion in the context

of literary criticism and narratology; Heffernan 1991, including a succinct review of the

scholarship up to that point on 1-2; Krieger 1992; and Heffernan 1993, a highly literary and theoretical treatment. An impressive bibliography can be found in Fowler 1991, 25, n. 2, and Becker 2003,13-14.

American Journal of Philology 130 (2009) 1-23 ? 2009 by The Johns Hopkins University Press



2 JAMES A. FRANCIS

perspective, rather narrow in chronological scope. This is particularly true in discussing ekphrasis.

In antiquity, ekphrasis was a rather uncommon and late-developing term defined, not as a description of art, but as evocative description pure and simple, "laying out the subject before the eyes" (sub oculos subiectio) as Quintilian says, citing Cicero.2 Examples given are often from Homer and relate to accounts of battle, while no definition found in surviving rhetorical handbooks, with one exception, gives describing a work of art as an example. It is almost certain that the description of art objects was not considered a distinct genre in antiquity, and that ekphrasis itself was not so much a genre as a technique or quality of both literary and oral

composition.3 It is, therefore, appropriate to return once again to the earliest examples in ancient Greek texts to gain perspective on modern theories. In this article, I will first examine the ancient definition of ekphra sis. I will then discuss examples of descriptions of artistic production from the two earliest epic poets: Hephaestus' automaton handmaids and the

2 Cic. De or. 3.202, cited in Quint. Inst. 9.2.40. A fine bibliography on ancient ekphrasis is found in Fowler 1991, 25, n. 1. Of particular note regarding ancient ekphrasis: Maguire 1982, Zanker 1987, Bartsch 1989, Graf 1995, Webb 1999b, and the special issue of Ramus

31.1-2,2002, entitled "The Verbal and the Visual: Cultures of Ekphrasis in Antiquity," guest edited by Jas Eisner. Any bibliographical note on ancient ekphrasis needs to include two

fundamental, older works: Lessing 1766 and Friedl?nder 1912. These works conceived of

ekphrasis as a genre and were concerned, befitting the culture of their time, with a more

aesthetic brand of literary criticism. Leach 1988,3-24, gives a good background into earlier

scholarly issues, before the advent of the visuality studies of the past twenty years. 3 Zanker 1987, 39; Becker 1990, 139, n. 2; Eisner 1995, 24-26; Webb 1999b, 11-12;

Frank 2000,18-20, with an excellent synopsis and references to the ancient sources. Zanker

2004, 6-7, holds that the fifth-century C.E. rhetor Nikolaus of Myra, Progymnasmata 11

(Kennedy 2003, 166-68; Spengel 1854, 3.491.15-493.19) is the first author to establish

descriptions of statues and pictures (ekphraseis agalmat?n) as a separate category of ek

phrasis, but Nikolaus' language is fairly ambiguous on this point. He can just as easily be

giving an illustrative example and not setting up a category. Neither Webb 1999b, 11, nor

Eisner 2002,2, see a separate category formulated in the Progymnasmata, although Eisner

holds that description of works of art did evolve eventually to become a separate genre in antiquity, though not defined in these elementary textbooks. In the preface to his own

Imagines, Philostratus the Younger refers to the Imagines written by his elder namesake

as an "ekphrasis of works of painting" {graphik?s erg?n ekphrasis), but it seems clear that

ekphrasis here too means simply "vivid description" and requires the genitives in order to

refer specifically to painting. Becker 1992,5-6, and n. 6, is of the same opinion and further

notes that there are few occurrences of the word ekphrasis in Greek before the third or

fourth centuries C.E. The verb ekphrazein occurs once in Demetrius, Eloc. 165, dating from

either the first century B.C.E. or C.E., meaning to decorate or adorn. See also Fowler 1991, James 1991, and Webb 1999b.



METAL MAIDENS, ACHILLES' SHIELD, AND PANDORA 3

shield of Achilles in Homer's Iliad, and the descriptions of Pandora in Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days. Although ancient definitions did not concern themselves with descriptions of art, these examples have been chosen because they correspond to the modern definition and can

therefore more easily serve the purposes of comparison and criticism between ancient and modern concepts of ekphrasis. Most important, I will argue that the relationship between word and image in ancient

ekphrasis is, from its beginning, complex and interdependent, presenting sophisticated reflection on the conception and process of both verbal and visual representation.

In antiquity, ekphrasis, which is vivid description, is intimately connected with enargeia, which is the quality of vividness.4 Enargeia is discussed at length in Demetrius, De Elocutione 209-20, from either the late Hellenistic or early Roman period, where it also includes complete ness of detail. It is often paired with the quality of saph?neia (clarity).5 Quintilian renders enargeia with the Latin evidentia or repraesentatio. He distinguishes it from mere clarity (perspicuitas), stating that enargeia thrusts itself upon our notice whereas clarity merely lets itself be seen

(Inst. 8.3.61). He also describes his own vivid visual experience in reading the orations of Cicero:

An quisquam tarn procul a concipiendis imaginibus rerum abest, ut non, cum ilia in Verrem legit: "Stetit soleatus praetor populi Romani cum pal lio purpureo tunicaque talari muliercula nixus in litore," non solum ipsos intueri videatur et locum et habitum, sed quaedam etiam ex iis, quae dicta

non sunt sibi ipse adstruat? (8.3.64-65 quoting Cic, Verr. 5.86)6

4Eisner 2002,1, translates enargeia as "visibility"; the relationship between visual

ity and vivid description, visibility and vividness, shows how intimately these terms are

connected. 5 Demetrius treats clarity separately in Eloc. 191-202, which for him is largely a matter

of presentation and syntax. On the occurrence of ekphrasis and enargeia, with citations of

the sources, see Zanker 1981. See Manieri 1998,123-49, on the rhetorical classification of

enargeia; 155-64, on enargeia in historiography; and 179-92, on the Homeric scholia. See

also Dubel 1997 and the valuable notes in Walker 1993,253-54. 6"Is anyone so incapable of forming mental pictures (a concipiendis imaginibus

abest) that he does not seem, when he reads these words in the Verrines: 'There stood on

the shore a praetor of the Roman people, daintily slippered, wearing a cloak of purple, his

tunic trailing down to his ankles, draping himself over his strumpet,' to actually look upon those people, the place, their dress and even to picture other things in addition which were

not described? I myself certainly seem to see his face, his eyes, those filthy caresses, and the

silent loathing and frightened shame of those who were present." All translations from the

Latin or Greek in this essay are my own unless otherwise specified.



4 JAMES A. FRANCIS

Note the power and dynamism of the visuality described here, as well as Quintilian's observation that brilliant enargeia allows the audience to

picture not only what is described but even what is not described. The formal definitions of ekphrasis that have survived from antiquity

are nearly identical to one another. They are four in number, contained in collections of rhetorical exercises for beginners called Progymnasmata spanning a period from the first to fifth centuries CE., authored by or

attributed to Aelius Theon, Hermogenes of Tarsus, Aphthonius of Anti

och, and Nikolaus of Myra.7 The oldest definition from Theon in the first

century C.E. can serve for all four: "Ekphrasis is descriptive language, bringing what is portrayed clearly before the sight. There is an ekphrasis of persons and events and places and periods of time."8 It is clearly a tech

nique, but the mention of specific types of ekphrasis might be construed as a delineation of genre. Certainly modern literary historians and critics have taken it to refer to genre. For her part, Ruth Webb has argued that

ekphrasis was turned from a rhetorical technique into an ancient literary genre by eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century scholarship, adding another layer of complication onto that which transformed vivid descrip tion into description of art.9 At the same time, however, we should not

overplay the evidence in the Progymnasmata. These are textbook defini

tions, after all, useful in their own way but hardly the last word. Certainly, Simon Goldhill (1996,17-18; so also Bann 1989, 31-32) is emphatic on

the varieties of visual discourse in antiquity and their change over time concomitant with changes in broader visual culture.

It is important to distinguish ancient ekphrasis from modern notions to identify aspects of modern theories of ekphrasis which are inapplicable to, and even contradicted by, the ancient uses of the term. For instance,

Stephen Bann (1989,28), while enunciating his belief in the flexibility of ancient ekphrasis, states: "Ekphrasis as a genre of writing is dependent first of all on the risky assumption that the visual work of art can be

7The standard edition of all the Progymnasmata remains Spengel 1854 (rpt. 1966);

English translation in Kennedy 2003. There is a recent Bud? edition of Theon only, Patillon

and Bolognesi 1997. See Webb 1999b, 11, for history of publication. The Progymnasmata are also discussed in Kennedy 1983,54-73, and Becker 1995,24-40.

8"EK9paai(; ?cm X?yoc 7t?pirryr|uaTiK?(; ?vapyctx; im' ?\|/iv ayarv t? ?nAoufievov. yivetai ?? ?Kcppaaic; Ttpoac?m?rv te Kai Tipay^i?Tcov Kai t?hiuv Kai \p?vu>v, Theon, Progym. 1 (Patillon and Bolognesi, 66-69; Kennedy, 45-47), 11 (Spengel, 118-20); trans. Kennedy 2003, 45.

See also Theon, Progym. 2. The other definitions are Hermogenes 10, Aphthonius 12, and

Nikolaus 11.

9Webb 1999b, esp. 15-17, who also issues a salutary caveat on classical scholars slip

ping from the ancient to modern definitions unconsciously (8-9).




translated into the terms of verbal discourse without remainder. In other

words, the text about painting or sculpture is assumed to have absolute

adequacy to the objects which it describes." Bann's purpose here is not

to discuss ekphrasis per se but to use it to exemplify a scholarly view

that mimetic realism is the hallmark of western art history. In doing so,

however, he presents a simplistic, mimetic concept of ekphrasis. First of

all, his statement confuses ancient and modern ekphrasis, especially in

speaking of a genre of art description. Second, he speaks of texts when

ancient writing about ekphrasis occurs specifically in the context of rheto

ric. Granted, the art of rhetoric was the foundation of literary criticism

in antiquity, and the two arts shared a vast number of techniques, but

to make texts the focus of the discussion only further confuses the issue

with modern practice. Failure to recognize the fundamentally rhetorical

character of ancient ekphrasis, its oral delivery and aural reception, only furthers misunderstanding.10 Finally, no such claim to "complete adequacy" is ever made in any of the ancient sources, and one can readily see that

any such contention would be impossible.11 Indeed, Quintilian speaks of the inadequacy of words in comparison with images (Inst. 11.3.67).

Conversely, vivid verbal description can also lead to seeing things not

even described (Inst. 8.3.64-65, quoted above), so that some words can

actually be "superadequate" to what they describe. As this article will

demonstrate, the relation of words to images was conceived as far more

complex than one of simple replication. Other misconceptions arise from discussing ekphrasis from a too

narrowly focused literary perspective. Some modern critics speak of

ekphrasis as a point of stillness in the motion of a story being told.12 This

10To a lesser degree, the same can also be said of ancient literature in general. In

the words of Harry Gamble 1995,204: "No ancient text is now read as it was intended to

be unless it is also heard, that is, read aloud."

11A point made very well by Becker 2003,4-5. Baxandall 1985,1-5, points out that

even a realistic and detailed physical description of a painting might not allow the reader to

reconstruct it. Color sequences, spatial relations etc., all picked up instantly by the eye and

part of the very essence of the image, simply do not translate into words. I heartily concur

with Baxandall's point that "ekphrasis is not a description of pictures but of thought about

having seen pictures." Webb 1999a, 64, expresses the same view: "The aim of ekphrasis in

rhetoric has always been less to give a complete and accurate account of a particular object than to convey the effect that the perception of that object worked upon the viewer"; so

also Webb 1999b, 11-12. Manieri 1998, 58-59, argues that it is not so much the detailed

description itself which captures the attention of the audience in poetry, but the intensity of emotion such description evokes.

12Krieger 1967 and 1987. With greater nuance and refinement, Heffernan 1991 and

Putnam 1995.



6 JAMES A. FRANCIS

may have a certain validity from the point of view of narratology, but it cannot help but convey the impression that ekphrasis is flat, static, a

contemplative (and marginal?) pause in the "real" task of narrative. Far from a calm, contemplative pause, ancient ekphrasis, as we shall see, is filled with movement on several levels, sometimes reinforcing, sometimes

subverting the narrative, often calling into question the very processes of sight, language, and thought.

Modern scholars also distinguish between descriptions of objects which exist in physical reality and those which are purely imaginary. The

description of these latter is termed "notional" ekphrasis. The distinction

may well be helpful in modern literature, but ancient rhetorical theory, which subsumed literary theory, did not make a distinction between real and fictional subject matter in this regard.13 Indeed, what is regarded as

the first example of the ekphrasis of an artistic object in Western literature, the shield of Achilles in Homer's Iliad, is a description of an object that did not and could not physically exist.14 Quintilian even saw particular value in fictional description: "We will obtain vivid clarity if we remain

very close to reality, so that we may invent fictitious elements, which did not occur, if they usually occur in the situation we are describing."15 Notional ekphrasis therefore offers a distinction of little use in discuss

ing ancient ekphrasis. A glance at a few other apposite scholarly observations on ekphra

sis will conclude this preliminary discussion. As Murray Krieger has

noted, ekphrasis is, in one sense, an epigram on a work of art without the accompanying object?indeed in antiquity usually without any object except the one it verbally creates.16 Ekphrasis therefore possesses a char

13 Leach 1988, 10. The term "notional ekphrasis" was coined by John Hollander

1988, 209.

14Taplin 1980, 4, categorically states that no such shield has ever or can ever exist,

though some more romantically inspired scholars have, in the past, endeavored to draw the

shield from Homer's description; see Edwards 1991, 204-6, for illustrations of these. It is

interesting to note that earlier scholars also found fault with Homer's description because

it was "unrealistic"; see Becker 1990,140, nn. 5 and 6. 15 Inst. 8.3.70: "Consequemur autem, ut manifesta sint, si fuerint verisimilia; et licebit

etiam falso adfingere quidquid fieri solet." So also 9.2.41: "Nee solum quae facta sint aut

fiant sed etiam quae futura sint aut futura fuerint imaginamur. Mire tractat hoc Cicero pro

Milone, quae facturus fuerit Clodius si praeturam invasisset"; "Nor may we describe only those things which have happened or are happening, but also in addition those things which

could happen or would happen. Cicero did this wonderfully in the Pro Milone, when he

described what Clodius would have done had he obtained the praetorship." 16 Krieger 1967,16. Some ekphrastic epigrams were, however, probably placed with

the statues or other objects they described. On the relationship between ekphrasis and




acteristic which is also fundamental to the nature of an image. Both are

about absence, at least in part, and function as symbola, in the original definition of that word.17 The image refers back to the absent model just as ekphrasis refers back to its absent image. But just as with the image, ekphrasis makes the absent present; it conveys both presence and absence at the same time. Similarly, ekphrasis also communicates through both word and image. It appropriates visual material into words and, at the same time, the image it (re)presents appropriates the text and its audi ence by absorbing them, turning readers into viewers (Becker 1995,152). Ancient ekphrasis is thus a dynamic interface between the verbal and the visual.18

Ekphrasis, in the narrower, modern sense of a verbal description of a visual artifact, stands at the very beginning of classical literature in

epic poetry.19 In many ways, visuality is woven into the epic genre (Bak ker 1993,15):

epigram, see the insightful article by Chinn 2005; also Eisner 2002,10; Gordon 1979,10; Gross 1992, 139-40; Heffernan 1991, 304; Kreiger 1992, 15-16. On the development of

Hellenistic literary epigram, see Gutzwiller 1998. 17 A symbolon was originally a disk or similar token used in establishing a contract.

The disk was broken in half and one half given to each contracting party in order to prove their identity. It therefore stands, and stands in, for something or someone absent: e.g.,

money lent, a distant friend, a pledge not as yet fulfilled. 18 Since ancient ekphrasis seeks to compound word and image and conflate reader

and viewer, I would take issue with approaches that see a primarily agonistic relationship between these modes of discourse in ekphrasis, e.g., Krieger 1992, esp. 1-2, and 7. Becker

2003 offers a superb refutation of the agonistic view, with a convenient bibliography of

works representing these theories on 1-2, nn. 2,3, and 5; on a broader scale, see Bal 1991, 25-59. Heffernan 1993, 1, 33-34, 46-61, also sees ekphrasis as a duel, one between male

and female gazes, with the voice of masculine speech striving to control the feminine image that is both alluring and threatening. This is, of course, classic gender analysis and quite valid and illuminating, but such analysis has come to be wary of overly rigid dichotomies.

The "gaze" is gendered, but not monolithic or stereotypical; neither does power always

migrate to the male. Fredrick 2002 offers a good summary of the body, sexuality, and the

gaze in classical scholarship, with the accompanying issues and controversies. See Martin

1996,3-4, on more nuanced views. The assignment of strict gender identities to words and

images is, in my view, reminiscent of Lessing's dichotomy between visual and literary art

in Laokoon, i.e., dichotomous, inflexible, and totalizing; see also Fowler 1991, 30. Barton

2002,224-25, notes that the gaze of women in Rome could be as violating and penetrating as that of men; the invasive eye could shame men regardless of the gender of the viewer.

In general, see Richlin 1991, Gleason 1995, Stewart 1997, Fredrick 2002, and their respec tive bibliographies.

19 For a good overview of issues in visuality in Greek culture, see the essays in

Goldhill and Osborne 1994.



8 JAMES A. FRANCIS

Epic narrative in many cultures is very different from what is commonly considered to be the essence of narrative?text type, the reference to past events and the presentation of information that moves narrative time for

ward and thus can be called "sequential." Rather, epic narrative is typically

presented as, in narratological terms, the description of things seen, with

the narrator (performer) posing as eyewitness.20

Ancient Greek epic can be described as a genre of evocative description, true to its origins as oral storytelling where performance demanded a level of recreation or reenactment beyond simple description.21 The world of

epic is vast indeed, and Homer and Homeric scholarship particularly so. Here let us confine ourselves to exploring different examples of artistic

ekphrasis from the two earliest epic poets, Homer and Hesiod. The "Shield of Achilles" in Iliad 18.468-608 has been reckoned as

the first example of the ekphrasis of art in western literature.22 Both the shield description itself and its immediate context provide important mate rial for studying the description of works of art. The scene in the poem

begins after Patroclus loses Achilles' armor in his fatal duel with Hector.

Thetis, Achilles' goddess mother, approaches Hephaestus for new armor

made by the divine craftsman himself (18.368). Upon entering Hephaestus' workshop, Thetis sees him putting handles on a set of twenty automated

tripods on wheels, mechanical servants able to move back and forth to the

Olympian feasts (373-79).These automatons give the audience a foretaste of an even more dramatic set of the god's creations. As Hephaestus puts away his work and leaves his forge to speak with Thetis, he is assisted by

20 On visuality in Homer generally, see Snodgrass 1998 with the review by Morris 1998, also Prier 1989 and Rakoczy 1996, which present two very different analyses. Prier 1989,

25-118, also offers a detailed discussion of words relating to seeing in Homer, acknowledg

ing the preliminary work of Snell 1924; see also Pr?v?t 1935 and Prier 1987. 21

"Epic narrators in performance, too, are interpreters, not of visual evidence in their

physical here and now, but of visual evidence provided by their memory," Bakker 1993,17; see also Gombrich 1957 and Arnheim 1969.

22The paradox, of course, is that while scenes in Homer are often cited by the Pro

gymnasmata and other rhetorical treatises as examples of ekphrasis in antiquity, the shield

is not. It becomes an example only with the narrowing of the definition of ekphrasis in the

renaissance and modern period. This is not to say that the shield of Achilles was not highly

regarded in antiquity; it certainly was?producing such imitations as the pseudo-Hesiodic "Shield of Heracles" and, most famously, Virgil's description of the shield of Aeneas. The

point is that such scenes are not specifically termed ekphraseis in antiquity. Much of the

groundwork for recent scholarship on the shield was laid by Reinhardt 1961,401-11, and

Marg 1971; more recently, see Edwards 1991, 200-232; Stanley 1993, 3-26; Becker 1995;

Scully 2001.




attendants made of gold who are like living young women in appearance

(z??isi ne?nisin eioikuiai). Unlike the tripods, however, the poet says these automatons possess intelligence (noos), sense (phrenes), voice (aud?), vigor (sthenos), and have been taught skills (erga) by the gods (417-20). The passage is curious. The only roughly similar instance in Homer is the gold and silver dogs Hephaestus made to guard the palace of king

Alcinous in Odyssey 7.91, but these are not described as animate. Note a significant difference between the tripods first mentioned and these metallic maids. The tripods seem to be no more than mechanical devices,

self-propelled carts designed simply to move about on certain occasions. The maids, however, have the qualities of living beings and actually look alive. I suggest the reason for this difference is precisely because they are in the form of living beings. The maids are animate statues and not

merely mechanical devices. Because they are in human form, they can

possess human intelligence and the power of speech; they can learn and act with a degree of independence.23 We will see this again in the ultimate

living image fashioned by the gods: Pandora. At the request of Thetis, Hephaestus sets about making Achilles'

new armor. Although he does make a corselet, helmet, and greaves, these are tersely mentioned in only a few lines at the very end of Book 18. The

principal focus of the poet's descriptive energy is on the shield, and the context of the description is not a static appreciation of the completed work but rather the dynamic process of the god fabricating it. The emphasis is on the making, yet it is not even so much the making of the shield per se as it is the god's creation of the images ornamenting it.24 First mentioned is Hephaestus' depiction of the earth, sea, and heavenly bodies (483-89). Then follow the three dominant scenes: a city at peace (490-508), a city at war (509-40), and a bucolic harvest scene (541-605). Lastly, two lines

specify that the river Ocean is depicted around the outermost rim of the shield (606-7). Starting with the city at peace, the description becomes

immediately and intensely detailed, presenting the motivations of indi viduals and the sequential action of the stories that would be difficult if not impossible to convey by solely visual means.25 In the city at peace,

23 Gordon 1979,8, states these were seen "neither as inert matter nor as humans nor

animals; they required a special classification." 24 See esp. Taplin 1980. Heffernan 1993, 12-14, holds that this vivid, detailed, and

"realistic" description is, in fact, not a description of a shield at all, but only the scenes

upon it. Eisner 2002,5, discusses this emphasis on making and how it is a reflection of the

poet's own work here; the shield is an image of the poem itself. 25 On this scene, see the interesting and accessible essay in Nagy 2003, 72-87.



10 JAMES A. FRANCIS

we know that two men involved in a dispute are arguing over restitu tion for someone one of them accidentally killed and that the aggrieved party refuses compensation. We know that they take turns laying their cases out before a council of elders and that two talents lying before the elders are to go to the one among them who gives the best counsel. In the city at war, an army marches out from the city, takes up its ambush and attacks. Yet the action is not described as a series of vignettes but as a continuous moving narrative, as if the shield were running some sort of movie in animated metal. Hephaestus even depicts the divinities Ares, Athena, Hate, Confusion, and Death as present in the scene.

The description in these major scenes is not limited to the visual. In the city at peace, the poet describes the song of a marriage procession passing by in the scene, the bystanders speaking up in the manslaugh ter dispute, the speakers taking turns, and in the harvest scene, singing,

whistling, and the music of the lyre. In one striking image in the harvest

sequence, the absence of sound is described: the king stands behind his workers in silence?a condition paradoxically easy to describe in words but difficult to do in mute images. The cast-metal images on the shield

recapitulate the metallic maidens. The images are presented as vigorous and moving; they can sense, reason, and argue. Like the maidens, they are endowed with speech. They know the crafts of peace and war. In the ambush scene, the soldiers "battle like living mortals" (cb^iXeuv S'toc; te

?cool ?potol r|?' ?ji?xovTo, 18.539) similar to the way the "golden maidens scuttered about their master like living women" (pcoovto dvaKTt / xp?aeicu, ?cofjai verrviaiv e?oikiucu, 18.417-18).26 The use of the simile here underscores both the lifelikeness of these images and their nature as representations. Both the figures themselves and their poetic descriptions make them both real and representational at the same time.27

Heffernan has suggested that the poet?or perhaps more precisely a poet?at some point in the long evolution of the Homeric epics is actu

ally exulting here in the then newborn powers of writing and inviting the audience to measure the power of verbal description against the visual.28

26All quotations from the Iliad are taken from the Teubner edition, West 2000. 27 In the words of Gordon 1979,10, the metaphors of living applied to images "at once

assert and deny that statues and painted figures are alive. 'Living' is broken down into its

denotations: breath, sight, feelings, movement, skin-sheen, facial expression. So far as one

or two of these denotations may be taken as 'sufficient' evidence of 'life,' the images live.

But the whole inventory is never present." See also Stewart 2003, 35-41.

28Heffernan 1993, 9. The problem is, of course, exactly when this power of writing would be "newborn" and the assumption that this power could only belong to literacy. It




A case can certainly be made that the poet emphasizes those abilities which verbal representation possesses and which visual representation lacks, describing sound, human motivation, sequential time?all with articulated precision. But we should not be too hasty or superficial in our judgment here. Could this verbal description have achieved any of this precision without referencing some visual artifact? If words here are seen to master the visual image, the paradox is no less present that, without the image, the words would lose their meaning and purpose. Indeed, since this is a "notional" ekphrasis, to use the modern term, the

poet must "create" the artifact with these images in the first place?but then again, all of this exists only in words. The relationship between word and image here may or may not be agonistic, but it is profoundly complex and interdependent. There is a sophisticated reflection on verbal and visual representation here, not simple one-upmanship of one over the other. This is also consistent with the theme of appearance and reality that runs throughout the Iliad.29

The sophistication and intricacy of the interplay between verbal and visual representation in ancient ekphrasis is obvious from its very begin ning. There is no elementary stage of "mere" description.30 The focus on

is, however, not writing but rather words themselves that have this power. Heffernan ap

pears not to take account of the oral tradition that lies behind the written Homeric poems we now have. There can be competition between visual art and poetry without written

language. This oversight tends to be common among non-classical literary scholars in deal

ing with a number of works of ancient literature, since it is, frankly, difficult for people in our era to conceive of a "literature" that was not written. A similar problem occurs when

scholars and theorists forget that what we would recognize as literary theory and criticism was in antiquity primarily directed toward rhetoric, i.e., oral not written composition and

presentation. 29 Certain characters in the poem especially manifest the conflict between appearance

and reality, as well as a complex ambivalence regarding the verbal and visual. The most

vivid is the ugly Thersites, whose appearance denies him any claim to status and, therefore,

credibility, but who nevertheless speaks the "ugly truth" to the kingly appearing but hollow

Agamemnon (//. 2.210-75). His true words go unrecognized and are driven out, overruled

by appearance. At the same time, however, Odysseus is the master of words, but his smooth

talk masks half-truths and deception. If a major theme in the poem is that appearances

deceive, it is obvious that words, too, cannot be entirely trusted. 30 Krieger 1992,18, speaks of "the ekphrastic principle" learning to do without simple

ekphrasis, i.e., the mimesis of an object in physical reality, in order "to explore more freely the illusory powers of language." Curiously, Krieger is speaking of Homer here, which

leaves one wondering what "simpler," and presumably earlier, literature he might be

referring to. This notion of simple, mimetic ekphrasis hearkens back to Friedl?nder 1912

and his concept of echte Beschreibung. Bann 1989,28, advances the same overly simplistic



12 JAMES A. FRANCIS

making in this scene provides an important point of interface between the verbal and the visual. Homer's description is embedded in Hephaestus' action of laying out the metals and placing the sculpted scenes, while at the same time Hephaestus' work of creating images in the visual realm

parallels Homer's in the verbal realm. This adds further depth to one

aspect of the poem that has been long recognized: the scenes on the shield are emblematic of the story of the Iliad itself, so that the shield is a multilayered image of the poem, created by and embedded within the

poem.31 Andrew Becker has demonstrated that the shield episode serves as a paradigm for the audience's response to the Iliad as a whole. The actions of the figures on the shield, their motives, reactions, and feelings so

clearly articulated, serve as a guide for the audience's response. Complex

imagery is paralleled by an equally complex narratology (see Becker 1995,

44-153). James Heffernan speaks of the "representational friction" in this

passage (1993, 19-20; see also Steiner 2001, 21-22), a dynamic Andrew Becker (2003, 6) describes more constructively in terms of engagement and detachment. At several points, Homer is careful to specify the metal

Hephaestus uses to construct the various figures, even calling attention

concept of ekphrasis. See Becker 2003,7-8, and n. 21, for an effective critique. Neither am

I certain that "illusory," with its connotations of deception, is the right word to use in this

regard. Given the performative character of epic, indeed of all ancient poetry, it seems

more likely that the poet very much wants his audience to be conscious of and admire his

skillful use of language. Heffernan 1993,22, offers an eloquent and more refined analysis: "Yet Homer never forgets that he is representing representation itself: that he is describing both the act of sculpting and a work of sculpture as well as all the things it represents. He

starts each narrative by referring to the making and placing of the scenes he narrates; he

concludes his most dramatic narratives on a note of charged suspension that evokes the

stasis of sculpture; and he fully exploits the representational friction between the sculptor's medium?the various metals of the shield?and its referents. He thus bears continual wit

ness to the Daedalian power, complexity, and verisimilitude of visual art even as he aspires to rival that art in language that both magnifies and represents it."

31 On the correspondences between the details of the shield and the main narrative

of the Iliad, see Taplin 1980. Another example of mirroring the poem and poet occurs in

3.125-45, where Helen is weaving a magnificent robe decorated with scenes from the war

raging outside her walls. The goddess Iris appears to her and summons her to the walls

to witness the pause that has just dramatically descended on the hostilities. As the battle

stops, so her work on the image of the battle stops. She comes out to see once again with

her physical eyes the people which she is depicting through her mind's eye in her weaving. See Kennedy 1986, 5-8, and Putnam 1995,428. Snodgrass 1998,161-62, argues that in his

description, Homer "looks" at the shield in the same way his audience would examine a

work of art, "grasping overall composition, deciphering gesture and movement, inferring

passage of time," in a word, "making up stories" about what he sees.




to their crafted realism: e.g., the ground looked like earth, even though it was made of gold (18.549-50); golden grapes are darkened to appear realistic, though the vine-poles are silver (561-63); gold and tin oxen pour out of a farmyard to graze near a stream, shedding blood when they are

attacked by lions (573-86). Although the god's skill makes the figures so

realistic they (seem to?) move and speak, and although the poet aims at vivid realism, the audience is deliberately reminded that these are but

images, representations in metal.32 In the next example, however, we shall examine an image that actually becomes alive: Hesiod's Pandora.

Though not often singled out as an example of ekphrasis of art, the creation of "woman" in the poems of Hesiod, Theogony 570-615 and

Works and Days 60-109, where she is given the name Pandora, echoes themes and language seen in Homer.33 Like Achilles' shield, Pandora is

made by Hephaestus, but from clay instead of his usual medium, metal

(Theog. 571; WD 60-61, 70). The god, in effect, makes an archaic ter racotta statue in a form "like that of a modest maiden" (TtapG?vo) ai?otr] ?KeXov, Theog. 572; ?iaiceiv / TtapOevucfjc; KaX?v el?o?, WD 63; ?tapo?vcp at?oir)

foeXov, WD 71).34 In Works and Days, the gods then bring the statue to life specifically by giving it powers that Homer says were given to Heph aestus' metallic maids: voice (aude) and vigor or strength (sthenos, WD

61-62,77-79; cf. //. 18.417-20). Just as the maids "were taught their skills

by the gods" (a0av?t?)v Se ?ecov cuto ?pya ?aaaiv, //. 18.420), so "Athena teaches her skills" to Pandora (?0r|vr|v / ?pya ?iSaaKfjaai, WD 63-64).

Goddesses bedeck her with glittering raiment, jewels, and flowers.35 Works and Days then goes on to detail at length the gods' gifts of Pandora's interior character: craftiness, deceit, shamelessness, and irresistible allure. In Theogony, the description stops at the woman's external appearance, but the lifelike quality of Pandora is instead conveyed through the

description of Pandora's crown:

t?] ?' ?vi ?ai?aXa TtoXX? Teteuxaxo, 9a?ua i??aGai,

Kvcb?aX', ?a fjTteipo? ?eiv? Tp?cpei r)?? ?aXaaaa

32 For another example of plant life in embossed metal depicted as living, see Gutz

willer 1986.

33Pucci 1977, 82-126, discusses the creation of Pandora in terms of sculpture and, similar to Achilles' shield, sees this making as a metaphor for poetry. Also on Pandora, see

Saintillan 1996 and Vernant 1996.

34All quotations of Hesiod are taken from the OCT edition, Solmsen, et al. 1990. 35 Steiner 2001,116, points out that Pandora's adornment by the gods with shimmer

ing raiment and jewels resembles the ritual clothing of statues of the gods.



14 JAMES A. FRANCIS

tc?v ? ye rt?XX' ?v?Onice?X^PK & ̂ n?oiv ar]To?

Oauu?aia, ? oimv ?oiK?xa (pcovrjEaaiv. (Theog. 581-84)36

It, too, is made by Hephaestus, and like Achilles' shield, the figures ornamenting it are like living creatures with, significantly, voices (? oiatv

eoiK?ta (p?)vr)?Gaiv). Like Hephaestus' maids and the figures on Achilles'

shield, Pandora is a skillfully created object possessed of movement,

intelligence, skill, and speech. Pandora is thus portrayed as a living image, but is she a woman

described as a statue or a statue described as a woman? Though out of

habit, nearly everyone refers to Pandora as "the first woman"; Christopher Faraone rightly notes that Hesiod never her calls her the first woman?or even a woman, period. He merely states that her shape, vigor, and voice are like that of a mortal woman and that all women descend from her

(Theog. 590).37The use of similes here ("like" in various words in Greek) parallels Homer's descriptions of the metallic maids and the figures on the shield (Theog. 572,584; WD 62-63,71; cf. //. 18.417-18,539). The similes draw attention simultaneously to the vividness and vigor of the represen tation and to the fact that it is representation, not the "real" thing. Why use this language unless, in some sense, Pandora is not a "real" woman? In Theogony, this creature is the first manufactured entity. All creation

prior to her arises spontaneously or from procreation?except for men, who simply appear without a clear origin?while Pandora is quite liter

ally built. She is a constructed thing, a plasma, not a product of nature.38 Like the maids, she seems to be a very special form of statue, one that is invested with and serves as the prototype for all women and the evils that come through them. She is a divinely fabricated living statue.39

36"On it were worked many marvelously detailed figures, wonders to behold, / Ter

rifying monsters, such as the earth and sea spawn; / He crafted many of these?and breathed

enchantment upon them all? / Most amazingly, as if they were living beings with voices."

37Faraone 1992,101-2. Hesiod never quite describes Pandora as human; neither is

she the wife of a mortal man. It is often forgotten that she is given to the Titan Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus, not to a mortal husband. The overall impression is that she

serves as some kind of archetype for the human women that will come after. Similari

ties between the account of Pandora's creation and Hesiod's description of the birth of

Aphrodite (Theog. 190-205) and Eros (Theog. 120-22) lend further credence to this view.

In Hesiod, Aphrodite is also a sort of prototypical woman, born with smiles, deceits, and

irresistible allure (Theog. 201-6). 38 Steiner 2001,78, states that from Pandora onward, "statues have the power to bring

into existence something quite different from what existed before." Pucci 1977,89-90, con

siders her a copy or imitation of the various archetypal gifts the gods bestow upon her.

39This is also the conclusion of Faraone 1992,101-2, and Becker 1993,287-88. On liv

ing statues, in addition to the works mentioned in the notes above, see Poulsen 1945; Dodds




Other elements underscore the complexity of these passages. Pan

dora is most definitely not what she appears to be. The gods give her the

form of a modest girl but fill her with guile and shamelessness. There

is dissonance between appearance and reality reminiscent of the Iliad.

In one sense, Hesiod appears to exalt verbal representation, since his

words can describe Pandora's true nature and belie her deceptive visual

appeal. But if this is true, then Hesiod's words are also exposed as weak

and unavailing, for Pandora's?and hence all women's?attractions are

insuperable. Aphrodite herself instilled cruel longing within Pandora ( WD

65), and no amount of words can prevent men from desiring women.

Moreover, Pandora's appeal is purely visual. When she is led out in

public for the first time, both gods and men are awestruck as soon as

they lay eyes on her. To emphasize the visual dynamic, Hesiod equates

seeing Pandora with springing Zeus' trap: Gand?a ?' ?^ ?Bavctxoix; te Gso??

BvrjTo?c; t' ?vBpcOTtou?, / cb? el?ov ?oXov a'iTt?v, ?|ir|xavov ?vGpcOTtoiaiv- ("The immortal gods and mortal men were struck with amazement (thauma) at this marvel, as soon as they saw this utter snare which men are help less against," Theog. 588-89). Though given speech, she does not speak in either of Hesiod's poems. Given that speech is elsewhere a particular

quality of the living, that Pandora has this quality but does not use it

makes her even more of a contradiction and raises further questions as

to what kind of being she is. Andrew Becker sees this passage also as an example of audience

response similar to that he saw in the shield of Achilles. The Pandora

episode in Theogony is filled with descriptions of viewers' reactions, which in turn model the reactions of the poem's audience.40 Pandora's clothing and crown are both "a wonder to behold" (thauma idesthai) just as she herself fills gods and men with wonder (thauma) at her appearance.41

1951, 293, with notes; Ziolkowski 1977; Frischer 1982, 96-118; Brillante 1988; Freedberg 1989,283-316; Gross 1992; and Spivey 1995. Another example of living images, or at least

their vital connection to their living archetypes, is binding and/or burying effigies to avert

evil; see Faraone 1991 and 1992, 74-96,133-40. On rituals renewing the divine power of

images, or perhaps even infusing divine life into them, see Steiner 2001,106-20. 40 See Becker 1993, 282-90. He concludes that this offers an early instance of the

rivalry between verbal and visual representation. Since Pandora is most powerful in her

effects on men, then poetry, the medium which can describe these effects?i.e., the response viewers have to her?is superior to art, which can merely describe her deceitful appearance. This is an acute observation and true enough, though again I would emphasize that this

is still being mediated by vision; the reactions are those of a visual experience. Hesiod is

constructing a more complex and subtle relationship between the verbal and visual here. 41 Prier 1989,94-97, discusses how the expression thauma idesthai serves as an inter

mediary between the describer, the described, and the audience.



16 JAMES A. FRANCIS

The figures on her crown are similarly wondrous things (thaumasia) and endowed with charis, a word meaning grace or charm (rendered as "enchantment" in note 36 above), difficult to translate here but indicative of a judgment based on something more than apparent beauty.42 Pandora herself is made in the form of a modest (aidoie) maiden. Her clothes and

jewels are expertly or cleverly made (daidald). None of the adjectives or

expressions is visual; they are instead descriptive of the results of view

ing. They express emotions, reactions, or judgments of physical or moral

quality, the results of cognitive processes. Pandora is described not only by her visual appearance but also by the reactions of persons in the poem on seeing her. Her "audience" in the poem mirrors the audience of those

hearing or reading the poem, and the reactions of persons in the poem engage, frame, and model the reactions of those who hear or read it. The

description of Pandora presents not so much a visible object but instead the effects of seeing that object (see above, note 11).

These two examples of ekphrasis of art from the earliest Greek literature demonstrate that the description of works of art was complex from the start. There appears to be no stage in which literature contented itself with any sort of simple ekphrasis, the mere mimetic description of a visual artifact. The very idea of representing a visual work of art with artistic words entailed a level of sophistication which had already begun to think abstractly about these modes of representation. Even the attri bution of lifelikeness, which could simply be a compliment to the quality of naturalistic art, in Homer's hands becomes a dialectic on the nature of representation and reality, as the poem simultaneously insists on the

objective reality and constructed plasticity of the images it describes.43 In

Hesiod, lifelikeness raises disturbing questions about the nature of the woman-creature the gods fabricated. Underlying this is an even more

fundamental issue concerning the life of images. As Hephaestus' metallic maids demonstrate, there is no clear line between an image of life and life

itself. What keeps an image in human form, endowed with power, ability, and speech, from being alive? At the same time, the images portrayed in

these passages are not only looked at, they also look back. Seeing and

being seen are active processes here. The scenes in Homer reach out to

the audience of listeners/readers/viewers and engage them emotionally and viscerally. Pandora exerts her irresistible power simply by being seen.

42 Both Solmsen, et al. 1990, 29, and Becker 1993, 285, n. 18, prefer reading deina

instead of polla in 18.582, creating another response-oriented description. The figures of

the land and sea beasts "terrify" the viewer. 43 Becker 2003,6, describes this dynamic in terms of engagement and detachment.




The viewing that takes place in these two passages is dialogic, which fur

ther allows the poem itself to enter into rapport with the audience and to model reactions to events in the narrative to them.44

Also apparent at the dawn of Greek literature is an awareness of the

strengths and weaknesses of words both in themselves and vis-?-vis images. By the nature of his description, Homer invites comparison between the visual image of the shield and the words he uses to describe it, which communicate knowledge that the images cannot. Yet both images and words are the poet's creations, so that the result is a complex mirroring not only of the visual and verbal representation of the shield but also of the making of the shield and the making of the poem itself. In Hesiod, the powerful reality of the vision of Pandora is actually the counterpart to the words which describe her character; rather than compete with one another, both the visual and verbal are necessary to describe her

completely. Artists and poets both create images, and one form of image making can, or perhaps inherently does, reflect the other. Visuality and

narratology are two sides of the same coin. These earliest examples set the stage for the development of ekphra

sis in the rest of Greco-Roman antiquity. The living quality of images, the fine line between reality and representation, and the interdependent relationship between word and image are powerfully reprised in, for

example, Ovid's tales of Narcissus and Pygmalion; Horace, Carmina 4.8;

44The force and power of this process is akin to prevailing ancient theories of physi cal, ocular sight. Ancient theories of vision fell into one of two categories: either that of

objects emitting something that physically entered the eye, or of the eye emitting some

thing that reached out and "touched" objects. "The Greeks did not understand vision as

the perception of reflected light... . One common element in these theories is that there

is direct contact between the viewer and the object.... A second feature of Greek visual

theories is that what is seen enters into the mind itself because its images continue to recur

in the 'mind's eye' even after the thing has been seen. Thus, what we see has the power to enter into our soul and to affect our behavior," Stansbury-O'Donnell 2006, 64; see also

61-67 for a succinct survey of Greek theories of vision. In general, see van Hoorn 1972,

Lindberg 1976, G?rard 1988, Rakoczy 1996, and Park 1997. The physical effects of seeing can be quite dramatic. In Heliodorus, Ethiopica 10.14.7, the queen of Ethiopia looked upon a painting of Andromeda during an embrace with the king and bore a daughter who was

not only white but also looked just like the Andromeda in the painting. Bettini 1999,199, notes: "Empedocles maintained that children acquire their form from the woman's imagi nation (phantasia) at the moment of conception, and it often happens that when women

are seized by a passion for images or for statues, they give birth to children who resemble

those images or statues." Vision, whether mental or ocular, is invasive and tactile, its impact concussive. What is seen, once it is touched by, taken into, or has invaded the mind, can

have a life (and perhaps a will) of its own. This is all the more the case when the object is a representational image.



18 JAMES A. FRANCIS

and Philostratus' Imagines. At the same time, the active, reciprocal nature of viewing seen in these passages, their vibrant strategies for engaging their audience, and complex reflections and refractions of verbal and visual

representation belie a number of characterizations of ekphrasis put forth

by scholars of later literature, as well as a number of universalizing theo ries of ekphrasis. From the beginning, ancient ekphrasis explored ways of

combining word and image, alternative to the agonistic relationship that has been the focus of much recent scholarship. Insisting that ekphrasis communicate both verbally and visually, ancient writers present a com

plexity that resists tidy rationalization and theorizing. Homer's shield and Hesiod's Pandora offer a salutary lesson in generalizing too readily about

ekphrasis without taking its first practitioners into account.

University of Kentucky

e-mail: [email protected]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arnheim, Rudolf. 1969. Visual Thinking. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Bakker, Egbert J. 1993. "Discourse and Performance: Involvement, Visualization, and 'Presence' in Homeric Poetry." Cl. Ant. 12:1-29.

Bai, Mieke. 1991. Reading ''Rembrandt": Beyond the Word-Image Opposition.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bann, Stephen. 1989. The True Vine: On Visual Representation and the Western

Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Barton, Carlin. 2002. "Being in the Eyes: Shame and Sight in Ancient Rome." In The Roman Gaze: Vision, Power, and the Body, ed. David Fredrick, 216-35.

Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Bartsch, Shadi. 1989. Decoding the Ancient Novel: The Reader and the Role of Description in Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton

University Press.

Baxandall, Michael. 1985. Patterns of Intention: On the Historical Explanation of Pictures. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.

Beaujour, Michel. 1980. "Some Paradoxes of Description." Yale French Studies

61:27-59.

Becker, Andrew Sprague. 1990. "The Shield of Achilles and the Poetics of Homeric

Description." A/jP 111:139-53. -. 1992. "Reading Poetry through a Distant Lens: Ecphrasis, Ancient

Greek Rhetoricians, and the pseudo-Hesiodic 'Shield of Hercules.'" AIP

113:5-24.

-. 1993. "Sculpture and Language in Early Greek Ecphrasis: Lessing's




Laoko?n, Burke's Enquiry, and the Hesiodic Descriptions of Pandora."

Arethusa 26:277-93.

-. 1995. The Shield of Achilles and the Poetics of Ekphrasis. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.

-. 2003. "Contest or Concert: A Speculative Essay on Ecphrasis and the

Rivalry between the Arts." CML 32.1:1-14.

Bettini, Maurizio. 1999. The Portrait of the Lover. Trans. Laura Gibbs. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Brillante, Carlo. 1988. "Metamorfosi di un' immagine: Le statue animate e il

sogno." In // sogno in Grecia, ed. E. R. Dodds and Giulio Guidorizzi,

17-33. Rome: Laterza.

Chinn, Christopher. 2005. "Statius Silv. 4.6 and the Epigrammatic Origins of

Ekphrasis." CI 100:247-63.

Davidson, Michael. 1983. "Ekphrasis and the Postmodern Painter Poem." Tournai

of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 42:69-89.

Dodds, E. R. 1951. The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Dubel, Sandrine. 1997. "Ekphrasis et enargeia: La description antique comme

parcours." In Dire V?vidence, ed. Carlos Levy and Laurent Pernot, 249-64.

Paris: Universit? Paris-Val-de-Marne.

Edwards, Mark W. 1991. The Iliad: A Commentary, vol. 5, ed. Geoffrey S. Kirk.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Eisner, Jas. 1995. Art and the Roman Viewer: The Transformation of Art from the

Pagan World to Christianity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. -. 2002. "Introduction: The Genres of Ekphrasis." Ramus 31:1-18.

Faraone, Christopher A. 1991. "Binding and Burying the Forces of Evil: The De fensive Use of 'Voodoo Dolls' in Ancient Greece." Cl. Ant. 10:165-205.

-. 1992. Talismans and Trojan Horses: Guardian Statues in Ancient Greek

Myth and Ritual. New York: Oxford University Press.

Fowler, Don P. 1991. "Narrate and Describe: The Problem of Ekphrasis." 1RS

81:25-35.

Frank, Georgia. 2000. The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Cali fornia Press.

Fredrick, David. 2002. "Introduction: Invisible Rome." In The Roman Gaze:

Vision, Power, and the Body, ed. David Fredrick, 1-30. Baltimore: Johns

Hopkins University Press.

Freedberg, David. 1989. The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response. Chicago, 111.: University of Chicago Press.

Friedl?nder, Paul. 1912. lohannes von Gaza und Paulus Silentiarius: Kunstbesch

reibungen justinianischer Zeit. Leipzig: Teubner.

Frischer, Bernard. 1982. The Sculpted Word. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.



20 JAMES A. FRANCIS

Gamble, Harry Y. 1995. Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.

G?rard, Simon. 1988. Le regard, l'?tre et l'apparence dans l'optique de l'antiquit?. Paris: Editions du Seuil.

Gleason, Maud W. 1995. Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Goldhill, Simon. 1996. "Refracting Classical Vision: Changing Cultures of Viewing." In Vision in Context: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Sight, ed. Teresa Brennan and Martin Jay, 15-28. New York: Routledge.

Goldhill, Simon and Robin Osborne, eds. 1994. Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gombrich, Ernst H. 1957. Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial

Representation. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Gordon, Richard L. 1979. "The Real and the Imaginary: Production and Religion in the Greco-Roman World." Art History 2:5-34.

Graf, Fritz. 1995. "Ekphrasis: Die Entstellung der Gattung in der Antike." In

Beschreibungskunst-Kunstbeschreibung: Ekphrasis von der Antike bis zur

Gegenwart, ed. Gottfried Boehm and Helmut Pfotenhauer, 143-55. Munich:

Wilhelm Fink.

Gross, Kenneth. 1992. The Dream of the Moving Statue. Ithaca, NY: Cornell

University Press.

Gutzwiller, Kathryn J. 1986. "The Plant Decoration on Theocritus' Ivy Cup." AIP 107:253-55.

-. 1998. Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigrams in Context. Berkeley and Los

Angeles: University of California Press.

Hamon, Philippe. 1980. "Rhetorical Status of the Descriptive." Yale French Stud ies61:1-26.

Heffernan, James A. W 1991. "Ekphrasis and Representation." New Literary

History 22:297-316. -. 1993. Museum of Words: The Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashbery.

Chicago, 111.: University of Chicago Press.

Hollander, John. 1988. "The Poetics of Ekphrasis." Word and Image 4:209-19.

James, Liz, and Ruth Webb. 1991. "To Understand Intimate Things and Enter Secret Places: Ekphrasis and Art in Byzantium." Art History 14:3-41.

Kennedy, George A. 1983. Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors. Princeton,

N.J.: Princeton University Press.

-. 1986. "Helen's Web Unraveled." Arethusa 19:5-14.

-. 2003. Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and

Rhetoric. Leiden: Brill.

Krieger, Murray. 1967. "Ekphrasis and the Still Movement of Poetry; or, Laoko?n Revisited." In The Poet as Critic, ed. Frederick P. W McDowell, 3-25. Evans

ton, 111.: Northwestern University Press.

-, ed. 1987. The Aims of Representation. New York: Columbia University Press.




-. 1992. Ekphrasis: The Illusion of the Natural Sign. Baltimore: Johns Hop kins University Press.

Leach, Eleanor Winsor. 1988. The Rhetoric of Space: Literary and Artistic Rep resentations of Landscape in Republican and Augustan Rome. Princeton,

N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Lessing, Gotthold E. 1766. Laoko?n oder ?ber die Grenzen der Malerei und Poesie. Berlin: C. F. Voss und Sohn (and since reprinted).

Lindberg, David C. 1976. Theories of Vision from al-Kindi to Kepler. Chicago, 111.:

University of Chicago Press.

Maguire, Henry. 1982. Art and Eloquence in Byzantium. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton

University Press.

Manieri, Alessandra. 1998. Uimmagine po?tica nella teor?a degli antichi: phantasia ed enargeia. Pisa: Istituti editoriali e poligraf?a internazionali.

Marg, Walter. 1971. Homer ?ber die Dichtung: der Schild des Achilleus. M?nster: Aschendorff.

Martin, Jay. 1996. "Vision in Context: Reflections and Refractions." In Vision in Context: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Sight, ed. Teresa

Brennan and Martin Jay, 1-12. New York: Routledge.

Morris, Sarah. 1998. Review of Homer and the Artists by Anthony Snodgrass. BMCR 99.10.32, http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr.

Nagy, Gregory. 2003. Homeric Responses. Austin: University of Texas Press. Park, David Allen. 1997. The Fire within the Eye: A Historical Essay on the Nature

and Meaning of Light. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Patillon, Michel, and Giancarlo Bolognesi, eds. 1997. Aelius Th?on: Progymnas mata. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.

Poulsen, Frederik. 1945. "Talking, Weeping and Bleeding Sculptures: A Chapter in the History of Religious Fraud." Acta Archaeologica 16:178-95.

Pr?v?t, Andr?. 1935. "Verbes grecs relatifs ? la vision et noms de l'oeil." Rev.

Phil. 9:133-60,233-79.

Prier, Raymond A. 1987. "La linguistique orale et la ph?nom?nologie hom?rique de la lumi?re." In Ph?nom?nologie et litt?rature: Vorigine de Voeuvre d'art.

Hommages ? Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, ed. Marlies Kronegger, 146-56.

Sherbrooke: Naaman.

-. 1989. Thauma Idesthai: The Phenomenology of Sight and Appearance in Archaic Greek. Tallahassee: Florida State University Press.

Pucci, Pietro. 1977. Hesiod and the Language of Poetry. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Putnam, Michael C. J. 1995. "Ganymede and Virgilian Ekphrasis." AIP 116:419? 40.

Rakoczy, Thomas. 1996. B?ser Blick, Macht des Auges und Neid der G?tter: eine

Untersuchung zur Kraft des Blickes in der griechischen Literatur. T?bingen: Narr.

Reinhardt, Karl. 1961. Die Bias und ihr Dichter. G?ttingen: Vandenhoeck &

Ruprecht.



22 JAMES A. FRANCIS

Richlin, Amy, ed. 1991. Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Saintillan, David. 1996. "Du festin ? l'?change: les gr?ces de Pandore." In Le m?tier du mythe: lectures d'H?siode, ed. Fabienne Biaise, Pierre Judet de La Combe, and Philippe Rousseau, 316-48. Paris: Presses universitaires

du Septentrion.

Scully, Stephen. 2001. "Reading the Shield of Achilles: Terror, Anger, Delight." HSCP 101:29-47.

Snell, Bruno. 1924. Die Ausdr?cke f?r den Begriff des Wissens in der vorplaton ischen Philosophie. Berlin: Weidmann.

Snodgrass, Anthony. 1998. Homer and the Artists: Text and Picture in Early Greek Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Solmsen, Friedrich et al., eds. 1990. Hesiodi Theogonia, Opera et Dies, Scutum.

3d ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Spengel, Leonardus. 1854. Rhetor es Graeci, 3 vols. Frankfurt am Main: Minerva.

Rpt. 1966.

Spivey, Nigel J. 1995. "Bionic Statues." In The Greek World, ed. Anton Powell, 442-62. London: Routledge.

Stanley, Keith. 1993. The Shield of Homer: Narrative Structure in the Iliad. Prince

ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Stansbury-O'Donnell, Mark D. 2006. Vase-Painting, Gender, and Social Identity in Archaic Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Steiner, Deborah T. 2001. Images in Mind: Statues in Archaic Greek Literature and Thought. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Sternberg, Meir. 1980. "Ordering and the Unordered: Time Space, and Descriptive Coherence." Yale French Studies 61:60-88.

Stewart, Andrew. 1997. Art, Desire and the Body in Ancient Greece. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Stewart, Peter. 2003. Statues in Roman Society: Representations and Response.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Taplin, Oliver. 1980. "The Shield of Achilles within the Iliad:9 G&R 27:1-21. van Hoorn, Willem. 1972. As Images Unwind: Ancient and Modern Theories of

Visual Perception. Amsterdam: University Press Amsterdam.

Vernant, Jean-Pierre. 1996. "Les semblances de Pandore." In Le m?tier du mythe: lectures d'H?siode, ed. Fabienne Biaise, Pierre Judet de La Combe, and

Philippe Rousseau, 381-92. Paris: Presses universitaires du Septentrion.

Walker, Andrew D. 1993. "Enargeia and the Spectator in Greek Historiography." TAPA 123:353-77.

Webb, Ruth. 1999a. "The Aesthetics of Sacred Space: Narrative Metaphor and Motion in Ekphraseis of Church Buildings." DOP 53:59-74.

-. 1999b. "Ekphrasis Ancient and Modern: The Invention of a Genre." Word

and Image 15:7-18.

West, Martin L., ed. 2000. Homeri Bias, vol. 2. Munich: K. G. Saur.




Zanker, Graham. 1981. "Enargeia in the Ancient Criticism of Poetry." Rh. Mus.

124:297-311. -. 1987. Realism in Alexandrian Poetry: A Literature and Its Audience.

London: Croom Helm.

-. 2004. Modes of Viewing in Hellenistic Poetry and Art. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Ziolkowski, Theodore. 1977. Disenchanted Images: A Literary Iconology. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.



Metal Maidens, Achilles' Shield, and Pandora: The Beginnings of … · 2015-09-23 · THE...

Documents

Transcript of Metal Maidens, Achilles' Shield, and Pandora: The Beginnings of … · 2015-09-23 · THE...