Looking, viewing, gazing – their attraction for many critics may derive from gender studies where these three actions (‘visions’, in the active sense, and ‘visuality’ as a capability) are particularly to be associated with men and with control and with power. The gaze in such contexts is a very bad thing, it is argued. This is because such a use of the eyes becomes another mechanism by which ogling and scheming individuals attempt to subjugate women and others in societally subordinate positions to their sexual and volitional control. Because looking, viewing and gazing exemplify, above all, the attempt to exercise power, this version of visuality can very easily become associated with male violence.
This volume, though not concerned with gender studies, may be placed tentatively within this gender-related tradition rather than in a ‘ways of seeing’ art-historical tradition. When their title invokes ‘visions’ and ‘visuality’ L. and V. appear in the first instance to be considering the gaze that is in some manner exploitative and connected to men and to violence. It makes sense, furthermore, that, because of their specific interest in the gendered concomitants of visuality, L. and V. should take as their focus epic literature. They seem to view epic as, above all, about kings and battles (their interest is primarily in Roman epic; Greek epic appears as the main focus of just one of the ten articles – J. Hesk, ‘Seeing in the Dark: kleos, Tragedy and Perception in Iliad 10’; but Homer is omnipresent, hence justifying the inclusion of ‘Greek’ in the subtitle of the book). A number of the essays, therefore, are interested in the relationship between looking or being looked at and, particularly, in male violence. Notable for their consideration of male violence are Hesk's essay: ‘the glory of senseless destruction [in the Doloneia]’, Hesk suggests, ‘contributes to the recreational terror available to the audience, as well as the characters, as they too are unable to securely interpret what they see in the dark’ (p. 59); that of K. Gervais, ‘Viewing Statius’ Thebaid and the Films of Quentin Tarantino', who explains ‘Let us assert that, where violence is concerned, Tarantino has no greater aim than to shock, stir, taunt, delight or confound his audience … By taking the same approach to violence in the Thebaid, we may find ourselves better equipped to confront an important and difficult aspect of Statius’ poem' (p. 167); and of M. Dinter, ‘Intermediality in Latin Epic – en video quaecumque audita’. Dinter maintains that Lucan transforms ‘the functions of the conventional ecphrasis to work in different ways in his narrative, to create his own integrated image of a world [thanks to violence] in pieces’ (p. 138).
The lens through which visuality, the power of the gaze, is examined is in the first instance intertextual. There is considerable stress on this interpretative mode and how it frequently undercuts the apparently benign certainties of its contexts. But not always. R. Rees, ‘The look of The Late Antique Emperor and the Art of Praise’, examines the ‘topos of the emperor as the object of the gaze’ (p. 113) and aims in part to demonstrate that the Roman panegyric writers achieve this trope by using what he believes is a version of the gaze that is explicitly based in epic literature. A number of contributors to this collection are keen, furthermore, to stress the presence of Greek tragedy within Roman epic. The most thoroughgoing instance of this approach within the volume is E. Buckley's ‘Visualizing Venus: Epiphany and anagnorisis in Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica'. Buckley examines ‘one episode from the Flavian Argonautica, analyzing the way in which the tragic-theatrical incursion of Venus … modeled the potentially debilitating effects of the genre of tragedy on an epic narrative’ (p. 96).
The volume is not all just intertextuality. A more specialised sub-form of this approach, termed here intermediality, receives frequent attention. Intermediality entails the interaction of ideas, stories, but especially images between different media, usually between written texts and visual texts. This is probably the most important of the concepts introduced in L. and V.'s book. It attempts to offer a theoretical basis for the book as a whole. The written word, in this case the Roman epic, may actively interact or derive its inspiration from painting (evident especially in the use of the ecphrasis) or sculpture. At its most apparently straightforward this can entail the importation of epic themes into sculpture. V., ‘Epic in the Round’, makes this importation more nuanced by concluding that ‘for a free-standing sculpture to succeed it must take full advantage of its inability to impose restrictions, expanding on, challenging, exploding even, the ways of seeing that make epic “epic”’ (p. 215). K. Lorenz, in her discussion of painting, ‘Split-screen Visions: Heracles on Top of Troy in the Casa di Octavius Quartio in Pompeii’, maintains that the epic evocations of the Iliad mixed with those of Heracles render the paintings relevant to the viewers' own lives: ‘it enabled those viewing it [the split screen representations of Heracles and the Iliad] to see aspects of life in an epic light, not just the life of Heracles, with his semi-epic standing, but also their own non-epic existence’ (p. 246); while M. Squire, ‘Epic Visions and the Tabulae Iliacae’, asks ‘what … is the relationship between epic as a poem and epic as a picture?’ (p. 281). He aims, using the Tabulae Iliacae, to demonstrate ‘the creativity with which ancient artists and writers foreshadowed our own critical discussion about epic images and texts’ (p. 281).
Intertextuality, which is usually said to contribute to meaning in an undercutting manner, can play out as reception. A detailed example of this approach is provided by L., ‘Operatic Visions: Berlioz stages Virgil’. L. suggests that ‘Opera is hospitable to both voices of the Aeneid … and each production [each visualization] of Les Troyens gives the matter of the Aeneid a different spin … a nationalistic extravaganza, or a repudiation of nationalism; a celebration of war … or a lament for … [its] loss’ (p. 76). L. Fotheringham and M. Brooker's ‘Storyboarding and Epic’ provides an unexpected examination of the imagined reception of the visualisation of ancient epic. Their ‘epic visions … take the form of storyboards representing possible, but not actual, film adaptations from ancient epic’ (p. 168). Fotheringham and Brooker present the process of storyboarding ‘as a hermeneutic tool for analyzing the visuality of textual narrative, revealing both similarities and difference between text and film, and revealing the multiplicity of possible ways of visualizing epic’ (p. 168).
How does this volume help us better read ancient Greek and Roman epic? It demonstrates how an interpretative mode, more associated with gender studies, can fruitfully be applied to epic. It also demonstrates again the modes by which intermediality in particular, but also intertextuality and reception can add to a comprehension of ancient epic. The theme of the book, furthermore, allows a diverse body of textual material to be drawn unexpectedly together to demonstrate a less observed tradition within epic composition. It would be good to see what L. and V.'s contributors would make of Alexandrian epic – Apollonius or the Hecale, for example – a version of epic that seems to be less interested in kings and battles and more intrigued by affect, but no less visual. And Ovid too. The Metamorphoses is the most visual and affective of all epics.
