Over a half-dozen actors have played ‘Batman’ in my lifetime – from the slapstick Adam West to the in-on-the-joke Michael Keaton and the nearly satirical yet painfully earnest Christian Bale, each performance has offered a different take on a conventional figure. Not only does each Batman evoke a certain zeitgeist, but they appeal as well to different audiences and competing visions of what this gritty hero means. Who or what is the real Batman? Is there a character beyond the typology and the core ‘lore’ of Bruce Wayne, the plutocratic avenger of parents struck down on America's lawless streets?
Menelaus, the son of Atreus and erstwhile husband of Helen, is certainly no Batman, but questions of canon and character apply even more readily to a figure from Greek myth. Indeed, recent years have seen increased interest in typological studies from the Trojan War cycle, with wide-ranging studies on Helen (R. Blondel, Helen of Troy: Beauty, Myth, Devastation [2013] or L. Edmunds, Stealing Helen: the Myth of the Abducted Wife in Comparative Perspective [2015]) to investigations of Achilles (J. Burgess, The Death and Afterlife of Achilles [2009]). The same period has produced increased interest in the characterisation of individual heroes in epic with books delving into the Homeric depiction of Hector (L. Kozak, Experiencing Hektor: Character in the Iliad [2016]) and Agamemnon (A. Porter, Agamemnon, the Pathetic Despot: Reading Characterization in Homer [2019]). In each case, we find investigations skewing either diachronic or synchronic, looking to comparative narratives, or nestling within Homer, to examine the creation of character in that text.
But a conventional character – like the language of myth and Homer itself – is the product of tension between typology and tradition and the particular manifestation of that tradition. A leap from Adam West's ‘BOOM! POW!’ silliness to Christian Bale's gravelly ‘I'm Batman’ relies in part on differences in genre and audience, but also draws on things invisible on the screen: the importance of graphic novels and the evolution of comic books; changes to cinematic storytelling conventions; and the cultural context of terror and crime after 9/11. Is there a core characteristic through-line beyond plot that amounts to such a thing as a traditional character or personality?
In her dense and exhaustive Menelaus in the Archaic Period S. examines the depiction of Atreus’ other son in the Archaic period to explore a figure who was ‘not only Helen's husband, but an epic hero with a stature and an afterlife all his own’ (p. vi). She marshals an impressive array of resources, especially valuable in her presentation of art and archaeological material. This book is, indeed, a gift to myth enthusiasts for whom T. Gantz's Early Greek Myth (1993) is scant on detail. Those looking for a more theoretical exploration of character and multiformity in myth – or a decent definition of what the Archaic period is and why its limits matter – will be somewhat disappointed.
S.'s framework for approaching characters from myth will likely be familiar to many and inoffensive for being so, but I am troubled by her positioning of the Homeric epics at or near the beginning of the tradition rather than as products of dynamic multiformity among genres (including visual art). If we imagine the complexity against which S. offers Menelaus as available to audiences during the formation of the Homeric epics rather than coming in response to Homer, then the entire enterprise of myth becomes both more enriched and enriching. S. approaches this complexity in drawing on neoanalysis to propose that Menelaus in the Odyssey is a rewriting of a traditional figure, but she stops short of doing much more than providing a useful overview of the theoretical frames in the introduction and sketching out different ways of defining character and personality in the Homeric epics. While the analyses that follow fall heavily on assuming the Iliad as a ‘master-text’ (p. 17) and assuming the hand of an individual poet making possible the ‘contradictions and nuances in … [the] use of tradition for the creation of character’ (p. 17), even those of us who disagree fundamentally with the hierarchical approach will find many useful insights and further questions to ponder.
In the book's first part S. focuses on Menelaus’ depiction in Homer, emphasising in particular the argument that the Iliad is a critical source-text for the depiction of Menelaus in the Odyssey. The discussions of Menelaus’ depiction in each chapter are insightful and interesting, but I suspect that they would have been even more so if the book were ‘flipped’ in its exploration – presenting non-Homeric material first as a frame for what was possibly known to Homeric audiences. Each chapter builds from epithets to thematic treatments: S. offers one of the most extensive analyses of Menelaus in the Iliad available today and shows the benefit of homing in on one character in so massive a song; the Odyssey chapter is equally strong for its careful reading of key cruxes in his interpretation (e.g. his duelling narratives with Helen in Book 6).
In the second part S. draws on a range of authors to investigate Menelaus’ ‘extra fictional existence’ (p. 23, with a nod to R. Martin [2016]). Before getting there, readers encounter a chapter whose unevenness is shaped by its contents: Menelaus in the grab-bag of lyric and epic fragments. S. notes a connection between Menelaus and Cretan themes as a representative of the past (p. 203) and suggests that the Cyclic fragments ‘disclose something of Menelaus’ stature independent of Agamemnon’ (p. 203). While it would be asynchronous to do so, I think this section would have benefited from considering Menelaus in post-Archaic literature, such as Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis, as a reception or exploration of different possible characterisations.
The final chapters’ overview of Menelaus in Greek art and material remains is a great addition to the study of Homeric characters – again, I would resist the convention of leaving this until after the discussion of the texts, but readers may choose to start with these chapters as a way of thinking about how late Archaic audiences may have come to performances of Homer with different perspectives. In art Menelaus appears, unsurprisingly, frequently with Helen and iconographically corresponds to what S. characterises as a ‘hero’ (p. 256). S.'s argument that Menelaus without Helen often corresponds to moments in Homer works only if we assume there is not a shared narrative tradition behind the images and our Homeric text and if we over-determine some of the correspondences.
The final two chapters look at the cult of Menelaus and Helen at Therapne and the Atreid's importance in Sparta as signalled in Simonides’ so-called Plataea Elegy. The thorough discussion of the cult at Therapne presents material rarely collated to argue for a localised reception of Panhellenic myth as a source and expression for Spartan kings. S.'s discussion of the Plataea Elegy, which surprisingly pairs Menelaus with Achilles, repositions Menelaus as stepping out of a traditional role in the Trojan War to a more prominent one as a protector and champion of Sparta. Some critics may hesitate at this discussion's treatment of the ‘new’ epithet eurubiês, but few will disagree with the conclusion that Simonides emphasises a local character of a Panhellenic figure to great effect.
A future historian of comic books and twentieth-century heroes will certainly note that first there were comic books, then there was a television show, and then there was a weak, unlikeable Batman played by Ben Affleck. What laying out this chronology overlooks is that audience members may not experience all the steps and may base their interpretations – and future iterations – on their first encounter, be it George Clooney or Robert Pattinson. Whether we are looking for the details of myth or the personality of an individual version of a character from myth, I think it is wiser to centre audience reception and response, especially in a culture where mythical figures occupy sacred space.
My quibbles, however, are the result of an engaging read with a well-researched and clearly written book. Specialists will likely have a similar range of intense reactions, but nevertheless return to the book frequently; non-specialists will find a range of theories and evidence presented in an eminently useful manner.
