This volume, which stems from a conference panel, undeniably contains some excellent scholarship. Nevertheless, it struggles to transcend the sum of its parts. This is partly due to a misleading title: few chapters deal in depth with emotion and genre and gender. Second, while several pairs of chapters work well together, only one page of the introduction discusses interconnections, and this reader spotted no cross-references in the chapters themselves. Another limitation (not clear from the title) is that the volume focusses mostly on poetic genres, with relatively little on prose.
In ‘Veiling Grief on the Tragic Stage’, D.L. Cairns examines veiling as a gesture of (relatively self-controlled) grief. He discusses several characters in Aeschylus and particularly Euripides, before arguing that veiling serves dramatically to separate the griever from others. However, a veil is also a metaphor, symbolising the grief hanging over the bereft. Finally, veiling can be a voluntary act within ritual mourning. The gesture is typical of women (for whom head covering need not signify emotion), and so particularly noteworthy when performed by a man (signifying temporary strong emotion); this leads to some more subtle points of gender difference. C. includes some instructive parallels to epic and imagery on pots, which lead him to conclude that there is ‘no hard and fast disjunction between tragic and non-tragic veiling’ (p. 26).
J. Wissman's ‘Cowardice and Gender in the Iliad and Greek Tragedy’ opens with Aristotle's comments relating cowardice to inappropriate fear. This is implicitly assumed to apply throughout the chapter, emotion not being mentioned again. W. argues – re Homer, Classical Athens and the modern US army – that room is always left to interpret whether actions are cowardly, affording space for rhetoric and imputation of motive. Iliadic male characters are anxious to avoid such accusations, cowardice being associated with femininity. In tragedy, this link continues: for men, cowardice (anandria) is unmanly; but many tragic women undermine received gender stereotypes. However, powerful villains frequently show cowardice, and can be used as foils for bolder characters, or accused to enhance an accuser's own status.
D. Dutsch and D. Konstan, ‘Women's Emotions in New Comedy’, use Aristotle's discussion of anger to launch an investigation of emotion episodes in Menander, Terence and Plautus. Anger occupies nearly the entire chapter, with some space for erôs. Aristotle believes anger occurs downwards in hierarchical relations or between equals. Accordingly, it is unusual to find Menandrian slave-women and courtesans expressing this emotion, though it is commonplace among men. In Terence married women – or at least those with sizeable dowries – can be angry, while in Plautus the authors delineate some (for New Comedy) more unusual situations and characters, and reflect on what these have to tell us about the place of anger – particularly female anger – in Roman marriages and households.
In ‘Comic Emotions: Shamelessness and Envy (Schadenfreude); Moderate Emotion’, M. primarily examines philosophical writings on comic poetics, rather than comedy itself. In the Republic, Plato highlights comedy's shamelessness, an aspect he wishes to see removed. M. cites Aristophanes to argue that women have less licence for shamelessness than men in Old Comedy, though more than in real life and tragedy. In the Philebus, Plato posits phthonos (Schadenfreude) as the comic emotion – though this is aroused in the audience, not shown on stage. Quintilian, Gellius and Evanthius, meanwhile, believe that comic emotions (or emotional dispositions) should be gentler than tragic ones. Aristophanes aside, there is little gendering of emotion in this chapter.
L. Fulkerson, ‘Helen as Vixen, Helen as Victim: Remorse and the Opacity of Female Desire’, argues that Helen's motivation and responsibility for eloping with Paris are hinted at differently, yet always left obscure, in her various literary appearances. In the Iliad, Helen expresses remorse, yet portrays herself as innocent, suggesting she is ‘morally if not legally responsible’ (p. 121). In Gorgias' Encomium, Paris is guilty and Helen innocent only because his masculinity makes him the active, and Helen's femininity the passive, participant. In Euripides' Troades Helen both excuses and justifies herself, while in Helen she is entirely innocent. Ovid's Heroides leaves her actions variously interpretable. Emotion appears only in the Iliad, and little emerges about genre except inferentially.
‘Emotions in Ecphrasis and Art Criticism’ begins with a long methodological introduction, in which E. Prioux discusses ancient and modern readings of emotion in statuary and paintings, concentrating on such issues as gesture, posture, facial expression, colour and veiling. She proceeds to discuss ancient philosophers' and other (amateur) art critics' perceptions and analyses of êthê and pathê in art works (painting and sculpture). The focus remains primarily on the art works themselves, rather than literary aspects of their description. The chapter ends with two useful appendices listing passages that discuss, respectively, famous paintings and sculptures (the second mistitled also as ‘painting’). It is not obvious to what extent, if any, êthê and pathê are gendered.
In ‘One Wife, One Love: Coniugalis amor, Grief and Masculinity in Statius' Silvae’, A. McCullough explores Statius' views on male conjugal love, and grief at a wife's death. Both emotions, particularly when expressed publicly, are problematic for Roman masculinity, being more usually attributed to women. Romans recognised the concept of the uniuira (one-man woman). The male version was rare, though examples exist. Statius, however, presents several men who are uniuirae in both ‘male monogamy and devotion’ (p. 178). For such men, profound, prolonged and public grief at a wife's death is praised by Statius as symptomatic of good moral character. McC. sees this as indicative of wider change in the post-Augustan construction of Roman masculinity.
P.J. Anderson, ‘Absit malignus interpres: Martial's Preface to Book One of the Epigrams and the Construction of Audience Response’, shows Martial expected, indeed wanted, a variety of emotional responses to his poems – it being through these that he negotiated his relationship with readers. Libel was theoretically a capital offence, and ad hominem jokes always potentially dangerous, even with identity disguised by pseudonym. Nevertheless, A. suggests, Martial rejects Cicero's advice that obscene, scurrilous jokes be avoided, and echoes Seneca in calling for readers to react with ‘moderate disposition’ (p. 208): such jokes are acceptable in the genre of epigram, and those responding angrily should have been warned off by the preface. Gender seems relevant only in so far as libelled readers are male.
In ‘De bello civili 2.326–91: Cato Gets Married’, M. Graver explores the implications of Cato's immediate yet unemotional acquiescence to Marcia's demand to remarry. After an overview of Stoic ethics and psychology of emotion, G. contrasts Cato's rigid unemotionality towards Marcia with his grief for war-torn Rome. We learn that Cato never experiences Stoic affects (gaudium, cautio, uoluntas, etc.), yet he can experience fear, anger, hatred and grief; however – now in accordance with Stoic teaching – these are always felt on behalf of Rome rather than himself. Marcia's presentation of her demand shows her, too, as being unlike other Roman women, and emotionally similar to her husband. However, their rigidity makes theirs an ambiguous role model for Stoic marriage.
Z. Torlone's ‘Engendering Reception: Joseph Brodsky's “Dido and Aeneas”’ compares several versions of the love story. Virgil's Dido is passionate but not impetuous; as host and powerful queen she actively pursues her suppliant, and her anger at betrayal seeks revenge down the centuries. Aeneas, however, subordinates emotions to mission in a ‘performance of masculinity’ (p. 246). Ovid's version is even more ‘feminised’, ignoring the male perspective. Akhmatova's feminist cycle identifies herself with Dido, as archetype of the loving woman abandoned by her man. Purcell shows Dido as passive and forgiving, while Aeneas is the passionate pursuer. Brodsky, however, presents Dido as eternal woman in pursuing personal emotion, and focalises entirely from the manly perspective that prioritises communal good.
Readers interested in individual chapters will find valuable scholarship. The limited exploration of chapters' interconnections, however, means that those seeking broader insights on emotion, genre and gender may be disappointed.
