Anderson, 'Myth and Poetry in Lucretius', Bryn Mawr Classical Review 9504
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmcr/bmcr-9504-anderson-myth
@@@@95.4.8, Gale, Myth and Poetry in Lucretius
Monica R. Gale, Myth and Poetry in Lucretius. Cambridge
Classical Studies. Cambridge: University Press, 1994. Pp. xiv,
260. $59.95. ISBN 0-521-45135-3.
Reviewed by William S. Anderson -- University of California
wsa@garnet.berkeley.edu
For many readers of Lucretius, it has long been an
instinctive response to feel that there is a basic series of
self-contradictions in the DRN. During the late 19th century and
as long as Classical critics labored under the weight of Romantic
theories, this self-contradiction was lodged in the psychology of
Lucretius himself: he was, as Tennyson, a very different poet,
represented it, torn apart by the tensions between his wild
poetic sensitivity and the thorough rationalism of Epicurean
philosophy. In more recent decades, scholars have tended to
abandon the psychological explanation of the apparent
inconsistencies, but they still focus on those inconsistencies
and attempt to explain them in terms of the basic tension they
attribute to the marriage of poetry and philosophy. The latest
group of Lucretian scholars has set out to combat that assumption
of fundamental inconsistency by various arguments that credit
Lucretius with a unifying conception and a creative rhetoric that
strives and largely succeeds in its effort to make the DRN an
integrated poem of Epicurean exposition. Firmly in that new
group of Unitarians, G. occupies her attention with various
aspects of myth in the poem, which others have claimed illustrate
the way Lucretius slips into poetic irrationality away from the
tedious and dry rationality of Epicurus. On the contrary, G.
sets out to demonstrate, "Lucretius follows a consistent and
comprehensive rhetorical, poetic and philosophic strategy in his
use of myth" and thereby reconciles philosophy and poetry.
G. has divided her investigation into six chapters, which
may be grouped into roughly equal halves: the first three
chapters focus on the background to Lucretius's employment of
myth. They deal with the use, reception, and criticism of myth
in the Greek and Roman philosophical milieu; in the cultural
setting of late Republican Rome; and in a literary context where
all extensive hexameter poetry, narrative and didactic, was
classified as epos. Each of these chapters ends with a
discussion of how Lucretius reacted to this background. Then,
the second set of three chapters takes us into the practice of
Lucretius: his theory of myth, his employment of what can be
called latent myth in the DRN; and finally two controversial
examples of his ingenuity with myth, at the beginning and end of
his poem, namely, the Advent of Venus and the Plague. This is a
well-planned and highly readable study, and it has been carefully
printed and proofread (apart from two very odd word-divisions on
p. 6)
The longest single chapter, almost 80 pages, is the first
one, in which G. deals with the questionable use of myth and
mythology from a philosophic perspective. Questions began with
the attack of Xenophanes on Homer and his admirers for the
impious way they represented the gods as immoral, adulterous,
vengeful, and generally inferior to human beings. Myth is
fiction, a tissue of lies about the gods, and it deserves to be
banned from education and from any good society such as Plato's
Republic. It is also irrational, unreliable explanation of
phenomena. When Herodotus accounts for the defeat of Xerxes by
resorting to his system of hubris-punished, then he can be
accused of stooping to mythical untruth. Since the poets are the
most regular purveyors of myth and its fictions, any philosopher
is on guard against, and often militantly striving to destroy,
the poetic way of representing reality.
The defense against this attack was early developed, and it
is in use among such philosophers as Plato, who are among the
severest critics of Homer and drama: myth, correctly employed, is
allegory, an oblique way of approaching the mysteries of the gods
and of existence itself. Judicious use of allegory allows Greek
defenders of Homer to claim that sometimes he uses the gods to
explain the psychological operations of human beings and
sometimes to account for the physical operation of nature. He is
not simply telling fictions for the amusement of an after-dinner
audience. It is obvious that Epicurus and his followers would
firmly agree with the general hostility to myth as unappetizing
fiction. But G. goes on to argue plausibly that Epicurus would
also have repudiated the use of allegory and interpretation by
way of allegory: he would not have agreed with the Platonists
that a myth was the way to present truth. It follows, then, that
Lucretius inherited an Epicurean tradition that had no use for
myth, in itself or in its allegorizations.
By choosing to write poetry, Lucretius was already adopting
a method of exposition that Epicurus rejected; and he was
aligning himself with earlier didactic poets, such as Parmenides
and Empedocles, who found a genuine use for myth. Thus, while
fully agreeing with his Master that myth was fiction and liable
to serious and irrational abuse, Lucretius did not totally reject
it. G. uses the famous passage about Magna Mater to exemplify
his careful poetic use of myth, which perhaps slightly strains
the severity of Epicurus, but at the same time makes intelligent
Epicurean and poetic use of the situation. In 2.600-60,
Lucretius starts out by repeating a poetic theme that has emerged
in Book l, namely, that the earth is a mother. For over 40
lines, then, he proceeds to report the elaborated allegories that
others have developed on this basic metaphor. In particular, we
hear of the rites and religious associations of Cybele or Magna
Mater in Rome and how her powers among human beings are
rationalized. It is important, as G. insistently notes, that,
although Lucretius may seem to be throwing himself
enthusiastically into this narration, in fact he always
attributes the doctrine and the excitement to others. Therefore,
when he cuts off that development, after ironically praising its
handsome presentation, he can indeed say, with complete
self-consistency, that such allegory is far from the truth, in
that it takes a useful metaphor and turns it into a religious
dogma, making mother earth into a fearsome deity. Lucretius
knows how to use myth for exposition; and he also knows how to
use it as a target of Epicurean polemic when others misuse it.
Yes, the poet does allegorize and does personify through
allegory, but he scrupulously denies that these personifications
are gods. G. recognizes that the opening address to Venus
constitutes a serious difficulty for her, and she intends to deal
with it in the last chapter. So she contents herself here with
observation that, if Venus is allegorical in Book 1, the poet
does not spell out the connections (as he does, in the words of
others, in the case of Magna Mater in 2).
The second chapter covers in fourteen pages the area of myth
and belief in Rome. It confronts the criticism, that Lucretius
was flogging a dead horse when he made such an issue about
protesting against credulity in myth in his time. Since Varro
and Cicero agree with his thesis, that myth is negligible though
pleasant, why is Lucretius so excited? G. suggests that perhaps
he did not worry so much about belief in myth either, but that he
aimed at the misuse of allegory. Apart from the theological use
of myth in Rome, there was what might be called a heroic or
patriotic use, with figures like Romulus and Aeneas. Properly
used, such myths could be and were employed for good effect, and
Augustan propaganda in art and literature would bring such myth
into full bloom. Lucretius does not repeat such material. He
does, however, subvert it by his strong polemic at the opening of
Book 5 against mythical heroes like Hercules, whose fictional
achievements are as nothing compared with the real benefits that
Epicurus won for mankind from the lowering world of superstition.
Chapter 3 proposes to fill out the background to the DRN by
situating the poem in the genre of epos. However, the question
does not appear to be all that significant, nor does G. reveal
how it is pertinent to her thesis until, after 30 pages,
consciously like Lucretius she pauses to explain her point. "All
this may appear to have been a rather lengthy digression from our
main subject", she allows (p. 128), and then pounces. It is
valuable to elaborate an argument made by Murley almost fifty
years ago, that the DRN is profitably viewed as a traditional
heroic epic, because Lucretius actually aimed to rival Homer and
Ennius on his own terms. That might be so, but we still seek the
pertinence. G. attempts to make that in fixing on Homer's and
Ennius' works as "mythological epics" and then defining DRN as
"non-mythological epic". G.'s generic arguments are not, to my
mind, very subtle, and she would have been wiser to eliminate
this chapter.
G. has a different problem of relevance with Chapter 4,
which she notes at the start in her title: she really wants to
broach the big question of the relationship between Epicurus and
Lucretius and to deal with the question: "how original a thinker
was the poet"? But her thesis requires her to focus on myth, so
she explores Lucretius' theory of myth to get at his poetic
originality. After a short section on the way the poet accounts
for the origins of myth and thus finds a place for it in his
poem, she launches into the question of the truth of poetry, so
that, by the end of the chapter, then, she is frankly summarizing
his theory of poetry (p. 154) and validating him as an Epicurean
poet. There is a way to bring these separate questions into
relation, and G. does try at the end: Lucretius' use of myth and
of poetry both seem to defy Epicurus' strictures, so defending
both in the same chapter and suggesting that his use of myth
arose out of his decision to elucidate Epicureanism in poetry,
both in the service of truth, is not impossible. But G. could
have helped herself and her readers by clearer preparation.
The "theory of myth" which G. presents is only a theory of
the origin of myth, not about its usages. Using 5.1161 ff., she
shows that Lucretius has myth originate in the instinctive
attempt of ignorant average human beings to explain things to
themselves. He does not, that is, talk of myth as the creation
of irresponsible poets, as had been the traditional charge since
Xenophanes. However, if myth is an effort to attain the truth
rather than a deliberate lie by poets, then Epicurean poetry can
provide a solution to human craving for truth. Lucretius rejects
the Muses as his inspiration--they are too adept at lies--and
turns to Epicurus, the fountain of truth and knowledge, and he
intends to make his poetry a way to clarification of human
ignorance. Hence, the frequent use of light-imagery in reference
to his poetry.
In Chapter 5, G. develops an interesting reading of portions
of the DRN in terms of what she calls "latent myth". This is an
example of what she elsewhere calls the "predatory" nature of
Lucretius' didactic techniques. Her two principal illustrations
are the extensive anthropological section in Book 5 and the
deification of Epicurus. In his account of the rise of man and
human culture, she argues persuasively, Lucretius is aware of the
Golden Age myth and expects it to be in his audience's conscious
background. Without directly and polemically attacking the
Golden Age fiction, the poet yet implicitly dismisses its
fabulous explanations for human development. He is what we call
a "hard primitivist", and, wherever he may seem to be describing
primitive situations in wishful colors, he suddenly intrudes a
rough note of realism that removes us from the poet's Golden Age.
For example, primitive men lived off the bounty of nature, not
working at agriculture. But in fact nature was not all that
bountiful, the food was precarious and unappealing (to modern
tastes), and agriculture was not a curse but an art that human
ingenuity had not yet invented. There were no great mythical
"inventors", such as Prometheus bringer of fire or Ceres mother
of grain: human beings discovered these things in connection with
natural events. As he explains these developments correctly,
Lucretius is correcting the myths that lie hidden in his
audience. Similarly, in his special treatment of Epicurus as
god: he is replacing the fictional gods of myth, who are
ineffective explanations of events, by a real person, who did
indeed accomplish wonderful things, far better than the feats
attributed to Hercules, Ceres, and Bacchus. By alluding to the
old mythology, the poet makes his new truth that much more
persuasive.
In her final chapter, G. bravely takes on the two difficult
passages that begin and close the DRN. The toughest problem is
the Proem to 1 and its presentation of Venus: that has been the
target of innumerable attacks and attempted defenses, and there
is not much new that anyone can now say about it. What G. does
is to propose some kind of synthesis to justify the Epicurean
poet. That Venus is steadily altered and diminished after the
Proem should imply that Lucretius never thinks of her as an
effective personality of myth. Yes, but he sure fools us at the
start. He prays to her to inspire his poetry and confer on it
Neoteric lepos and to use her unique powers to bring peace
to the tense, war-prepared Roman world. The rest of the poem
shows that poetry and peace arise in totally different
circumstances, where Venus has no effect. G. rather weakly
concludes that Venus "is a multifaceted figure" (p. 222). The
issue, however, is her vivid mythological qualities in the Proem.
Perhaps, G. could have resorted again to the "predatory" view of
Lucretius here: that is, he riots in mythological poetry in his
opening 50 lines, only to cut the ground from underneath all that
in the Epicurean discourse that he proceeds to develop as a sure
corrective.
The Plague of Book 6 has been given some effective defenses
in recent years, and G. has, I think, an easier time working with
it. She sees Lucretius' account as a symbolic "Epicurean myth",
which functions in opposition to the proem of 1. (That is why I
favor the idea of viewing the triumph of Venus as an
"anti-Epicurean myth".) Lucretius planned it as his ending for
the DRN, and he even planned its abrupt close. It shows the
destructive side of nature and the utter helplessness of
Athenians (at the height of their political and cultural
development) to deal either with the disease or their own
despair. So it brings out the desperate life of the
non-Epicurean, and it serves, as Clay suggests, to test the
reader and also warn and urge him/her toward the "cure" and
"health" that resides in Epicureanism.
This is an important book on a topic of continuing
discussion. It offers some creative ways of treating Lucretius'
combination of myth and poetry as what he surely meant it to be:
a realization of the true meaning of his Master's thought.