Richardson, 'Theatrum Arbitri: Theatrical Elements in the Satyrica of Petronius', Bryn Mawr Classical Review 9508
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmcr/bmcr-9508-richardson-theatrum
@@@@95.9.17, Panayotakis, Theatrum Arbitri
Costas Panayotakis, Theatrum Arbitri: Theatrical Elements in
the Satyrica of Petronius. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995. Pp. xxv, 225.
$60.00. ISBN 90-04-100229-9.
Reviewed by Wade Richardson, Classics -- McGill University
wader@sociology.lan.mcgill.ca
This good-looking book gets full marks for author, editor and
publisher for production. The arrangement also is promising: the
content of the Satyrica to be surveyed as seven
adventures, approximating "acts," and twenty-five episodes or
"scenes," each held up in sequence to a dramatic literary
analysis with special reference to "theatrical elements." The
paradoxical effect of this combination of focus and iteration is
to promote theatre and the mime as the dominant force shaping a
work of "eccentric innovation in the area of literature" (p. x).
What seem in the offing is a mixture of Forschung and
fun, the first from the requirement of a full-blown study of this
sort to footnote and treat (as is done copiously if not always
with profit) the analysis of predecessors, and the second because
this is Petronius, and turning the Satyrica into a play
for the stage is an idea for fun and fantasy, here only patchily
fulfilled. But the intent and the argument of the book get into
trouble in the writing. In scene after scene the author slants
his language at the outset, to obtain from the reader in advance
the kind of acquiescence that should come from evidence.
For example, at the beginning of P.'s Cena treatment
(p. 52) he announces his intention of a systematic reading "from
a theatrical point of view," helping along its validity by
asserting in the same sentence the dinner's "obviously staged"
nature. The "staged setting" and "theatrical intentions" (p. 64)
of the Cena, he states, are certainly obvious to Encolpius
at the outset. Less leading language could describe this as a
recognizable attempt at a formal, proper dinner party ostensibly
carefully planned and arranged to please the guests' eyes, ears,
imaginations and gustatory tastes.
Similarly, in the Quartilla episode, the paraphernalia
marshalled by the priestess are called "theatrical props," when
they could quite easily have been lowly everyday items
impersonating, ludicrously, objects of cult and ceremony.
Quartilla herself, as P. must admit (p. 38), may not be taken
from the stage. But this is not a problem: "Aspects of her
persona are clearly theatrical," and her "actions and
speech indicate ... clearly ... histrionic behaviour." Thus is
the reader hectored on almost every page to fall into line with
the analysis. The world's a stage, as we know: while the theatre
draws its material from real life, the converse is not
necessarily true.
It is not that other borrowings are not considered here and
there. There is the statutory nod to the influence of Greek
romance, epic, satire, and even parodic realism: "It is almost
impossible to say with certainty that Petronius modelled this
scene [The Affair of the Cloak] focusing solely on real life, or
on the theatre, or on satire, or on the Milesian tales. However,
the choice of this specific theme, and the setting of the scene
at this particular time, promise, before the beginning of the
actual facts, an amusing and unexpected spectacle" (p. 22).
But this hopeful sign here (and elsewhere: for example, on the
formative role of satire on the cena genre [p. 56]) of a
balanced perspective is really only a scholarly feint. P. now
proceeds to "accumulate" theatrical elements and identify
"theatrical motifs" such as "recognition," "hidden treasure," and
even "lupines," and like-minded modern sources are enlisted to
secure the interpretation. For example, to anchor the
theatricality of the "obsessive prominence of the sexual content"
(p. 31) he pushes Preston 1915 into connecting "the high degree
of sexuality in the novel with the obscenity of the farcical
theatre" (p. 32 n. 40). The source, whom P. quotes, goes only so
far as to say that "the sex interest in the main narrative is
incidental to a sort of rough phallic comedy" with a "tone"
supplied by the "conventions of an impure type of farce."
Rival analyses are seen off. Hubbard on the Cena as
ring composition is "questionable" because of "far-fetched,"
"unnecessary" parallels (p. 53). He is certainly inconvenient to
the linear, cumulative pattern now holding the floor. Bacon,
Rankin and Arrowsmith are not useful on the mimica mors of
Giton (p. 127-8). And my own modest proposals of homosexual camp
(p. 16 n. 58, p. 127 n. 17) seem subversive enough to be slightly
misunderstood as they are despatched.
Hence the claim in P.'s conclusion (p. 196) of taking a
"sensible" approach to furthering understanding of the
Satyrica by applying "the literary attributes of the
popular theatrical tradition moderately" is worth a quibble,
unless one's idea of moderation includes pounding in
theatricality at every cue. P. sees his approach as the antidote
to critics who use "imaginative interpretations which seek in a
far-fetched manner to identify this text with something mere than
it actually is: a sophisticated, scabrous book." The first
"adventure" well illustrates the difficulties. In the fourth line
of his book, before the niceties of introduction, P. pours
Encolpius into a theatrical mould by defining him as a rank rogue
delivering a "hypocritical performance" for Agamemnon at the
School of Rhetoric merely in order to impress him and thereby
garner a free meal: "The theatricality of the scene can be
demonstrated by means of the theatrical personae which the
main characters adopt, their role-playing in the speeches they
perform, and the exploitation of the subject in question as a
typical source of entertainment in staged productions.... The
hypocritical role-playing of Encolpius can be seen not only in
his unscrupulous exploitation of edifying theories for mean
purposes, but also ... " (p.3). Hold on a minute. Throughout this
scene as it unfolds there is no obligatory notion of duplicity or
hypocrisy, and no sense of Agamemnon as a meal-ticket. The
evidence is fetched from the later taunt of Ascyltus (10. 1-2).
He has a different perspective and character: bored, hungry,
pragmatic, at odds with the uncool engagement of his partner. If
anything, the later exchange confirms this: "You sneaked out of
the seminar!" says Encolpius (subduxisti te a praeceptoris
colloquio). Someone else in this scene is a hypocrite,
according to P. ("... a hypocritical performance by two rogues
who sought, by making pompous statements clothed in grave
academic cliches, to satisfy not their mental hunger but their
physical one."). Whether he is adding Agamemnon or Ascyltus,
there are objections for both.
The next scenes, successively the flight through the brothel
and the meeting up of the three lovers for the first time, are
then pushed relentlessly through the theatrical prism. Giton too
is basically a hypocrite (p. 11); the low-life detail is not
particularly realistic (why not?): on the contrary, Petronius
creates "his own theatrical world" (p. 10); the sexual stances of
the lovers cast them as typical figures from the mime (p. 11),
which for convenience P. lumps with the theatre. And so on. This
reductive kind of analysis is to me quite depressing. No doubt it
is all done brilliantly by Petronius, but the characters do
become theatric cutouts and the incidents do lose their
freshness. Consider this compensatory critique in summation: "...
the author implicitly instructs [the audience] to regard the
sexual escapades of Giton and Ascyltus at the expense of poor
Encolpius as nothing more than pure entertainment" (p. 11). Yes,
but realism is not inconsistent with entertainment nor
necessarily message-inducing.
There is much industry here in the collection of the
literature and in adducing plenty of new citations from the
texts, to which the Bibliography and the Index of Passages attest
respectively. The pity for me is that this breadth of coverage is
not equalled by penetration; and the structuring of the
discussions was an insuperable problem. Other readers will be
readier to endorse a causal relationship between Roman comedy and
the Satyrica in plot, themes, characterization, language,
props. Certainly one concedes use of mimetic vignettes (as at
117.4 fl.) throughout. But with an exclusive performance
orientation the Satyrica swallows whole the attributes of
a comic sex novel. For P.'s interpretation to work he must prove
what he assumes, that "the theatre" and "real life" are distinct
to the point of mutual exclusion (see the quotation, cited above,
from p. 22).