Budin , 'Transformations of Circe: The History of an Enchantress', Bryn Mawr Classical Review 9512
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmcr/bmcr-9512-budin -transformations
@@@@95.12.4, Yarnall, Transformations of Circe
Judith Yarnall, Transformations of Circe: The History of an
Enchantress. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994. Pp.
224. $14.95. ISBN 0-252-06356-2 (pb.).
Reviewed by Stephanie L. Budin -- University of Pennsylvania
sbudin@sas.upenn.edu
Transformations of Circe: The History of an
Enchantress, by Judith Yarnall takes on the double task of
explaining the symbolic significance of the goddess Circe as she
existed both in the ancient world at large and in ancient Greece
in particular, and how Circe as a literary figure, and as an
emblem of sexuality specifically, metamorphosized throughout
western literary tradition.
Chapter 1 is, in Yarnall's own words, "..a retelling of
Homer's story, with close attention to some of the details of his
phrasing" (p. 9). Books 10 and 12 of Homer's Odyssey, the
portions relevant to Odysseus' meeting and interactions with
Circe, are re-told by Yarnall, with commentary and intention
interjected throughout. Of particular importance to Yarnall in
this opening chapter are the positive relationship between the
sexes which she sees embodied in the Circe/Odysseus tale, and
Circe's identification as an ancient goddess.
As Yarnall herself admits, "My late twentieth-century,
feminist biases--towards the equality and complimentarity of the
sexes, towards a consciousness as informed by intuition and the
senses as it is by reason, towards the emergence of synthesis
from seemingly intractable dualisms--color my understanding of
the Circe-Odysseus myth.." (p. 17) Thus Yarnall interprets the
meeting of these two Homeric figures as the union of male and
female, and the resultant trust and love shown between them as
Homer's belief in the potential, if not, need, of the sexes to
live together in harmony. As Yarnall states it, "The most
profound transformation that take place in this myth is the
turning of male-female hostility into union and trust" (p. 21).
Just as important as Circe's representation of the female is
Circe's identification as a goddess, more specifically, her
identification as "The Great Goddess" worshipped throughout the
millennia in the ancient world. Chapter 2 of
Transformations traces the archaeological and iconographic
origins of the "Lady of the Beasts" figure with which Yarnall
closely associates the figure of Circe. She examines Circe's
name, which she associates with the Greek word for hawk,
kirkos. This she then projects back onto the cult of the
vulture goddess discovered by Mellaart at Catal Huyuk, Anatolia,
and claims that Circe is thus yet another manifestation of an
original great mother goddess associated with birds of the air.
Yarnall next discusses the potnia theron, "Mistress of the
Animals," figure frequently represented in Aegean iconography.
This image is, supposedly, another forebear to the Circe figure,
the female divinity associated with fawning wild animals. As
such, Circe must be associated not only with the Anatolian
vulture goddess of extreme pre-history, but as well with the
later Babylonian/Anatolian Kubebe/Kybele goddess, the Magna Mater
worshipped into the Roman Age, Ishtar, and as well with Artemis,
the later Greek deity of animal fertilty.
Chapters 3 and 4 deal with what Yarnall sees as the
transformation of myth into allegory in the tale of Circe and
Odysseus. Specifically, Yarnall examines the classical origins of
the mind/body split so prevalent in Platonic discourse, and the
way in which this split casts Circe not into the role of guide
and friend as she was in the Homeric epic, but as the embodiment
of sensuality and its accompanying woes.
Chapter 3 begins with a look at the Homeric epics, which,
Yarnall claims, "are innocent of dualism" (p. 55). As such the
mind/body split present in classical thought cannot colour
Homer's depiction of the deine thea. However, the emerging
philosophies of Orphism, Pythagorism, and finally Platonism
evolve into the Hellenic way of thinking, eventuating a scorn of
the body in preference for the sublime glories of the mind.
Yarnall here pays especially close attention to Plato's
Phaedo, Symposium, and Phaedrus, examining
such issues as body as tomb, the man as midwife to male thought,
and the unruliness of the passions. It was this dichotomy of
thought, Yarnall claims, that allowed Circe to assume her role as
the image of sensuality, the body, which tempted and endangered
the rational Odysseus in his journeys.
Chapter 4 continues with the allegorization of Circe, from
pagan Roman through early Christian times. Yarnall examines the
works of Apollonius of Rhodes, Vergil, and Ovid with a particular
emphasis on how their Circes differ from that of Homer. In each
case, as Yarnall points out, the presence of the goddess is
minimized or, in the case of Ovid, trivialized. Thus in the
Argonautica Circe merely serves to purify Jason and Medea
before they continue on their voyage, while in the Aeneid
Circe is only present insofar as Aeneas has the presence of mind
to avoid her island entirely. By contrast, Ovid paints a picture
of a Circe who is conquered by her own lust, living among her
beasts in the eternal languishing of her carnal desires. Once
again Yarnall points to the disdain for the body that colours the
Roman perception of the goddess, and with it the growing ideology
of the female linkage with the material. This becomes even more
relevant at the dawning of Christianity within the empire. "The
Homeric allegorists' vision of a voluptuous Circe beckoning the
rational, temperate Odysseus to drink from her poisoned cup
possesses obvious similarities to the figure of Eve holding out
the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge to a still-innocent Adam in
Genesis 3...and the biases the early Church fathers brought into
its interpretation are essentially the same biases that the
allegorists brought to bear upon Circe" (p. 91). St. Paul, St.
Augustine, and Boethius are all considered in Yarnall's analysis,
and they wreak perhaps the greatest havoc on women's, thus
Circe's, status throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Through them the identification of women with nature, hence
sensuality, hence sin, is set at its greatest contrast with the
spiritual superiority of men, and the union of Circe and Odysseus
is transformed for the next several centuries into the conflict
of Circe and Odysseus.
Chapters 5 through 7 consider Renaissance through 17th century
portrayals of Circe, with special emphasis on Spencer's The
Faerie Queen and the works of John Milton. The most important
transformations Yarnall notes in these chapters are are the
reduction of Circe from goddess to enchantress/whore; and what
might be termed the stereotyping of Circe's character: the
archetype of the animal-oriented seductress going by names other
than Circe.
As Yarnall states at the end of Chapter 4, "...Circe, who
survived as a remnant of the ancient Goddess within the Mycenaean
setting of Homer's epic, could not survive with plentitude and
divinity intact in the Christian West" (p. 98). This comes across
most strongly in the images and quotes Yarnall draws from the
Renaissance Emblamata books, such as those of Alciati and
Whitney, wherein the authors warn their pious readers "of Circe's
cuppes beware," (fig. 15) and "Cavendum a meretricibus"
"Beware of Prostitutes" (p. 106). While Circe has lost the fear
she aroused from her immortal powers, nonetheless her
transformative, bestial sensuality is presented as terrifying in
itself. "Whatever their shortcomings in complexity, these emblem
books have the virtue of making graphic the root of the fear
evoked by the Circe myth: the fear of surrender to, of engulfment
by, sexual feelings" (p. 107). Yarnall also includes in this
chapter paintings from such artists as Dossi, Tibaldi, and
Carracci. Each presents a differing view of the "enchantress,"
from Dossi's "Circe" who presents wisdom tablets to her
menagerie, to Tibaldi's fresco showing Circe defending herself
from Ulysses' sword.
It is also here that Yarnall explores the Circe archetype
which evolves in the Renaissance. "The best known Circe figure in
English literature is not named Circe. Yet the ability of
Acrasia, the seductress of the Bower of Bliss at the end of book
2 of The Faerie Queen, to turn men...into animals leaves
little doubt about her mythological ancestry" (p. 127). Chapter 6
is dedicated entirely to Spencer's The Faerie Queen, where
Yarnall contrasts Spencer's Acrasia, the Circe-figure, with
Britomart, the chaste, noble heroine and "ancestor" of Queen
Elizabeth. The contrast is intended to show the furthest extremes
of British ideas of the feminine, and, ironically, the extent to
which both are destroyed or abandoned during the male-dominated
quests for the honour of Glorianna. The imbalance which Yarnall
sees between male/female, reason/body does not allow for a
successful contribution to the tale by the feminine, and thus
both "witch" and virgin aspects of the female must ultimately
come to naught by the end of Spencer's narrative.
Chapter 7 rounds out the Renaissance/Early Modern view of
Circe with particular emphasis on the poetry and mask plays of
Calderon, Lope de Vega, Tavistock, Townshend, and, most
importantly, Milton. Excluding the last of these, Yarnall
considers the most important element in the works of these men
Circe's consistent willingness to hand over her source of power,
usually in the shape of her "magic" wand, in exchange for love,
be it from Odysseus or some even less substantial ideal. Thus, at
the end of Townshend's Tempe Restored, "Circe, who as
Desire is always susceptible to Beauty, realizes the depravity of
her former zoological tastes and voluntarily gives up her magical
rod. Celestial Harmony floats down from above, Heroic Virtue
dances in from the wings" (p. 147). Milton, by contrast, offers
Western literature its first male Circe: Comus, the son of Circe
and Dionysos. Here as well the battle is between sexuality and
virtue, Comus vs an Attendant Spirit for possession of a
maiden. But, unlike his reconciliatory predecessors, Milton
banishes Comus/Circe: the body is not brought into submission to
the mind, but repressed entirely. In all cases the drawn-out
battle between body and mind has been won (on the spiritual
side), and the "Lovelorn Temptress," as Yarnall calls her, has
finally been brought into proper submission.
Once the battle is over, the pendulum begins its return arc,
and thus Yarnall arrives in the 19th and 20th centuries where an
entirely new approach to the goddess and what she represents
emerges. Chapter 8 looks at the artistic works of the
pre-Raphaelite school where Circe, just as beautiful and sensuous
as before, begins to appear as neither evil not submissive, but
empowered and enticing; she becomes again the entity whom Homer
first created to test and to aid Odysseus. The remainder of the
chapter is an analysis of Joyce's Ulysses, with particular
emphasis on the brothel of Bella Cohen. Some familiar themes are
already present: the Circe archetype assumed by a mortal, the
Circe figure as prostitute. But the major difference between
Joyce's Circe and those of the preceding two millennia is that
Joyce sees in transformation and sexuality a beneficial aspect.
It is within the brothel of Bella, the realm of Circe, that Bloom
is transformed from cuckold to masochist to saviour to the father
of Stephen Daedalus, and thus we might assume is healed of the
impotence caused by the death of his child. He is returned
younger and healthier than before, as were the men of Odysseus;
and he might return home, renewed, to the bed of his beloved and
overtly sexual wife, Molly.
Finally, in chapter 9, entitled "Her Voice," we hear the Circe
story from the female perspective. Here Yarnall examines the
works of Eudora Welty and Margaret Atwood. In them she sees an
entirely new perspective of the goddess, a view dominated not by
sensuality, but by the desire for companionship and an
understanding of the human mind. As Yarnall interprets Welty's
Circe, "No longer satisfied with the impersonal and elemental, or
with her own ability to control, she seems, like Homer's Calypso,
painfully caught between the divine and the human" (p. 186).
Likewise: "Atwood's cycle tells the story of a love, an intense
but brief affair that goes through many seasons of feeling during
its short span of time" (p. 187). The themes presented are no
longer matters of conquest and repression, but examinations into
the unknown, especially concerning matters of mortality and
intimacy, issues which have come under renewed scrutiny in the
late 20th century.
In its praise, Transformations of Circe is certainly
exhaustive, well-researched, and inclusive. Likewise, I think
that Yarnall takes an interesting approach to the study of the
goddess, examining portrayals of Circe vis-a-vis a society's
ideals and opinions concerning women and the body. This is, after
all, one of the primary purposes of comparative literature.
There are, however, flaws within the work, the most blatant of
which is Yarnall's biased feminism. While it is certainly
regrettable that women have been associated with the "lower
elements" throughout the centuries, and thus have been repressed
as inferiors, Yarnall's vehemence against all artists who portray
Circe in a negative light detracts from the scholarly value of
her book. Also, as she herself admits, her feminist biases colour
her understanding of the Circe-Odysseus myth, and thus rather
than arriving at an understanding of how Homer and his audience
originally understood the figure of Circe, Yarnall projects back
what she would like to believe about the Circe myth. Thus entire
chapters dedicated to the notions of universal, monotheistic
goddess-worship, an idea for which there is no evidence, and the
equality of the sexes, which I doubt was an overwhelming concern
of either Homer or his fellow Greeks. In so doing, Yarnall
ignores alternate interpretations of the Odyssey, such as
concepts of sophrosyne and the heroic journey, and thus
she is unable to fit the encounter between Circe and Odysseus
into the larger framework of the Odyssey. Perhaps, if
Yarnall had offered a translation of the Circe-Odysseus passages,
instead of merely a "re-telling" she would have been obliged to
focus on Homer's words instead of her own suppositions. This
shaky foundation then colours the rest of Circe's evolution
throughout Transformations; as Yarnall cannot quite
determine what Circe is originally, she cannot properly assess
into what Circe changes.
In sum, I would say that Transformations of Circe is
both interesting and valuable reading for anyone interested in
comparative literature. However, the general reader should be
cautioned when reading what Yarnall has to say about the
Classical and Pre-Classical world.