Ingrid
HOLMBERG "The Logos of Helen"
The figure of
Helen appears in 4 episodes in the Iliad and 2 in the Odyssey; each
appearance is accompanied by an authoritative speech act.
I will argue that Helen's voice fulfills very specific
functions within Homeric epic, and that these speech acts
represent the Helen in the Iliad and the Odyssey as a
remarkably stable figure whose characterization is
consistent, although developed, in the two texts. Part of
this consistency of characterization rests upon a
foundation of constant deferral, which may appear to be
multiplicity. Helen's voice is always looking elsewhere:
to the past, before the events in which she is
immediately involved have occurred, or to the future,
whose reception of the events she endeavors to control.
This constant deferral of events accounts for Helen's
ephemerality in the Homeric narrative, which is also
expressed through her physical transportability. Helen's
unwillingness to be "present" resides in the already
activated blame tradition towards her, which her own
speeches resist. This struggle against a blame tradition
and towards a praise tradition is Helen's dilemma: in the
economy of a heroic narrative of the Trojan War, there
will never be a praise tradition towards Helen. Her
narrative presence exists in a constant remembrance of
her blame tradition, which the Homeric text nevertheless
represents her as constantly deferring.
Helen has
recently received significant scholarly attention.
Clader, Suzuki, Austin and Gumpert have all written major
books which examine the figure of Helen within the Greek
tradition from various perspectives. Bassi and Bergren
have written influential articles. Helen is frequently
interpreted as a figure for language, even the figure
of language according to Gumpert. None of
these scholars, however, analyzes closely Helen's own
language in her Homeric speeches, which comprise the
largest part of Homer's representation of her. Nancy
Worman ("This Voice Which is Not One: Helen's Verbal
Guises in Homeric Epic", Making Silence Speak: Women's
Voices in Greek Litreature and Society,
Princeton, 2001) does address Helen's speech, but argues
that the figure of Helen in the Homeric texts is
"multiple" (20) and that she is characterized by "verbal
mutability" (19). My view is that Helen is a complex but
not "multiple" character, and that her verbal expressions
are on the contrary remarkably consistent.
Abstracts
Index