The
Idealization of Pederasty in Archaic Greek Poetry and
Vase-Painting
In
1985, Foucault declared that pederasty was
"problematized" in Greek culture:
it was (1985.193) "the
object of a special &emdash; and especially intense
&emdash; moral preoccupation."
Today this concept is widely accepted:
even scholars critical of Foucault accept or extend it (Cohen
1991.171-202, Hubbard 1998.49).
However, a close analysis of the evidence for pederasty in
Archaic Greece &emdash; principally lyric/elegiac poetry
and vase-painting &emdash; suggests that this was not yet
true in this period.
Foucault claimed that pederasty was (1985.192) "subjected to
an interplay of positive and negative appraisals."
This is undoubtedly true in Classical Athenian texts.
While the Archaic sources also present a variety of views,
however,. none is negative:
each author or genre associates pederasty with the ideals
he/it valorizes. Thus,
in this paper, I will argue that pederasty was not
"problematized" in Archaic Greece; instead, it was
universally (if variously) idealized.
As
Edmunds (1988) has shown, pederasty in the Theognidea is
not problematized in Foucault's sense.
The Classical period's concern with the eromenos'
chastity/moderation is not present in the Theognidea;
instead, (1988.82) "the self-concern of the lover is
paramount" in this tradition, and "the particular form of
his self-concern is the dread of domination by his
passion." I
will extend Edmunds' analysis of the Theognidea and
compare the Theognidea's view with that of Anacreon, the
other best-preserved author of pederastic verses.
Finally, I will show that Athenian vase-painting offers
parallels to their views.
In
both the Theognidea and Anacreon, the poet's persona
exemplifies the author/tradition's ideals.
Thus these poets' self-representation as erastai
locates pederasty within their systems of ideals.
Nonetheless, the two poets/traditions present contrasting
visions of pederasty.
In the Theognidea, pederasty is a part of the elite male's
method of passing on his wisdom and loyalties to his
younger associates.
Anacreon largely eschews the political and the pedagogical;
his relations with boys revolve around purely erotic
desire. Indeed,
in contrast to the Theognidea, Anacreon assimilates boys
to women (fr. 360) &emdash; with whom there is no
question of pedagogy.
This does not, however, mean that pederasty is less idealized
for Anacreon. Anacreon
valorizes the purely erotic and the Dionysiac, and it is
with these things that he connects pederasty.
Indeed, when, unlike the Theognidea, Anacreon offers examples
of dispraised male sexual behavior (ffr. 388, 424), he
makes no connection between these and pederasty.
There
are considerable parallels to each of these views in
contemporary Athenian vase-painting.
Many of the gifts offered by erastai
to eromenoi
in vase-painting (hares, lyres, etc.) have pedagogical
associations, as do other elements of costume and setting
which connect pederastic scenes to athletics and the
hunt: thus,
like the Theognidea, vase-painting portrays pederasty as
pedagogical. Other
aspects of this iconography, however, emphasize the
erotic/Dionysiac aspects of pederasty; kalos
inscriptions, for instance, emphasize the importance in
it of beauty &emdash; and hence desire.
Yet as in Anacreon, the presence of the erotic does not
detract from pederasty's idealized status:
several crucial elements in vase-painting symbolize the sexual
moderation of the lovers, which vase-painting &emdash;
again like Anacreon &emdash; contrasts sharply with
dispraised sexual behavior/attitudes, represented in
particular in Tyrrhenian komos
scenes.
Thus
while our Archaic sources offer differing views of
pederasty, all associate it with the highest ideals in
their value system and dissociate it from other sexual
behaviors they dispraise.
Foucault's "problematization" is not present in the evidence
for pederasty in the Archaic period.
Abstracts
Index