The Search for the Self in Statius’ Thebaid. Identity, Intertext and the Sublime

Jean-Michel Hulls, The Search for the Self in Statius’ Thebaid. Identity, Intertext and the Sublime (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021). 9783110717785.

Reviewed by François Mottais, Université Paris Nanterre / École nationale des chartes, fmottais@parisnanterre.fr.

Jean-Michel Hulls presents here a study of the construction of a certain number of characters from the Thebaid, primarily approached from the perspective of the question of their identity. This issue is addressed through Hulls’s in-depth analysis of how Statius engages with a variety of intertexts. The main point is to show, through multiple examples, that the identities of those characters are constructed using various literary intertexts but also always fail to fully meet the expectations set by those same intertexts. Hulls’s second point is to show how Statius often uses the sublime, understood as an “aesthetic experience” (p. xliii), to present the characters’ attempts to build their own identity.

Hulls starts his introduction by illustrating how intertextual play complicates the work of constructing the identity of certain characters or groups of characters. Hulls offers an original reading of certain passages of the poem in light of their borrowing from Greek historiography, departing from the more usual, poetry-centered analysis of Statius’s Greek intertexts. Secondly, the author interrogates the poetic identity of Statius himself, notably through a comparison between the Silvae and the pseudo-Virgilian Culex that allows Hulls to highlight what he aptly calls Statius’s “authorial anxiety” (p. xxi) in the Thebaid, a poem described as labile in terms of genre. Hulls then proceeds to demonstrate and explain the theoretical underpinnings of the interpretations he will propose regarding the “self,” primarily drawing on Hegel and Žižek. The conceptual clarifications provided in this complex section are particularly welcome, as Hulls constantly uses this philosophical framework in the rest of the book. Lastly, the author briefly outlines a reflection on the role of the sublime in the Thebaid.

The book is then divided into five chapters of varying importance and length. The first chapter is entirely focused on the character of Polynices and generally follows a chronological order. Hulls extensively discusses the storm that the hero undergoes during his journey towards Argos (book 1), and the reader will successively find therein the different points developed in the introduction put to good use. Thus, Hulls reflects on the formation of the character’s identity inspired using the works of Hegel and Žižek, showing how the Hegelian concept of the “Night of the World” can be adapted to analyze Polynices’ attempt to construct his identity. This main point is fortified both by intertextual analysis (notably drawing on Virgil and Propertius) and a proposed reading of the passage through the prism of the aesthetics of the sublime. Hulls’s analysis is all the more convincing as these different angles complement each other nicely and lend further strength to the author’s point. The remainder of the chapter, also of high interest, illustrates Hulls’s thesis, which sees Polynices as a character who never manages to assume a distinct identity: he fails to be the loving husband and father in Argos (book 2) just as he fails to clearly separate himself from the figure of his brother. Hulls logically concludes this chapter with the dual climax represented by the fratricidal duel in book 11, where the indistinction between the two brothers is particularly evident, and the scene of cremation in book 12, which reenacts Polynices’ failure to acquire a distinct identity.

Hulls considers this aporia (a conundrum) as reflecting the impossibility for Thebes to achieve political stability, an element he explores in detail in the second chapter, the longest in the book. The chapter is devoted at first to tyrannical figures in the poem, particularly Eteocles, Jupiter, and Creon. Hulls begins his demonstration with a reminder of the importance of the tyrant figure as a type, emphasizing traits commonly associated with it (such as saeuitia, auaritia, and libido). He logically proceeds to highlight the rhetorical nature of accusations of tyranny towards various autocrats in the poem, allowing him to effectively put in relation this archetypal figure with the characters of Eteocles, Jupiter, and Creon, showing how their identities are precisely absorbed by this tyrant type, which they paradoxically constantly fail to attain. The author’s analysis of Eteocles’ failure to adopt, in spite of all his efforts, a deceptive behavior (considered as a well-established tyrannical trait) is particularly relevant, as it mirrors Polynices’ own inability to construct a proper identity, even one of the tyrant, a type particularly well known in previous Latin literature. The following parts of this chapter are equally convincing, as Hulls manages to draw strong parallels between the three characters that he takes into consideration: the weakness of Jupiter is appropriately emphasized and Hulls aptly highlights Creon’s inability to escape the role of the tyrant that annihilates his individuality, making him nothing but a second Eteocles as he fails to fully meet the demands of the tyrant type. The second part of this chapter focuses on the study of critical discourses on tyranny in the poem, with Hulls demonstrating how Statius undermines these different speeches through their highly unrealistic nature. Particularly noteworthy are the analyses of the suicides of Menoeceus and Maeon, accompanied by a very relevant discussion of the shift in the perception of suicide in Roman aristocratic circles from the Neronian age. Hulls suggests that suicide as an act of political protest no longer receives as positive a reception under the Flavians as it did in the first part of the first century, even if such episodes are quite numerous in Seneca’s and Lucan’s poetry. While the suicides of Menoeceus and Maeon are well handled, Hulls’s conclusion about their uselessness, already noted by some critics, may be somewhat abrupt, and the author perhaps overly emphasizes the tyrannical nature of Menoeceus’s suicide. Hulls then returns to the tyrants themselves, detailing convincingly the reuse of elegiac topoi in their characterization. This lengthy chapter could perhaps have been divided into two distinct sections, one dealing with the tyrants and the other with the various criticisms leveled against them.

The third chapter focuses on the figures of Oedipus and, more briefly, Theseus. Using numerous textual parallels, Hulls highlights the fact that Oedipus undergoes a form of overdetermination due to his recurrence in Greco-Latin literature, a trait that Statius regularly emphasizes when evoking this character. Hulls then briefly departs from the figure of Oedipus to consider that of Tisiphone, rightly emphasizing that she is primarily invoked in an ekphrastic mode. Aptly confronting elements of art history and Statius’s intertexts, Hulls shows how problematic this representation of Tisiphone is. He links it with the well-known images of Medusa, rightly pointing to Lucan’s model, but his conclusion (Medusa showing the emptiness of Tisiphone’s character, p. 141) is perhaps a bit far-fetched, even if the following study is quite convincing. Hulls thus explores the intertextual relationships that Statius maintains with Seneca’s Thyestes, as the Flavian poet uses the character of Tantalus to construct the characters of Oedipus and Tisiphone. The analysis of Oedipus’s appearance in book 11 is of great interest, as both intratextual and intertextual links are taken into account. Hulls draws a convincing parallel between Oedipus’s emerging from the shadows and the death of Amphiaraus in books 7 and 8, both episodes being linked by a shared Virgilian memory. Theseus, on the other hand, is mentioned more briefly. Hulls uses the numerous critical discussions of book 12 to offer a very relevant analysis of this character, placing him under the sign of ambiguity, following Rebeggiani’s analyses.¹ His commentary on the description of Theseus’s shield (pp. 158–61), rightly defined as a highly sublime object (p. 160), is remarkable and deserves to be read alongside the analyses recently proposed by Francesca Econimo.²

In his fourth chapter, Hulls turns to the figure of Statius himself, successively analyzing the most distinctly metapoetic passages of the Thebaid using the numerous hypotexts used by our poet. After studying the narrative of Hypsipyle in book 5, Hulls examines the episode of the funeral pyres in book 6. His interpretation of the woodcutting motif is very convincing as a metapoetic moment where Statius tries to define the poetics of the Thebaid in response to prestigious literary predecessors, including his own Silvae. The theme of the blurring of the boundaries between different universes is then further explored in the study of the muddied Langia river scene in book 4, where the cross-influence of Callimachus and Horace is used by Statius to question the value of his own poem. Hulls then turns to the figure of Amphion in the opening verses of the Thebaid, particularly highlighting the complex influence exerted by Propertius (especially 1.7) through the figure of Ponticus. He then revisits the early verses of the poem, demonstrating that the choice of subject is primarily made in a negative mode that is understood in the light of previous poetic treatments of the Theban myths. This is a crucial moment in the construction of Statius’s poetic persona, which Hulls tightly links to the character of Oedipus. Finally, Hulls turns to the sphragis, emphasizing that while the Aeneid is an explicit reference for Statius, the influence of the Eclogues is also of great importance. The author sees in the end of the poem a clear moment of separation between the poet and his work, the latter acquiring autonomy and its own existence. Thus, a triple relationship is established between the poet and the poem, detailed by Hulls: husband-and-wife, father-and-child, and master-and-slave (p. 205).

The final chapter, presented in the form of a lengthy conclusion, is dedicated to the figure of Statius as he appears in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Hulls emphasizes that Dante’s reuse of the Thebaid’s sphragis allows him to adopt a position of deference towards his predecessors, particularly Statius. The author’s analyses in this chapter, which rely on Dante’s mixed references to Virgil and Statius and incorporate elements from the Achilleid, are undoubtedly interesting, but they may appear somewhat tangential to the main focus of the book. Hulls, however, clearly states that this chapter can be understood as an “afterword.”

Overall, this work only lends itself to very few criticisms. I would note a certain imbalance between the chapters, which may perhaps slightly diminish Hulls’s effectiveness in promoting his theses, although this does not constitute a major issue. There are occasional mistakes in the Latin text, which often seem to be due to an automatic corrector that has turned some Latin words into English terms (see p. 6 tumult for tumultu, p. 79 nubile for nubila twice, p. 100 conatos for conatus, p. 129 sics ipsa for scis ipsa). However, these are only minor reproaches compared to the overall value of this very well-informed work (the bibliography at the end of the volume is particularly extensive). Hulls offers us a renewed perspective on some of the most discussed passages in the Thebaid, and his approach, clearly explained, is relevant and allows him to take advantage of the numerous textual parallels he identifies in a very convincing manner. Moreover, the dialogue established between the sublime and the construction of identity, even if less developed than the pervasive intertextual analyses, is highly persuasive. Even if Hulls’s chosen approach limits the range of analysis to the main characters of the poem, it is obvious that this work will be of great methodological use for studies dealing with different parts of the Thebaid.

Table of Contents

Introduction (xi–xlv)
1. Vagus exul: Polynices and the Search for the Self (1–46)
2. Identity Politics: Exploring Tyranny in the Thebaid (47–120)
3. Nil ego: Oedipus, Theseus and Poetic Identity (121–63)
4. Unde ire iubetis ire, deae? Statius and Poetic Identity (164–213)
5. Afterword? Per te poeta fui: Dante’s Statius and the Re-Writing of Literary History (214–37)

Notes

1. Stefano Rebbegiani, The Fragility of Power: Statius, Domitian, and the Politics of the Thebaid (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).

2. Francesca Econimo, La parola e gli occhi. L’ekphrasis nella Tebaide di Stazio, (Pisa : Edizioni della Normale, 2021). Hulls, who finished his book in 2020, unfortunately did not have access to Econimo’s study.