Are There Topics that Cannot Be Treated in Literature - Essay Example

Nabeel Jessani (1126309) R. Nagel 221 November 6 2006 Are there topics that cannot be treated in literature? Although the poet, or the dramatist, may have felt keenly the need to express specific topics in their writings, such as the premeditated murder of one’s own children as in Euripides’ ‘Medea’ or the explicitly sexual nature of the sentiments contained in Catullus’ ‘Carmen 16’, the reactions of the public to such detailed writings have not always been completely accepting. While each might be seen as the justified expression of a tortured soul, they can also be easily interpreted as the ravings of a sickly twisted individual even though both seek to express the more passion-filled emotions experienced by humankind. Rather than limiting the types of topics that can be addressed, or attempting to classify topics into a hierarchy of worthiness, it is important to appreciate the utter truth that both Euripides and Catullus attempt to express, each in their own way, regarding the human condition. In ‘Medea’, the character Medea, a descendent of the sun god Helios, forsakes her father, her country and her heritage in order to marry Jason. After she has given him two sons, Jason decides he would rather be married to the princess Glauce, daughter of Creon. Although she has been banished from the kingdom by Creon so that she might do no further harm to his daughter, Medea is able to convince the king to allow her to stay just one more day. She then sends her sons to the new bride with poisonous gifts that kill her. Then Medea kills her own two sons in order that no one else might harm them and whisks their bodies off “to Hera’s domain” in a chariot pulled by a dragon so that Jason will not even have the comfort of seeing them properly buried. In this play, Medea is portrayed as a violent woman, subject to inappropriate fits of temper even for the time period in which she lives. “The inconsistency of Medea’s character, and her fluctuation between conflicting motives, were censured by some ancient critics; but it is a striking proof of their narrowness and insensibility, that they should have selected for criticism what is now generally regarded as the finest portion of the work” (Haigh, 1896). Despite the fact that Medea was an ancient traditional tale, Euripides brought new light on the subject by causing the mother to deliberately commit the murders of her sons. Although infanticide had been a common practice at many times throughout history, it was rarely featured as a primary feature of literature. When the topic of infanticide was featured in stories, such as in the stories of Abraham and Isaac or in Agamemnon and Iphigenia, it was not done so with the primary purpose of illustrating the psychology of the main character as it is used by Euripedes. “The notion of a mother murdering her own offspring for the sake of revenge imparts to the legend a profound psychological significance of which there was previously no trace, and forms, in fact, the key-stone of the whole play” (Haigh, 1896). This introduction of psychology to the drama is captured in Medea’s deliberations regarding what she plans to do: “I shudder at the deed I must do next; for I will slay the children I have borne; there is none shall take them from my toils, and when I have utterly confounded Jason’s house I will leave the land.” In this, she illustrates that her decision to murder her sons is not only founded on the concept that she wishes to exact complete revenge upon Jason, but also to be sure that no one else gains control over her through them or gains control over their comfort and safety apart from her. Only by killing them can she be sure that they will come to no harm at the hands of her enemies just as only by killing them can she be sure of her revenge upon Jason. In addition to the shocking topic of infanticide, Euripides resurrects the idea of a strong woman character. Despite common misconceptions of ancient Greece as being a haven for original democracy, in reality, women had very few freedoms. A distinct division was made between the role of the wife and the role of the woman who was not a wife which typically meant prostitute, slave or servant as there were few jobs a woman could hold within the Athenian society (Thompson, 2005). In making her exit from Corinth, Medea has decided to make sure that she is remembered as a woman of strength and knowledge rather than a woman disgraced: “Let no one deem me a poor weak woman who sits with folded hands, but of another mould, dangerous to foes and well-disposed to friends; for they win the fairest fame who live then, life like me.” Throughout the play, Medea’s wealth of emotion is played out in full measure, demonstrating the depths of her despair and conviction that her life as she’s known it is completely over with no hope for happiness to follow, as well as her lethal resolve to seek the deadliest revenge possible known to the Corinthians in her destruction of Jason and Creon’s houses. By introducing these tragic topics to the theatre, Euripides suffered many harsh criticisms, yet was able to create one of the more memorable tragedies of his period. In his use of a traditional mythological story, Euripides provided his character with a cultural history, well-known to his audience and already containing associations with the world of Hecate and magic as well as her association with the sun-god Helios and previous relationship, and betrayals committed, with Jason. “The moral of the tragedy, though not distinctly stated, is sufficiently obvious. The guilty partnership of Jason and Medea, which had been originally cemented by treachery and murder, ends, not in happiness, but in suspicion, jealousy, and merciless revenge” (Haigh, 1896). In addition, Medea is provided with time to explain the reasons for her actions, appealing not only to her neighbors, but also to Euripides’ audience. She pleads for the sympathies of her neighbors by outlining her current desperate state of affairs: And yet they say we live secure at home, while they are at the wars, with their sorry reasoning, for I would gladly take my stand in battle array three times oer, than once give birth. But enough! this language suits not thee as it does me; thou hast a city here, a fathers house, some joy in life, and friends to share thy thoughts, but I am destitute, without a city, and therefore scorned by my husband, a captive I from a foreign shore, with no mother, brother, or kinsman in whom to find a new haven of refuge from this calamity. His rendition of the story, though, infusing it with the forbidden topic of infanticide, introduced a psychological element to literature that had not been seen before. This ability to explain her situation as if she were a normal woman of Greece, having adopted their customs as her own, brings Medea’s actions to an understandable level within both the context of human suffering as well as in the context of the historical background. While Euripides places his comments in the context of traditional mythology, providing it with both a history and a space for understanding appeal, Catullus provides neither in his poem ‘Carmen 16’. In this poem, he utilizes the most vulgar language he can invent to assert male dominance over his rivals, Aurelius and Furius, in sexual terms. The poem is a form of invective poetry that was popular in Rome in Catullus’ time, but is unique in its blatant disregard for ‘sensitive’ readers or polite expression as evidenced in the particular language used and his own admission that poems designed to appeal to his typical audience can usually be classified as “rather sissy” (Carmen 16, 4). Indeed, as he defends his poetry and his own character to his readers through his harangue against these two men, Catullus descends to crude language as a means of asserting his point – that he can speak in as masculine a tone as he wishes, but chooses not to because lovers of poetry don’t necessarily wish to hear such base descriptions. This masculinity is expressed throughout the poem, but especially in the identical first and final lines: “Ill bugger you and stuff your gobs” (Catullus, 1990). As Kimberley Koper (2004) explains, Roman society viewed sexual relations as always consisting of an active and a passive partner. In these relationships, the passive partner was usually the woman, but could also be a man, boy, slave, freedman or foreigner. In all circumstances, the passive role was seen as serving its master because only the active role was deemed to be capable of achieving full satisfaction. By taking on the role of the penetrator, Catullus establishes his own dominance over these individuals by placing them in the female role. “For both genders, but especially for men, being the passive participant in anal sex meant humiliation … The only thing that would have constituted a worse disgrace for a man would be to function as the giver of oral sex” (Koper, 2004). Of course, Catullus includes this other action equally as strongly as the first in his suggestion that he will “stuff your gobs”. By buggering them in literary form, as well as insisting they perform oral sex upon him, Catullus is able to force both men into a subservient, slave-like role because they are being used to provide Catullus with his own sexual gratification. At the same time, his positioning automatically establishes Catullus as the domineering male partner in this verbal brawl and his poetry as the stronger, more masculine language. This is done to such a degree, with such abject degradation upon his foes, that Catullus is forced to substantiate the extent of his actions by discussing in greater detail the injustices committed upon him through their criticisms. In his defense, Catullus insists much of his poetry is, indeed, couched in the more polite terminology expected by genteel society. It is indicated within the poem that it is this tendency to phrase his meaning in subtle and refined language that has brought the negative attention of these two men, Aurelius and Furius: “… because my verses, / Are rather sissy, not quite decent” (Carmen 16, 3-4). This phrase, repeated later in the poem, suggests two interpretations. The first being that Catullus himself does not behave in a quite decent manner and the second being that his verses, although politely phrased, are also not quite decent. Again alluding to the idea of the passive partner, it can be inferred that the more gentle language of Catullus’ other poetry has led these two men to make comments regarding Catullus’ personal sexual habits, suggesting that he has been ‘not quite decent’ in his own choice of sexual relationships, perhaps playing the passive host himself. This, then, becomes a personal insult to Catullus’ character, tantamount to a challenge among knights of the medieval period and a libel lawsuit in today’s lexicon. More than simply asserting his masculinity over the two men who have questioned his personal integrity, Catullus finds it necessary to again assert the idea that he is not guilty of taking the passive sexual role in his statement that “… the true poet should be chaste / Himself, his verses need not be” (Carmen 16, 5-6). To prove his verses are not merely the stuff of passive, indirect speech, Catullus uses his phrase ‘sissy, not quite decent’ again to refer to his verses, claiming them to be much more masculine in nature than one might at first imagine. “Indeed, they’ve salt and charm then only / When rather sissy and not quite decent / And when they can incite an itch” (Carmen 16, 7-9). In other words, Catullus indicates a subtle suggestion (rather sissy) of lewd topics (not quite decent) is more enticing to a mature audience than blatant references to sexual acts. This emphasis on the ability of his poetry to stir the mature male Roman figure is another dig at the masculinity of his accusers, indicating that they are not male enough to understand the underlying message behind the polite phraseology even as he again re-establishes the masculine nature of the poetry itself. “His crass promise to Furius and Aurelius con­trasts with the sweet, relatively chaste tone of the kissing poems, and assures them, as well as the reader, that despite his tender tone, there is no reason to think of Catullus as being soft. He has gotten his revenge for the insults of his friends; using this threat, he has made a mockery of them” (Koper, 2004). Although he used language that was considered unacceptable for literary use, and in ways that were considered downright crude by his own standards of the time, Catullus demonstrates through his own justifications why this type of language was absolutely necessary in order to achieve the effect to be conveyed through the poem written. In no other way could Catullus hope to achieve the same sort of affirmation of his own sexuality and masculinity and the power of his own poetry while also so denouncing his rivals as to make them appear ineffectual, effeminate sodomites. Because he was being criticized for his poetry tending too much to the ‘sissy’ side, it was necessary for him to assert himself in terms that could only be identified as masculine, which itself forced him to use language in such a way that would not normally appear as poetic. Because his personal masculinity was being questioned, he found it necessary to respond as a cuckolded man, enacting the same kind of sexual debasement (in words) upon his enemies as they had enacted (again in words) upon himself. To avoid being perceived as a masochist, out to find pleasure in the suffering and defilement of another man, Catullus also found it necessary to justify his strong behavior within the context of the work itself. This circumstance also achieved the result of illustrating for readers throughout the years to understand the need for such a coarse approach. In both Catullus’ “Carmen 16” and Euripides “Medea”, then, one can find the excess of human emotion fully expressed and put into action in two different, but very necessary ways. For Catullus, rage over his own mistreatment and defense of his poetry was uppermost in his mind, coming through as crude and disgraceful language that nevertheless managed to prove its point. For Euripides, the expression of his own concerns was couched in the mythology of his people, with a subtle but significant shift that opened up whole new worlds of creative expression and exploration. In each case, the writers opted to explore topics and terminology that had been considered, up to that point and at several different times throughout history, to be taboo subjects and unutterable words. Had they determined to respond to their critics by returning the story to the most prevalent legend or by softening the language used to illustrate a point, each would have lost the primary driving force of their work. This lack of censorship, and willingness to push the limits of topics that could not be covered in literature, both achieved the authors’ primary objectives as well as illustrated the importance of allowing full exploration of the human condition, which could only be attained by breaking the status quo and going where no author had dared to dream. Works Cited Catullus. “Carmen 16.” The Complete Poems. Guy Lee (Trans.). Oxford: Oxford’s World’s Classics, 1990. Euripedes. Medea. 431 BC. The Internet Classics. E. P. Coleridge (Trans.). November 4, 2006 Haigh, A.E. “Medea: An Analysis of the Play by Euripides.” The Tragic Drama of the Greeks. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896, pp. 289-91. November 4, 2006 Koper, Kimberley. “The Power of Sexuality in the Poetry of Catullus.” (2004). Brown University. November 4, 2006 < http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Classics/bcj/17-04.htm> Thompson, James C. “Women in Athens.” Women in the Ancient World. (November 2005). November 4, 2006 < http://www.womenintheancientworld.com/women%20in%20ancient%20athens.htm> Read More