ADMETUS AND THE TRIUMPH OF FAILURE IN EURIPIDES’ ALCESTIS

Abstract

Elucidation of the imbricate ironies in the Alcestis has been an important dimension of much of the scholarship on the play during the past twenty five years. Another type of inquiry, best represented by the work of A. P. Burnett, has been the identification of typologies of plot and scene. Both approaches share, however, a common deficiency in the subjectivity of their analyses of character. Is Heracles ‘a big-hearted, stupid glutton and drinker’ (Beye) or ‘the one man in the world who does not pursue a hedonistic career’, the hero whose ‘cause is freedom, the freedom of spirit and freedom of action’ (Rosemeyer)? How are we to view Admetus’ spontaneous proposal to commission a statue of Alcéstis as a surrogate wife for his bed? Is this ‘a promise that is positive, delicately stated, and filled with a powerful meaning’ (Burnett), or is it ‘difficult to believe that a fifth–century audience would not have found the idea ludicrous and disgusting’ (Beye)? Is Alcestis ‘a tragic heroine’, one whose love for Admetus motivated her sacrifice (Barnes, Dale), or a rather cold figure, not above emotional blackmail (Beye)? Is Admetus ultimately guided to success by his ‘nobility’ (Burnett) or one whose person, apart from his vague hosiotēs (‘piety’), offered no particular interest to Euripides (Dale)? A sampling shows that the discrepancy of critical perception is often so intense as to suggest the existence of an entirely new, exquisitely subtle facet of Euripidean irony which survives as a wilfully dolose legacy to the community of scholars.