Marriage to Death. The Conflation of Wedding and Funeral Rituals in Greek Tragedy.

Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1996. 3rd impr. XVIII,246p. ills. Paperback. 'The merits of this study is the systematic gathering of references to marriage and death rituals (as advertised). As the jacket blurb states 'the parallels between Greek wedding and death rituals have never been followed through a series of different tragedies as they have here.' Fair enough. This is a useful and profitable endeavor, as is the convenient presentation of practical and iconographical evidence of the first two chapters. Some of the readings and insights (as of Euripides' Suppliants, omitting the facile efforts to historicize and moralize) are worthy on their own, even for more familiar plays. R. knows his Greek, knows the scholarly literature, and works closely with texts in dissertation-like paraphrase. But the second part of the blurb that claims the contribution of this study as revealing 'that these rituals are not used to provide stability but are instead altered in ways that shake up the audience' or that this study offers a 'new perspective on Greek tragedy' is far less accurate. The complexity and significance of ritual acts in tragedy are principles discovered long ago and are subjects of continuing interest and sophisticated criticism. To state that 'wedding and funeral rituals provided a warp to match the woof of traditional mythology, on which was woven the cultural 'rug' of Athenian self-expression' (p. 139) and that 'in the hands of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the ritual/mythological rug did not sit still but was shifted and even pulled out from under those in the audience' (p. 140) hardly represents a major advance in our thinking. A truly dramaturgical kind of reading in the context of performance theory by one who works in modern theater and has practical experience of its operation might have done much to overcome the sense of this study's epigonal qualities and its need to resort to the subjunctive mood and sentimental rhetoric in order to find a civic context for ritual allusions in tragic action.' (F.I. ZEITLIN in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 95.02.05).