Although scholarly debates about the peculiarities surrounding Arete, her question to Odysseus (left unanswered for so long) at Od. 7.238 and the nature of her role in the hero’s nostos have filled many books, the queen of the Phaeacians has not previously been the subject of a monograph of her own. Justin Arft’s rich, densely argued monograph changes that, and in doing so raises the stakes of making sense of Arete: on Arft’s reading, this enigmatic figure is essential not only to Odysseus’ nostos, but to the Odyssey’s conception of kleos and its larger meaning-making strategies.
The book has two parts. Part I, comprising chapters 1 and 2, a25resses the core of Arete’s question, the phrase τίς πόθεν εἰς ἀνδρῶν; (‘Who and from where are you among men?’), which Arft refers to as ‘the stranger’s interrogation’. Chapter 1 explores ‘the stranger’s interrogation’ as an Indo-European formula in texts ranging from the Mahābhārata to late Graeco-Roman antiquity (a detailed appendix provides further analysis). Arft concludes that the essential features of this question across the texts surveyed include: (i) a demand that the person interrogated declare their fundamental worth (ii) to an interrogator who has power over them (iii) in a charged situation characterized by deep transformational potential; in the ancient Greek context specifically, (i) involves ‘a performance of kleos’ (22). Chapter 2 surveys instances of the ‘stranger’s interrogation’ and its variants in the Odyssey, arguing that it should be understood as part of a ‘poetics of interrogation’ that structures the Odyssey at various levels. This ‘poetics of interrogation’ is also closely linked to the Odyssey’s conception of nostos, which Arft defines as a ‘return to memories’ that are private and ‘expressed in joint recollection of sēmata’. These memories in turn provide the basis for the ‘poetic i10ortalization of Odysseus’ (59): that is, for his kleos.
Part II, comprising chapters 3–6, addresses Arete and the Phaeacians and involves a close reading of several passages from Odyssey 6–13. Chapter 3, ‘Phaeacian Multivalence’, explores the different resonances the Phaeacians evoke; it also sets up a sharp division between Arete and Alkinoos. Chapter 4 develops this analysis by positioning Alkinoos as a spokesman for a view of kleos that is martial, backward-looking and ultimately destructive. In Chapter 5, the culmination of many of the book’s arguments, Arft contends that Odysseus and Arete work together to construct a private, memory-oriented, forward-looking notion of kleos intimately connected with nostos. The first portion of the Nekuia, especially the Catalogue of Heroines, is a coded message to Arete, the long-delayed response to her question in Odyssey 7, which we can now see was really asking, ‘“On what basis should you be remembered?” or “What is your worth?”’ (229). Arete’s response in the so-called ‘intermezzo’ is decisive; thanks to her speech, ‘Odysseus is now formally recognized and identified in the modality of nostos … Odysseus has cast his fate in terms of the traditional homecoming, wherein his absence causes devastation, and woman determines his kleos’ (229). Chapter 6 argues that the brand of kleos Alkinoos represents gives way to Arete’s nostos-oriented model in what remains of the Phaeacian episode. Finally, the conclusion looks at the fate of the Phaeacians and then beyond, touching on the implications of the book’s argument for our understanding of Odysseus, the process by which the meaning of terms such as nostos and kleos are negotiated and the Odyssey’s place in the epic tradition.
The attractiveness of many of the book’s arguments should be clear from the above summary; the same may perhaps be true for some of their limitations. One of the book’s striking features is its unusually uncharitable attitude towards Alkinoos; similarly, it is surprising that its discussion of the Phaeacians’ multivalence (an astute term) includes few of the Phaeacians’ positive attributes. While this is framed as a ‘radical reinterpretation’ of Alkinoos and the Phaeacians, I would be curious to know how the book’s arguments might have been nuanced or enriched by consideration of passages such as Od. 7.43–45 and 7.78–135, which emphasize the Phaeacians’ fantastical prosperity and sophistication. This point need not undermine what I take to be the book’s most successful arguments, but it does raise more serious questions about what counts as resonant and what does not, when the ‘simplest or most evasive details’ (277) are ‘explosively connotative’ (233) and when they can be safely ignored.
More generally, which arguments readers will find persuasive (and how persuasive they find them) will likely vary depending on their assumptions about basic features of Homer’s poems and how we should interpret them. This is perhaps to be expected, however, and all readers of Arft’s book will benefit from new insights, large and small, into the significance of Arete, the nature of nostos and the structure and mechanics of the Odyssey.
