Roger Travis. Allegory and the Tragic Chorus in Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus.(Book Review)

Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1999. Pp. xii + 243. $27.95.

In Allegory and the Tragic Chorus, Roger Travis combines literary theory and Lacanian as well as object-relations psychoanalytic methodologies to study the chorus in Oedipus at Colonus. Travis's main argument is that there is an allegory, an extended metaphor that pervades the play, "the allegorical performance of the self's fantasy-contents" (10). This allegory connects the play to both Oedipus and the Athenian audience and further reveals, through the chorus, "the self's relation to the maternal body" (3), in this case the body of Jocasta.

Travis describes his methodology and outlines the main focus of his argument in the book's introduction. Using Quintilian's definition of "allegory," "allegorize," and "allegorical" (which is quite necessary in comprehending his point), Travis sets out to prove that Oedipus at Colonus as a tragedy can only be understood through what he calls its "choral allegory." By this he means the ways in which the chorus throughout the play can relate to both Oedipus and the audience, while at the same time it helps them relate to each other, all through the use of allegory, which is defined here as an extended, indefinite metaphor. The introduction is thorough and interesting in terms of understanding allegory within textual boundaries. For a good portion of the book, Travis discusses the treatment of allegory by Sigmund Freud, Joel Fineman, Angus Fletcher, and others with whose views he is in disagreement. His preference is for Melanie Klein's psychoanalytic model on account of the significance she assigns to fantasy. Travis also relates his approach to Nietzsche, for he claims that his central argument "can be derived from Nietzsche's dialectic" of the Apollonian and the Dionysian (25).

Chapter 2, "From End to Beginning," discusses in great detail the choral allegory of Oedipus at Colonus. Travis begins with an explanation of the powerful position of the chorus at the end of any tragedy, and more specifically of Oedipus at Colonus. He claims that, in having the last word, the chorus brings closure for the audience through allegorical action. This action brings the audience to a realization of reality and allegory at the same time; the stage, the actors, and the chorus are allegorized, while they are also "real" things and "real" people. Throughout this chapter, Travis works his way back to the beginning of the play, and uses different examples from the text to show the ways in which the chorus is allegorical. He discusses the relation of the chorus to the protagonist in terms of nurturing and phusis (begetting): "The young men will one day be old; the men, old and young, once passed through the body of a mother and will to that body, figuratively, return; old and young meet in the choral allegory, which embraces in the simultaneity of theatre and drama the sequential, chronological difference of its two sides and there fashions tragic meaning" (56). Here Travis speaks to the fact that while the actors of the chorus may be young, they are old onstage--an observation which can be true of Oedipus, too. Therefore this bridge between allegory and reality is drawn closer and related to the main themes of the play--the issues of age and youth, but more importantly of origin and birthplace. In closing, Travis remarks that his main goal thus far has been to consider the relationship between chorus and protagonist, which he defines as the bottom level of the "Colonean" allegory.

In order to discuss the higher levels of the Colonean allegory--that is, tragedy's relation to the polis (city, public)--Travis turns to Aeschylus's Suppliants in an attempt to understand the meaning of supplication as an allegorical structure in tragedy. In chapter 3, "Suppliant Drama, Suppliant Space," ...