Speech Acts and Greek Lyric Poetry: An Example from Alcaeus

Although it is relatively common to see references to speech acts or the work of speech act theorists in literary criticism, the transition of this term from its theoretical home in the philosophy of language to its applied use has not always been straightforward. This project reviews the principles of speech act theory and the benefit that this language model has for understanding how speakers in Greek lyric poetry influence the attitudes, beliefs, and actions of their hearers. The central argument of the project is that such speakers use a close relationship with divinity, command of mythic knowledge, or a connection to prophecy to demonstrate their authority to the audiences of their speech acts.

My current project is a monograph tentatively entitled “Speaking about Gods: Mythic Knowledge and Narrative Authority in Greek Lyric Poetry.” This project considers the question of how speakers generate authority for their speech ats in the context of Greek lyric poetry from the late archaic and early classical periods, examines how poetic speakers demonstrate their authority, and argues that a close relationship with divinity, evidenced through prayers and mythic knowledge, served as emblems of authority for poets seeking to influence their audiences. [1]

The central questions of the book are who speaks when and to what effect; how speakers in Greek lyric poetry generate, signal, and leverage their authority; and how mythic knowledge functions as social and religious knowledge. The central argument that I have been developing in response to these questions is that speakers in Greek lyric poetry generate authority for their speech acts by demonstrating their knowledge of mythic narratives, their facility in interpreting those narratives, and their ability to communicate efficaciously with gods. The goal of this application of speech act theory to speakers within Greek poetry is to consider how these literary works interact with wider cultural patterns of speech and authority in the ancient Greek world.

Although it has become relatively common to see references to speech acts or even to the work of speech act theorists in literary criticism, the term has its origins in the philosophy of language. [2]

While the idea of speech acts has become part of literary theory, the transition of this term from its theoretical home in philosophy to its applied use has not always been straightforward. [3]

This project returns to first principles to explain how speech act theory can be effectively used in the study of literature in general, and Greek lyric poetry in particular.

The term “speech act” generally refers to any utterance that has propositional content and seeks to accomplish a particular objective rather than simply to convey meaning. John Austin is considered the pioneer of speech act theory, and his taxonomies and categories remain influential. [4]

Although some of the foundational concepts from Austin’s seminal work How to Do Things with Words factor into my understanding of and arguments about speech acts in Greek literature, it is the critiques, developments, and modifications of Austin by John Searle that form the basis of my methodology. Searle’s taxonomy of illocutionary acts provides an important model for understanding the relationship between speaker and audience in a variety of contexts and under a variety of conditions. [5]

For Searle, identifying the type of speech act being performed is based largely on what the speaker is trying to accomplish – the illocutionary point of the utterance – in combination with what the speaker actually says – the propositional content of the utterance. Other factors, such as the status of the speaker or the mood of the verb, contribute to the illocutionary force of the speech act. Illocutionary force is also what allows Searle to differentiate between subcategories of speech acts. Commands and requests, for example, both belong to the category of “directive” – speech acts through which the speaker attempts to make the hearer do something – but are different in respect to their force. [6]

If a speaker says, “Get out of my office,” the illocutionary point is to make the hearer do something: to leave the office. This means that the speech act fits into the category of a directive, and the illocutionary force, marked in this case by the imperative mood, makes it a command.

Taxonomizing speech acts is a useful way to think about how language gets used, but it is not the limit of possible analyses. Speakers, after all, address hearers and impact those hearers through their speech. When a speech act has been successfully performed, it impacts the behavior or attitudes of the audience and accomplishes a perlocutionary object by exerting perlocutionary force. [7]

If the speaker says, “Get out of my office” and the hearer leaves, the primary perlocutionary object of the utterance, that the hearer is no longer in the speaker’s office, will have been accomplished. In this example, the perlocutionary force, or the additions to the propositional content that make it likely that the hearer will respond as the speakers wishes, include the imperative mood, but also might include non-linguistic features such as a raised voice, a dramatic gesture, or the simple fact that the speaker is someone who could make the hearer’s life very difficult. In other words, while the propositional content of the speech act can contribute to the perlocutionary force, it is not the only factor that allows a speaker to influence their hearer. Besides the propositional content of the speech act, the relationship between the speaker and the hearer, the context of the speech act, and a variety of other external factors contribute to the development and exertion of perlocutionary force. This is essential for understanding how speakers convey their authority and exert perlocutionary force on their hearers: certain conditions must be in place for a speech act to succeed and to affect a change in the hearer’s attitudes, beliefs, or actions. One of the central arguments of this project is that these conditions for a successful speech act can be understand by considering the emblems of authority that speakers claim to have and which they use to influence their audiences. These can include physical symbols as well as demonstrations of mythic knowledge and assertions about close relationships with the gods.

As a Summer Fellow at the CHS, I was able to develop a chapter of my book project that uses speech act theory as a starting point for analyzing the authority of speakers in the poems of Alcaeus. I am particularly interested in the role that myth plays in this corpus, especially in poems that contain prayers or other requests. An example of this can be seen in the following case study that considers the use of myth in fr. 34 of Alcaeus’ corpus. Fr. 34 is a hymnic invocation of the Dioscuri and contains a request for an epiphany alongside an implicit request for aid. From the remains of the poem, it is evident that the speaker is relying upon the previous benefactions of Castor and Polydeuces to persuade the gods to intervene in the present moment. In addition to seeking the presence and aid of the gods, the prayer is also exerting perlocutionary force on the mortal audience of the poem.

I argue throughout this project that prayers in Greek poetry, including the invocation of the Dioscuri in fr. 34, address both a divine and mortal audience. Thus, as a speech act, each prayer is an utterance with two diverging illocutionary points and perlocutionary objects, reflecting the rhetorical position between the speaker and his hearers. This is illustrated in the diagram of the speech act of fr. 34 below.

This outline leaves the identity of the mortal audience intentionally obscure: it is reasonably clear that Alcaeus’ poetry enjoyed re-performances and resonated with audiences beyond archaic Lesbos. With this afterlife in mind, it is important to consider how the poem works on a basic level, stripped down to its component rhetorical parts. If, however, we take ancient commentators and Alcaeus himself at their word about the original audience of his poems, we can say more about how the prayer in this poem works as a speech act. While the general perlocutionary objects noted in this diagram still hold, the extenuating circumstances of the partisanship in Mytilene add some depth. If we understand the poet Alcaeus to be the speaker, what we see in fr. 34 is an attempt to buck up the courage and commitment of his fellows who made a vow to see their faction’s interests through to success or death. In order to accomplish this perlocutionary object, he needs his hearers to view him as trustworthy and authoritative in his exhortations. By demonstrating his knowledge of Castor and Pollux, and intimating a relationship with the gods, the speaker seeks to establish his authority in such a way that improves his success rate for this and other speech acts.

Thanks to the generous support from the Center for Hellenic Studies, I was able to use the six-week residency as a Summer Fellow in Hellenic Studies to make considerable progress on this project. In addition to developing the chapter on Alcaeus from which the case study above was drawn, I was also able to substantially revise two other chapters, which were originally part of my dissertation project. I also benefitted considerably from the intellectual community of the CHS, especially the support of the cohort of Summer Fellows whose feedback helped develop this project and lay the seeds for future work.