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Characterisation in Greek Tragedy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

C. Garton
C. Garton
Affiliation:
King's College, Newcastle upon Tyne
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Extract

The editorial introduction to a Greek play will often include a section on the characters, in which their various traits are collected into a series of sketches. There may be sketches not only of the main characters but of minor, anonymous personages together with a sort of collective sketch of the chorus, and they are commonly made without fuss or discussion of critical theory. There has, of course, both here and in general books on the tragedians, always been room for differences of interpretation: as to whether, for example, Pentheus is moral or prurient. It is round such differences that discussion revolves, and the arguments have been heated enough. Why is the Aeschylean Agamemnon made to tread the purple carpet? Professor Thomson suggests that it is by reason of Clytemnestra's irresistible feminine charm. But since this charm, so far from being explicitly attested, is only an inference from three lines of dialogue; since the king has said a little earlier (in Thomson's own translation):

Seek not to unman me with effeminate

Graces and barbarous salaams agape

In grovelling obeisance at my feet—

from which any susceptibility to Clytemnestra's charm seems singularly absent; since, moreover, he has brought with him a concubine who is—

of many chattels the elect flower,

—one might be tempted to maintain that even if the charm is accepted as a help towards interpretation, there must be other reasons also for Agamemnon's acting as he does. Very well, you may say, modify the sketch to suit your taste.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 77 , Issue 2 , November 1957 , pp. 247 - 254
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1957

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References

1 Thomson, G., The Oresteia of Aeschylus, Vol. i, p. 17 Google Scholar. The lines quoted below are on p. 155.

2 Butcher, S. H., Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art (1st ed.), p. 323 Google Scholar.

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4 References are: (i) Lesky, A., ‘Die gr. Trag. in ihren jüngsten Darstellungen’, in Neue Jahrb. 7 (1931), p. 354 Google Scholar. (2) Singer, M., L'art de motiver dans les drames d'Eschyle, p. 59 Google Scholar. (3) Merry, W. W., Introd. to ed. of Frogs, p. 16 Google Scholar. (4) Zürcher, W., Die Darstellung des Menschen im Drama des Euripides, p. 20 Google Scholar. (5) Drexler, H., in Gnomon iii (1927), p. 452 Google Scholar.

5 Kitto, H. D. F., Greek Tragedy, p. 232 Google Scholar.

6 See esp. pp. 146, 159, from which I quote.

7 von Wilamowitz, T., Die dramatische Technik des Sophokles (1917)Google Scholar, and Howald, E., Die gr. Trag. (1930)Google Scholar.

8 Howald, op. cit., p. 73.

9 Zürcher, W., Die Darstellung des Menschen im Drama des Euripides (1947)Google Scholar.

10 Bradley, A. C., Shakespearean Tragedy, p. 19 Google Scholar n.

11 Charlton, H. B., Shakespearian Comedy, p. 273 Google Scholar.

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13 Ibid., p. 73.

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15 Aristotle, Poetics 1450a21.

16 Choeph. 889.

17 Agam. 954–5.

18 O.T. 1186.

19 Agam. 1501–3.

20 Richard II, iii. 2 Google Scholar.

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25 Septem 187–8.

26 Captivi 765.

27 Murray, G., Euripides and his Age, p. 119 Google Scholar.

28 Cf. Waith, E. M., The Pattern of Tragicomedy in Beaumont and Fletcher, p. 170 Google Scholar.

29 I.A. 330.

30 I do not compare here the passage in the Antigone (904–20) which Jebb bracketed. It belongs to that point before the climax where dramatic technique always interferes with ordinary psychology; it is a piece of subdued, dreamy syllogizing which before long fitly gives place to lyric.