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V. Meaning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

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Extract

When we describe a work as ‘tragic’, one of the things we may imply is that in it human conduct is presented in counterpoint with forces beyond mankind’s control. In Greek tragedy this metaphysical dimension is supplied not by fate (a concept pretty well irrelevant to Greek tragedy) but by the purposes and actions of the gods. To a greater or lesser extent all Sophocles’ plays incorporate these purposes and actions as part of the drama. However, although there is general agreement that divine-human relations constitute an area crucial for our understanding of Sophocles, critics differ widely over how to interpret those relations.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Surveys in the Classics , Volume 16: Sophocles , 1984 , pp. 16 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

Notes

1. Cf.Rivier, A., Essai sur le tragique d’Euripide2 (Paris, 1975), pp. 140-1Google Scholar.

2. The relevance of the concept of fate to Greek tragedy has been urged by Thomas Gould in an article on Oed. Tyr. (Arion 5 (1966), 478-525) and in Gould (1970). His arguments are stimulating, but he tends to lump together ‘fate’ and ‘the gods’, obscuring the fact that, while the latter recur constantly in Greek tragedy, the former very definitely does not.

3. Bowra, C. M., Sophockan Tragedy (Oxford, 1944), p. 365 Google Scholar.

4. Bowra (1944), p. 367.

5. Whitman, C. H., Sophocles: a Study of Heroic Humanism (Cambridge, Mass., 1951)CrossRefGoogle Scholar represents the opposite pole to Bowra; cf. Johansen (1962), 152ff.

6. Cf. Segal (1981), p. 290.

7. See E. R. Dodds’ outstanding article, ‘On misunderstanding the Oedipus Rex ’, G & R 13 (1966), 37–49 Google Scholar, repr. in his The Ancient Concept of Progress (Oxford, 1973), pp. 64-77. The idea that the gods deliberately humiliate Oedipus has been shown to be quite untenable: cf. the criticisms of Bowra (1944) in Waldock (1951), pp. 149ff.

8. On the speaker - most probably the chorus - see Easterling (1982), ad loc.

9. See Muecke, D. C., The Compass of Irony (London, 1969)Google Scholar and Irony (London, 1970).

10. On sight/blindness/irony see Buxton (1980), Seale (1982).

11. On deception in Sophocles see Parlavantza-Friedrich, U., Täuschungsszenen in den Tragödien des Sophokles (Berlin, 1969)Google Scholar.

12. See Burton, R. W. B., The Chorus in Sophocles’ Tragedies (Oxford, 1980), pp. 178-9Google Scholar.

13. Cf. introduction to Easterling (1982), p. 6.

14. Cf. Elec. 22; Oed. Col. 88-95, 1508; Trach. 82, 164ff., 173-4. For the importance of ‘the moment of crisis, the kairos or akme’ in Elec. see Woodard, T. W., ‘ Electra by Sophocles: the dialectical design (Part II)’, HSPh 70 (1965), 195–233 Google Scholar, at 201.

15. The contrast between Ajax and Ant. is made brilliantly by Reinhardt (1979), p. 91.

16. I borrow the word from Jones (1962); see his index for references.

17. On Oed. Tyr. see Sansone, D., ‘The third stasimon of the Oedipus Tyrannos ’, CPh 70 (1975), 110–117 Google Scholar; on Ant., see Burton (1980), pp. 132-1.

18. Contrast Puccini in Act IV of La Bohème, where the sad dénouement is preceded by some high jinks, the sole rationale of which is to serve as a foil for what follows.

19. The sword was a counter-gift for the belt given by Ajax to Hector – itself an instrument of death. See Jebb’s excellent note on Ajax 1031.

20. Trach. 1159-63. For the theme see Kitto, H. D. F., Form and Meaning in Drama (London, 1956), pp. 193-5Google Scholar. Note also frr. 210. 24ff and 211. lOff. (Radt): the spear of Achilles healed Telephus; Telephus in return promised that he and his kin would not help the Trojans; but Telephus’ son broke the promise; so the son of the dead Achilles kills the son of Telephus with Achilles’ spear. Did Sophocles use the motif of ‘the dead getting revenge’?

21. On this type of approach see Johansen (1962), 163-4. Some examples: Tanner, R. G., ‘The composition of the Oedipus Coloneus ’, in For Servie, to Classical Studies: Essays in Honour of Francis Letters, ed. Kelly, M. (Melbourne, 1966), pp. 153-92Google Scholar; Diano, C., ‘Sfondo sociale e politico della tragedia greca antica’, Dioniso 43 (1969), 119-30Google Scholar (most of this volume records a congress on social-political aspects of the ancient theatre); Calder, W. M., ‘Sophoclean apologia: Philoctetes ’, GRBS 12 (1971), 153-74Google Scholar. The best-known reading of Sophocles with one eye on fifth-century history is Ehrenberg, V., Sophocles and Pericles (Oxford, 1954)Google Scholar.

22. Segal (1981).

23. See Buxton, R. G. A., Persuasion in Greek Tragedy: a Study of ‘Peitho’ (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 132-15Google Scholar.

24. Knox (1979), 148.

25. The doubleness of tragedy is a central theme of Vernant, J.-P. and Vidal-Naquet, P., Tragedy and Myth in Ancient Greece (Eng. tr. Brighton, 1981)Google Scholar.

26. Cf.Garvie, A. F., ‘Deceit, violence and persuasion in the Philoctetes ’, in Studi classici in onore di Quintino Cataudella (Catania, 1972), vol. 1, pp. 213-26Google Scholar; Buxton (1982), pp. 118-32.

27. A different view is taken by Knox (1979), p. 93, where it is argued that Oedipus represents Athens, ‘the city which aimed to become (and was already on the road to becoming) the tyrannos of Greece ...’