Objectives: To encourage detailed study of four major Greek tragedies; to promote understanding of the nature of Greek tragedy as a literary genre, and of the dramatic technique and thought of two major tragedians; to locate fifth-century tragedy in its cultural context; and to acquaint students with the most important contemporary approaches to Greek tragedy.
Syllabus: Sophocles Antigone, tr. R. Fagles (in The Three Theban Plays, Penguin 1984), and Philoctetes, tr. E. Watling (in Electra and Other Plays, Penguin 1953); Euripides Hecabe and Heracles, tr. P. Vellacott (both in Medea and Other Plays, Penguin 1963).
Assessment: An essay of not more than 3000 words to be submitted not later than Friday 10 December 1999. You must choose one of the following:
1. On the evidence of the four prescribed plays, are there important differences between Sophocles and Euripides in their treatment of the divine and supernatural elements of Greek myth?
2. Compare the role of Odysseus in Hecabe and Philoctetes. What could be said in defence of his attitudes and behaviour in these two plays? How successful would such a defence be?
3. Illustrate the importance of the theme of friendship and enmity in the four prescribed plays. Why is this such a prominent theme in Greek tragedy?
4. What can we learn from the contrasting roles of Antigone, Hecabe and Megara about the perceptions of women that underlie fifth-century Athenian tragedy?
Lectures and consultancies:
1. The plays: some themes and issues:
Hecabe ~ Antigone: importance of burial; centrality of family relationships.
Antigone: personal/family relationships (Polyneices as brother) cross with social/political relationships (Polyneices as enemy of city). Cf. in Hecabe: what do Greeks owe to comrade Achilles? to ally Polymestor?
Women as victims - Antigone, Polyxena, Hecabe (though n.b. context of male/male violence): effect of female protagonists? How do we view to their different responses to male antagonists? Consider in context of Greek views of women's roles.
Male antagonists - Creon, Polymestor: how do we respond to the suffering they bring on themselves? (Note centrality of family in their sufferings.)
Creon dominates last third of play: is this a structural error? Do the Polyxena- and Polydorus- plots of Hecabe have satistifactory structral relationship? What kind of structural integrity should a tragedy have? Is Heracles a sequence of different actions without adequate continuity?
Male victims of female violence: Polymestor, Heracles - in the latter case, the female is a goddess. Is there also, less obtrusively, a key role for supernatural forces in Antigone (family curse?) and Hecabe (the sinner is punished - is this a coincidence? If so, is that another structural problem?)
Does Euripides' Hera's treatment of Heracles raise questions and/or make a statement about gods, religion? N.b. foregrounding of the issue in Her. 1340-6, Hec. 799-801: what is Euripides doing in passages like this? Does it work?
Divine elements in Philoctetes - esp. appearance of (deified) Heracles to resolve impasse. Is this a satisfactory resolution structurally and dramatically?
Note theme of friendship vs enmity, loyalty vs betrayal in Heracles-Philoctetes, Greeks-Philoctetes. Odysseus plans to overcome Philoctetes by pretence of friendship; Neoptolemus ends up as real friend. Cf. Heracles: role of Theseus (contrast human solidarity with Hera's actions); Hecabe: Polymestor betrayal, Hecabe's revenge, dilemmas of Greek army and Agamemnon. Antigone: claims of relatives vs enemies of city. N.b.: Greek philos ('friend') and philia ('friendship') include family, friends, political allies. Centrality of philia to Greek ethics ('help friends, harm enemies') raises questions of limits. (And are those limits different for human beings and gods?)
2. Some challenges: Various kinds of difficulty need to be recognised, distinguished, kept in proportion.
- Translation is an imperfect medium (e.g. friendship/philia).
But this may be less important than:
- Intepretation (e.g. 'yes - and then everybody will have
alabaster grapes': easy to translate, not to understand); also:
- Textual problems: there may be doubt about what Sophocles/Euripides
wrote: surviving manuscripts affected by (i) accidental copying
errors, (ii) adaptations for re-performances of play.
3. Chronology: Sophocles (born c. 495 BC) about 30 years younger than Aeschylus; first entered in tragic competition in 468, with Aeschylus as an opponent (Oresteia produced 458; Aeschylus died in 456/5). Euripides (born 480s) first competed 455. Euripides died 406, Sophocles in 405.
Antigone produced c. 442 if story connecting play to Sophocles' election as general (441/0) has any basis (uncertain); Philoctetes produced 409. Statistical studies of Euripides' verse-technique suggest Hecabe produced c. 424, Heracles c. 416?
4. Euripides: Sophocles: 20 victories at Dionysia (first prizes included 468 (first production), 409 (production including with Philoctetes); also Antigone?). Contrast Euripides: 4 victories (plus fifth, posthumously). Is this significant? If so, of what? Some possible, but inconclusive, considerations:
- competing with Sophocles reduced success-rate;
- Aristophanes (Thesomophoriazusae, Frogs) evidence
of recognised importance as tragedian - but also that he was controversial
(though n.b. Aristophanes is writing comedy);
- ancient biographical tradition supports 'alienated misfit' view:
but unreliable (cf. M.R. Lefkowitz The Lives of the Greek Poets
(London 1981) 88-104);
- accepted royal patronage in Macedonia near end of life, died
away from Athens: but cf. Aeschylus, died in Sicily with patronage
of Sicilian tyrants;
- unconventional religious views (cf. jokes in Aristophanes)?
But cf. (e.g.) Sophocles Women of Trachis 1266-9 on divine
malevolence/neglect - not seen as sceptical;
- innovation and experiment: cf. (e.g.) Aeschylus and Sophocles
increasing actors used in tragedy to three; use of chorus in Aeschylus
Eumenides and Suppliants (a late experiment? Not
followed by successors).
So Euripides is an open question: approach secondary literature critically, and read the plays without preconceptions.
5. History of reception: Hecabe popular, so vulnerable to performace-related adaptation.
Selection of plays for survival reflects which plays most read in late antiquity: focus narrows to 7 plays of Aeschylus, 7 of Sophocles, 10 of Euripides (easier to read, therefore more popular as school-text); then to 3 plays of each (the Byzantine 'triad'). Exception: 9 plays of Euripides accidentally survive in single manuscript, part of alphabetically organised 'complete works': includes Heracles.
Hecabe part of Euripidean triad (with Orestes, Phoenician Women). High reputation in 16th century contrasts with down-rating in 18th/19th centuries (see M. Heath '"Iure principem locum tenet": Euripides' Hecuba' Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 34 (1987) 40-68; recent revival of interest: see esp. J. Mossman Wild Justice: a study of Euripides' Hecuba (Oxford 1995)).
8. Contexts: One implication of history of reception: 'tragedy' is a historical variable. Challenge: to read Greek tragedy in relation to Greek understanding of tragedy. Two emphases in ancient criticism: tragedy is a source of (i) pleasure, esp. from intense emotional experience (emphasised in M. Heath The Poetics of Greek Tragedy (London 1987)), (ii) teaching, esp. moral teaching (neglected by Heath) - though extreme situations will not make for easy moral analysis.
Other significant contexts include:
- general context of ancient thinking on (e.g.) ethics, society,
religion (necessary to understand e.g. importance of family/friendship
themes);
- specific context of performance at City Dionysia. See in general
A.W. Pickard-Cambridge The Dramatic Festivals of Athens
(ed.2, Oxford 1968); for debate on implications: S. Goldhill 'The
Great Dionysia and civic ideology' in J. Winkler & F. Zeitlin
(eds), Nothing to Do With Dionysus? (Princeton 1990) 97-129;
J. Griffin 'The social function of Attic tragedy' Classical
Quarterly 48 (1998) 39-61;
- fact of performance on stage: what does audience see?
Surveys and introductions
M. Baldock Greek Tragedy: an Introduction
(Bristol 1989)
A. Brown A New Companion to Greek Tragedy (London 1983)
P. Easterling (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy
(Cambridge 1998)
R. Rehm Greek Tragic Theatre (Routledge 1992)
T.B.L. Webster Greek Tragedy (Greece and Rome New Surveys
5, 1971)
B. Zimmermann Greek Tragedy: an introduction
(Johns Hopkins 1991)
Collections of essays
I. McAuslan & P. Walcot (eds) Greek Tragedy (Oxford
1993)
B. Gredley (ed.) Essays on Greek Drama [= Bulletin of
the Institute of Classical Studies 34 (1987)]
T.F. Gould & C.J. Herington (eds) Greek Tragedy [=
Yale Classical Studies 25 (1977)]
E. Segal (ed.) Oxford Readings in Greek Tragedy (Oxford
1983)
M. Silk (ed.) Tragedy and the Tragic (Oxford 1996)
Literary criticism: various aspects
R. Buxton Persuasion in Greek Tragedy (Cambridge 1982)
S. Goldhill Reading Greek Tragedy (Cambridge 1986)
J. Gould 'Dramatic character in Greek tragedy' Proceedings
of the Cambridge Philological Society 24 (1978) 17-27
M. Heath The Poetics of Greek Tragedy (London 1987)
J. Jones On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy (London 1962)
B.M.W. Knox Word and Action (Baltimore 1979)
R. Lattimore The Poetry of Greek Tragedy (Baltimore 1958)
R. Lattimore Story-Patterns in Greek Tragedy (London 1964)
A. Lesky Greek Tragic Poetry (New Haven 1983)
R. Padel In and Out of the Mind: Greek images of the tragic
self (Princeton 1992)
R. Seaford Reciprocity and Ritual: Homer and tragedy in the
developing city-state (Oxford 1994)
C. Segal Interpreting Greek Tragedy (Cornell 1986)
T.C.W. Stinton 'Hamartia in Aristotle and Greek tragedy'
Classical Quarterly 25 (1975) 221-54; reprinted in Collected
Papers on Greek Tragedy (Oxford 1990) 143-85
O. Taplin Greek Tragedy in Action (London 1978)
B. Vickers Towards Greek Tragedy (London 1973)
Theatre and performance
A.M. Dale 'Seen and unseen on the Greek stage' in Collected
Papers (Cambridge 1969) ch. 9
A.M. Dale 'The Chorus in the action of Greek tragedy' in Collected
Papers (Cambridge 1969) ch. 19
J.R. Green Theatre in Ancient Greek Society (London 1994)
A.W. Pickard-Cambridge The Theatre of Dionysus at Athens
(Oxford 1946)
A.W. Pickard-Cambridge The Dramatic Festivals of Athens
(ed.2, Oxford 1968)
E. Simon The Ancient Theatre (London 1982)
O. Taplin The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford 1977)
P. Walcot Greek Tragedy in its Theatrical and Social Context
(1976)
Religion
W. Burkert 'Greek tragedy and sacrificial ritual' Greek Roman
and Byzantine Studies 7 (1966) 87-121
W. Burkert Greek Religion (Oxford 1985)
H. Lloyd-Jones The Justice of Zeus (Berkeley 1971; revised
1984)
J. Mikalson Honour Thy Gods: popular religion in Greek tragedy
(Chapel Hill 1991)
R. Parker 'Gods cruel and kind: tragic and civic theology' in
C. Pelling (ed.) Greek Tragedy and the Historian (Oxford
1997) 143-60
C. Sourvinou-Inwood 'Tragedy and religion: constructs and readings'
in C. Pelling (ed.) Greek Tragedy and the Historian (Oxford
1997) 161-86
Social and ideological background
K.J. Dover Greek Popular Morality (Oxford 1974)
S. Goldhill 'The Great Dionysia and civic ideology' in J. Winkler
& F. Zeitlin (eds), Nothing to Do With Dionysus? (Princeton
1990) 97-129
J. Gould 'Hiketeia' Journal of Hellenic Studies 93 (1973)
74-103
J. Griffin 'The social function of Attic tragedy' Classical
Quarterly 48 (1998) 39-61
E. Hall Inventing the Barbarian (Oxford 1989)
P. Walcot Greek Drama in its Theatrical and Social Context
(Cardiff 1976)
Women
S. des Bouvrie Women in Greek Tragedy [= Symbolae Osloenses
Suppl. 27, 1990]
P.E. Easterling 'Women in tragic space' Bulletin of the Institute
of Classical Studies 34 (1987) 15-26
E. Fantham et al. (ed.) Women in the Classical World
(Oxford 1994)
H. Foley (ed.) Reflections of Women in Antiquity (New York
1981)
J. Gould 'Law, custom and myth: aspects of the social position
of women in fifth-century Athens' Jounral of Hellenic Studies
100 (1980) 38-59
R. Just Women in Athenian Law and Life (Routledge 1989)
M.R. Lefkowitz Women in Greek Myth (London 1986)
N. Loraux Tragic Ways of Killing a Woman (London 1981)
S. Pomeroy Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves (Yale 1976)
A. Powell (ed.) Euripides, Women and Sexuality (London
1990)
M. Shaw 'The female intruder: women in fifth-century drama' Classical
Philology 70 (1975) 255-66
S. Wiersma 'Women in Sophocles' Mnemosyne 37 (1984) 25-55
General
M.W. Blundell Helping Friends and Harming Enemies (Cambridge
1989)
R.W.B. Burton The Chorus in Sophocles' Tragedies (Oxford
1980)
R.G.A. Buxton Sophocles (Greece and Rome New Surveys 16,
1984)
P. Easterling 'Character in Sophocles' Greece and Rome
24 (1977) 121-9; reprinted in E. Segal (ed.) Oxford Readings
in Greek Tragedy (Oxford 1983) 138-45 and I. McAuslan &
P. Walcot (eds) Greek Tragedy (Oxford 1993) 58-65
G. Gellie Sophocles: a Reading (Melbourne 1972)
G.M. Kirkwood A Study in Sophoclean Drama (Ithaca N.Y.,
1958)
B.M.W. Knox The Heroic Temper (Berkeley 1966)
A.A. Long Language and Thought in Sophocles (London 1968)
K. Reinhardt Sophocles (Oxford 1979)
A.J.A. Waldock Sophocles the Dramatist (Cambridge 1951)
T. Wilamowitz Die dramatische Technik des Sophokles (Berlin
1917): those without German could consult the summary in H. Lloyd-Jones
Blood for the Ghosts (London 1982) ch. 19
R.P. Winnington-Ingram Sophocles: an Interpretation (Cambridge
1980)
Sophocles Antigone
Commentaries: A. Brown (Aris & Phillips 1987); J. Wilkins
& M. Macleod Sophocles' Antigone and Oedipus the King:
a Companion (Bristol Classical Press)
There is a wide-ranging survey of the Antigone-myth in later European
culture (though the discussion of Sophocles' play itself is bad)
in: G. Steiner Antigones (Oxford 1984)
R.W.B. Burton The Chorus in Sophocles' Tragedies (Oxford
1980) ch. 3
Cropp, M. 'Antigone's Final Speech (Sophocles, Antigone
891-928)' Greece and Rome 44 (1997) 137-160
Foley, H.P. 'Antigone as moral agent' in M.S. Silk (ed.) Tragedy
and the tragic (Oxford 1996) 49-73: compare the response by
M. Trapp, 74-84
J.C. Hogan 'The protagonists of the Antigone' Arethusa
5 (1972) 93-100
B.M.W. Knox The Heroic Temper (Berkeley 1966) chs. 3-4
M. Neuburg 'How like a woman: Antigone's "inconsistency"'
Classical Quarterly 40 (1990) 54-76
K. Reinhardt Sophocles (Oxford 1979) ch. 3
C. Sourvinou-Inwood 'Assumptions and the creation of meaning:
reading Sophocles' Antigone' Journal of Hellenic Studies
109 (1989) 134-48
J. Whitehorne 'The background to Polyneices' disinterment and
reburial' Greece and Rome 30 (1983) 129-42; reprinted in
I. McAuslan & P. Walcot (eds) Greek Tragedy (Oxford
1993) 66-80
R.P. Winnington-Ingram Sophocles: an Interpretation (Cambridge
1980) chs. 5-6
Sophocles Philoctetes
Commentary: R.G. Ussher (Aris & Phillips 1990).
E. Belfiore 'Xenia in Sophocles' Philoctetes' Classical
Journal 89 (1994) 113-29
M.W. Blundell 'The moral character of Odysseus in Philoctetes'
Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies 28 (1987) 307-329
M.W. Blundell 'The phusis of Neoptolemus in Sophocles'
Philoctetes' Greece and Rome 35 (1988) 137-148;
reprinted in I. McAuslan & P. Walcot (eds) Greek Tragedy
(Oxford 1993) 104-15
R.W.B. Burton The Chorus in Sophocles' Tragedies (Oxford
1980) ch. 6
R.G.A. Buxton Persuasion in Greek Tragedy (Cambridge 1982)
118-31
P. Easterling 'Philoctetes and modern criticism' Illinois
Classical Studies 3 (1978) 27-39; reprinted in E. Segal (ed.)
Oxford Readings in Greek Tragedy (Oxford 1983) 217-28
C. Gill 'Bow, oracle and epiphany in Sophocles' Philoctetes'
Greece and Rome 27 (1980) 137-45; reprinted in I. McAuslan
& P. Walcot (eds) Greek Tragedy (Oxford 1993) 95-103
B.M.W. Knox The Heroic Temper (Berkeley 1966) ch. 5
K. Reinhardt Sophocles (Oxford 1979) ch. 6
D. Robinson 'Topics in Sophocles' Philoctetes' Classical
Quarterly 19 (1969) 34-56
O. Taplin 'Significant actions in Sophocles' Philoctetes'
Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies 12 (1971) 25-44
O. Taplin 'The mapping of Sophocles' Philoctetes' Bulletin
of the Institute of Classical Studies 34 (1987) 69-77
R.P. Winnington-Ingram Sophocles: an Interpretation (Cambridge
1980) ch. 12
General
W.G. Arnott, 'Off-stage cries and the choral presence: some challenges
to theatrical convention in Euripides' Antichthon 16 (1982)
35-43
S. Barlow The Imagery of Euripides (London 1971)
A.P. Burnett Catastrophe Survived (Oxford 1971)
C. Collard 'Formal debates in Euripides' tragedies' Greece
and Rome 22 (1975) 58-71; reprinted in I. McAuslan & P.
Walcot (eds) Greek Tragedy (Oxford 1993) 153-66
C. Collard Euripides (Greece and Rome New Surveys 14, 1981)
D. Conacher Euripidean Drama: Myth, Theme
and Structure (Toronto 1967)
D. Conacher 'Rhetoric and relevance in Euripidean drama' American
Journal of Philology 102 (1981) 3-25
D. Conacher Euripides and the Sophists (London 1998)
G.M.A. Grube The Drama of Euripides (London 1941)
I. de Jong Narrative in Drama: the art of the Euripidean messenger-speech
(Leiden 1991)
H. Foley Ritual Irony: poetry and sacrifice in Euripides
(Cornell 1985)
J. Gregory Euripides and the Instruction of the Athenians
(Ann arbor 1991)
M. Halleran The Stagecraft of Euripides (London 1985)
D. Kovacs The Heroic Muse (Baltimore 1987)
M. Lloyd The Agon in Euripides (Oxford 1992)
C. Segal Dionysiac Poetics and Euripides' Bacchae (Princeton
1982)
T.B.L. Webster The Tragedies of Euripides (London 1962)
Euripides Hecabe
Commentary: C. Collard (Aris & Phillips 1991); M. Tierney
(1946, repr. Bristol Classical Press 1979).
A fuller bibliography can be found in the book by J. Mossman listed
below; the article by M. Heath, on the history of the play's reception,
also has further references to modern interpretations of the play.
A.W.H. Adkins 'Basic Greek values in Euripides' Hecuba
and Hercules Furens' Classical Quarterly 60 (1966)
193-219
M. Heath '"Iure principem locum tenet": Euripides' Hecuba'
Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 34 (1987)
40-68
C.E. Mercier 'Hekabe's extended supplication (Hec. 752-888)'
Transactions of the American Philological Association 123
(1993) 149-160
R. Meridor 'Hecuba's revenge' American Journal of Philology
99 (1878) 28-35
R. Meridor 'The function of Polymestor's crime in the Hecuba
of Euripides' Eranos 81 (1983) 13-20
J. Mossman Wild Justice: a study of Euripides' Hecuba (Oxford
1995)
M.C. Nussbaum The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge 1986)
ch. 13
K. Reckford 'Concepts of demoralisation in the Hecuba'
in P. Burian (ed.) Directions in Euripidean Criticism (1985)
112-28
W.G. Thalmann 'Euripides and Aeschylus: the case of the Hekabe'
Classical Antiquity 12 (1993) 126-159
Euripides Heracles
Commentary: S. Barlow (Aris & Phillips 1996); G.W.Bond (Oxford
1981).
A.W.H. Adkins 'Basic Greek values in Hecuba and Heracles'
Classical Quarterly 16 (1966) 193-219
S. Barlow 'Structure and dramatic realism in Euripides' Heracles'
Greece and Rome 29 (1982) 115-125; reprinted in I. McAuslan
& P. Walcot (eds) Greek Tragedy (Oxford 1993) 193-203
A.L. Brown 'Wretched tales of poets: Euripides, Heracles
1340-6' Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society
24 (1978) 22-30
A.P. Burnett Catastrophe Survived (Oxford 1971) ch. 7
H. Chalk 'Arete and Bia in Euripides' Heracles'
Journal of Hellenic Studies 82 (1962) 7-18
R. Hamilton 'Slings and arrows: the debate with Lycus in the Heracles'
Transactions of the American Philological Association 115
(1985) 19-25
H. Parry 'The second stasimon of Heracles' American
Journal of Philology 86 (1965) 363-74
T.C.W. Stinton 'Si credere dignum est: some expressions of disbelief
in Euripides and others' Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological
Society 22 (1976) 60-89; reprinted in Collected Papers
on Greek Tragedy (Oxford 1990) 236-64
S. Mills Theseus, Tragedy and the Athenian Empire (Oxford
1997) 129-59