Sophocles Philoctetes And The Great Soul Robbery

Norman Austin brings both keen insight and a life-long engagement with his subject to this study of Sophocles’ late tragedy Philoctetes, a fifth-century BCE play adapted from an infamous incident during the Trojan War. In Sophocles’ “Philoctetes” and the Great Soul Robbery, Austin examines the rich layers of text as well as context, situating the play within the historical and political milieu of the eclipse of Athenian power. He presents a study at once of interest to the classical scholar and accessible to the general reader. Though the play, written near the end of Sophocles’ career, is not as familiar to modern audiences as his Theban plays, Philoctetes grapples with issues—social, psychological, and spiritual—that remain as much a part of our lives today as they were for their original Athenian audience.

Accessible edition with commentary of this widely read but highly complex and challenging play. Provides help with morphology, grammar and syntax and interpretation of the text in its historical, social, cultural and intellectual contexts. The introduction also gives an account of its reception from antiquity to the present day.

An analysis of the literary and dramatic function of ritual within the world of Sophocles' plays, for scholars of Greek tragedy, ancient theater, and poetics.

This book looks at witnesses to suffering and death in ancient Greek epic (Homer’s Iliad) and tragedy. Internal spectators abound in both genres, and have received due scholarly attention. The present monograph covers new ground by dealing with a specific subset of characters: those who are put in the position of spectator to (and, often, commentator on) their own deed(s). By their very nature, protagonists are confined to the role of witness to the suffering (or deaths) they have caused only for brief stretches of time — often a single scene or even just the length of a speech — but every instance is of central importance, not just to our understanding of the characters in question, but also to the articulation of fundamental themes within the poetic works under examination. As they shift from the status of agent to that of witness, these protagonists, qua spectators to the consequences of their actions, give voice to, dramatize, and enact the tragic motifs of human helplessness and mortal fallibility that lie at the core of Homeric epic and Greek tragedy and that define the human condition, in a manner that leads the audience looking on to ponder their own.

Exploring the use of praise and blame in Greek tragedy in relation to heroic identity, Kate Cook demonstrates that the distribution of praise and blame, a significant social function of archaic and classical poetry, also plays a key role in Greek tragedy. Both concepts are a central part of the discourse surrounding the identity of male heroic figures in tragedy, and thus are essential for understanding a range of tragedies in their literary and social contexts. In the tragic genre, the destructive or dangerous aspects of the process of kleos (glory) are explored, and the distribution of praise and blame becomes a way of destabilising identity and conflict between individuals in democratic Athens. The first half of this book shows the kinds of conflicts generated by 'heroes' who seek after one kind of praise in tragedy, but face other characters or choruses who refuse to grant the praise discourses they desire. The second half examines what happens when female speakers engage in the production of these discourses, particularly the wives and mothers of heroic figures, who often refuse to contribute to the production of praise and positive kleos for these men. Praise and Blame in Greek Tragedy therefore demonstrates how a focus on this poetically significant topic can generate new readings of well-known tragedies, and develops a new approach to both male heroic identity and women's speech in tragedy.

In this groundbreaking collection, twelve international scholars – with backgrounds in disability studies, English and world literature, classics, and history – discuss the representation of dis/ability, medical "cures," technology, and the body in science fiction.

Sleep was viewed as a boon by the ancient Greeks: sweet, soft, honeyed, balmy, care-loosening, as the Iliad has it. But neither was sleep straightforward, nor safe. It could be interrupted, often by a dream. It could be the site of dramatic intervention by a god or goddess. It might mark the transition in a narrative relationship, as when Penelope for the first time in weeks slumbers happily through Odysseus' vengeful slaughter of her suitors. Silvia Montiglio's imaginative and comprehensive study of the topic illuminates the various ways in which writers in antiquity used sleep to deal with major aspects of plot and character development. The author shows that sleeplessness, too, carries great weight in classical literature. Doom hangs by a thread as Agamemnon - in Iphigenia in Aulis - paces, restless and sleepless, while around him everyone else dozes on. Exploring recurring tropes of somnolence and wakefulness in the Iliad, the Odyssey, Athenian drama, the Argonautica and ancient novels by Xenophon, Chariton, Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius, this is a unique contribution to better understandings of ancient Greek writing.

The uses and effects of repetition, imitation, and appropriation in Latin epic poetry.