A Commentary on the Plays of Sophocles

A Commentary on the Plays of Sophocles PDF Author: James C. Hogan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
James C. Hogan introduces each play by highlighting specific and interpretive problems relevant to that play before turning to a line-by-line analysis. The line analysis is comprehensive, ranging from the meanings of words and phrases that pertain to a variety of Greek ideas and institutions to metaphor and imagery specific to each play as well as plots and borrowings from earlier poetry, styles, and characterizations. Along with his examination of the seven extant plays of Sophocles in English translations, Hogan provides a general introduction to the theatre in Sophocles' time, discussing staging, the conventions of the Greek theatre, the text of the plays, and mythology and religion.

Sophocles

Sophocles PDF Author: Sophocles
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Antigone (Greek mythology)
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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A Commentary on The Complete Greek Tragedies. Aeschylus

A Commentary on The Complete Greek Tragedies. Aeschylus PDF Author: James C. Hogan
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226348438
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
"Classical scholar James C. Hogan provides a general introduction to Aeschylean theater and drama, followed by a line-by-line commentary on each of the seven plays. He draws on a vast range of scholarship and criticism to give modern readers the most accurate picture possible of what ancient audiences saw and understood in the spectacle of Greek tragedy. Hogan places Aeschylus in the historical, cultural, and religious context of fifth-century Athens, showing how the action and metaphor of Aeschylean theater can be illuminated by information on Athenian law, athletic contests, relations with neighboring states, beliefs about the underworld, demons, omens, and divination, and countless other details of Hellenic life. He clarifies terms that might puzzle modern readers, such as place names and mythological references, and gives special attention to textual and linguistic issues: controversial questions of interpretation; difficult or significant Greek words; use of style, rhetoric, and commonplaces in Greek poetry; and Aeschylus's place in the poetic tradition of Homer, Hesiod, and the elegiac poets. Practical information on staging and production is also included, as the author has kept in mind the need of modern readers to visualize the drama in order to understand the text. Though little is known about Greek choreography and music, Hogan stresses their central role and provides notes on entrances and exits, the use of extras, costuming, tableaux, masks, the use of a stage, the interaction of chorus and actors, tone, gesture, style of acting, and spectacle."--Back cover

Sophocles: Ajax

Sophocles: Ajax PDF Author: Sophocles
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139504657
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1007

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Book Description
Sophocles' Ajax describes the fall of a mighty warrior denied the honour which he believed was his due. This edition of the play presents a text and critical apparatus which take full advantage of advances in our understanding of Sophoclean manuscripts and scholarship. The introduction and commentary scrutinise all important aspects of the drama - from detailed analysis of style, language, and metre to consideration of wider issues such as ethics, rhetoric, and characterisation. Notorious dramaturgical problems, including the staging of Ajax's suicide, receive particular attention; so too do questions of literary history, such as the date of the play and Sophocles' creative interaction with previous accounts of the myth. The translation which accompanies the commentary ensures that this edition will be accessible to Hellenists of all levels of experience, as well as to readers with a general interest in the history of drama.

The Plays of Sophocles

The Plays of Sophocles PDF Author: Jan Coenraad Kamerbeek
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9789004038363
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description


Sophocles and the Tragedy of Athenian Democracy

Sophocles and the Tragedy of Athenian Democracy PDF Author: D. G. Beer
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313039321
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
The Athenian democracy of the 5th century B.C. created the most important political theatre of western culture. Sophocles, the most successful tragic playwright of the age, was a radical innovator who produced his tragedies to present to his audience complex moral, social, and political issues of a kind that they might be faced with in their various legal and political assemblies. Beer examines Sophocles as a political playwright against the background of Athenian democracy, breaking new ground by showing the importance of the mask for understanding Sophoclean tragedy and redefining the notion of skenographia, or setting the scene. He concludes that Sophocles revolutionized the concept of dramatic space. The Athenian tragic theatre was deeply political and played an important and active role in the life of Athenian democracy. This book presents an introduction to the political nature of Greek tragedy and Sophoclean tragedy in an effort to shed new light on the dramatic works of the 5th century playwright. As Aristotle noted, Sophocles' two most important innovations were the introduction of the third actor and skenographia, which brought tragedy to its fully evolved form. Beer argues that although his use of the third actor has been widely understood, his use of skenographia has not. Carefully exploring the true sense of this method of using dramatic space, Beer brings a new understanding to the works of this old master.

Sophocles’ Jebb

Sophocles’ Jebb PDF Author: Chris Stray
Publisher: Cambridge Philological Society
ISBN: 1913701018
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Sir Richard Jebb (1841–1905) was the most celebrated classical scholar in late Victorian Britain: his edition of Sophocles, which remains a classic, brought him a knighthood. Professor of Greek at Cambridge from 1889, and MP for the University from 1891 until his death, Jebb became a national spokesman for the humanities. “Sophocles’ Jebb” charts his career through 275 newly discovered letters, presented here with introductions and full annotation. By allowing Jebb and his contemporaries to speak in their own words, it enables a significant reassessment of a key cultural figure of late Victorian Britain and sheds fresh light on public and academic debate of the time. The volume ends with a new, comprehensive list of Jebb’s publications.

Sophocles' Philoctetes

Sophocles' Philoctetes PDF Author: Sophocles
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 72

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Euripides Danae and Dictys

Euripides Danae and Dictys PDF Author: Ioanna Karamanou
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110938731
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Euripides' Danae and Dictys are two of the most important and influential treatments of a popular tragic myth-cycle, which is unrepresented among extant plays. Moreover, they are early treatments of major Euripidean plot-patterns that anticipate and illuminate more familiar works in the corpus, both extant and fragmentary. This is the first full-scale study of the two plays, which sheds light on plot-patterns, key themes and aspects of Euripidean dramatic technique (e.g. his rhetoric, imagery, stagecraft), as well as matters of reception and transmission of both tragedies, by taking into account newly related evidence. The cautious recovery of the two lost plays based on the available evidence and the detailed commentary on their fragments seek to complement our knowledge of Euripidean drama by contributing to an overview and more comprehensive picture of the dramatist's technique, as the extant corpus represents only a small portion of his oeuvre.

Greek Tragedy and Political Philosophy

Greek Tragedy and Political Philosophy PDF Author: Peter J. Ahrensdorf
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139475584
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
In this book, Peter Ahrensdorf examines Sophocles' powerful analysis of a central question of political philosophy and a perennial question of political life: should citizens and leaders govern political society by the light of unaided human reason or religious faith? Through an examination of Sophocles' timeless masterpieces - Oedipus the Tyrant, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone - Ahrensdorf offers a sustained challenge to the prevailing view, championed by Nietzsche in his attack on Socratic rationalism, that Sophocles is an opponent of rationalism. Ahrensdorf argues that Sophocles is a genuinely philosophical thinker and a rationalist, albeit one who advocates a cautious political rationalism. Ahrensdorf concludes with an incisive analysis of Nietzsche, Socrates and Aristotle on tragedy and philosophy. He argues, against Nietzsche, that the rationalism of Socrates and Aristotle incorporates a profound awareness of the tragic dimension of human existence and therefore resembles in fundamental ways the somber and humane rationalism of Sophocles.