Sophocles: 44 (New Surveys in the Classics, Series Number 44)
Cambridge University Press, 12/19/2019
EAN 9781108706094, ISBN10: 1108706096
Paperback, 134 pages, 23.1 x 15.7 x 0.5 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
Produced in Athens during the fifth century BC, the tragedies of Sophocles are a high point in world literature, vividly depicting unforgettable characters confronted with emotional crises, moral dilemmas, and the inscrutable ways of the gods. This volume examines Sophocles' reputation as a dramatic poet both in his own day and later in antiquity, considering how it was that some of his plays survived from his time to ours. It investigates the qualities of those plays, focusing on key aspects of Sophoclean dramaturgy such as stagecraft, narrative, rhetoric, and heroism. And it incorporates within its discussion not just the seven plays that survive in full, but those major fragments discovered in recent years which shed so much light on Sophocles' extraordinary ability as a poet and a dramatist. All Greek is translated, making this volume accessible to anyone with an interest in one of the greatest playwrights of all time.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I. Transmission
1. A long career
2. Ancient spectators, ancient readers
3. Survival and rediscovery
Part II. Interpretation
4. Stagecraft
5. Myth
6. Narrative
7. Language
8. Metre
9. Rhetoric
10. Heroism
11. Politics
12. Endings
Bibliography
Index.