Sophocles' Tragic World: Divinity, Nature, Society

290 Pages·1998·15.94 MB·English

by  Charles Segal

Sophocles' Tragic World

Sophocles' Tragic World
Divinity, Nature, Society
CHARLES SEGAL
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
Copyright© 1995 bythe Presidentand Fellows ofHarvard College
All rights reserved
Printedin the United StatesofAmerica
Second printing, 1998
FirstI-Iarvard UniversityPress paperbackedition, 1998
LibraryofCongress Cataloging·-in-PublicationData
Segal~Charles, 1936-
Sophocles' tragicworld: divinity, nature, society/ CharlesSegal.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographicalreferences (p. )and index.
ISBN0-674-82100-9 (cloth)
ISBN0-674-82101-7 (paper)
1. Sophocles-Criticismandinterpretation. 2. Greekdrama (Tragedy)-Historyand
criticism. 3. Religious dralna, Greek-I-Iistoryand criticism. 4. Literatureand society
Greece. 5. Gods, Greek, in literature. 6. Nature inliterature.1.Title.
P~417·S461995
882'.01-dc20 95-15249
ForJosh, Tad, Amy, and Cora
7TUTpt T4JDe XUP/LOV'Yjv

Contents
Preface IX
Introduction I
I. Drama and Perspective inAjax I6
2. Myth, Poetry, and HeroicValues in the
Trachinian Women 26
3. Time, Oracles, and Marriage in the Trachinian Women 69
4. Philoctetes and the Imperishable Piety 95
5. Lament and Closure inAntigone II9
6. Time and Knowledge in the Tragedy ofOedipus 38
I
7. Freud, Language, and the Unconscious I6I
8. The Gods and the Chorus: Zeus in Oedipus Tyrannus I80
9. Earth in Oedipus Tyrannus I99
Abbreviations 2I5
Notes 2I7

Preface
Every Sophoclean hero or heroine carries about himself or herself a
world-of family, city, nature, the supernatural. Our view ofwhat is
tragicin the play, and indeed oftragedyin general, depends on which
ofthese worlds, singly or in combination, holds the foreground ofour
attention. With regard to Sophocles, the major interpretive question,
in fact, has beenwhether to privilege the representation ofthe hero or
that ofhis (or her) world. My particular concern in this volume is the
relation between the diville and human worlds, and so the perennially
involving problems ofdivine justice and meaning in Sophocles' con
ception oftragedy.
Theseissues are beststudiednotinthe abstractbutintheparticulars
ofSophocles' poetryand dramaturgy, his transformations ofmyth and
ritual, and the peculiarly Sophoclean texture oflanguage and circum
stance thatcombines clarityand logic ofdetailwiththe ever-enlarging
scope ofthe numinous events in the background. I approach the plays
from several differentperspectives alld try to letthem speakfor them
selves through their poetic and dramatic form, their reinterpretation
of the literary tradition, their rich insights into human behavior, and
their combination ofarchaic mythic forms and subtle character draw
ing. Because of this unique combination of qualities Sophocles has
seemed to each generation to be the quintessentiallyclassical poetand
yet to be remarkably modern.
Most of the work in this volume represents my thinking about
Sophocles subsequentto myTragedy andCivilization (Harvard Univer
sityPress, 1981).I haveincludedtwo slightlyearlierpieces, Chapters 2
and 4, in revised form, because their approach is differentfrom thatof
Tragedy and Civilization and because they enlarge the range ofinter-
IX