Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Sophocles, Antigone (produced perhaps in 442 B.C.E or thereabouts)

I. the mythological background

A. Oedipus: patricide and incest

B. children of Oedipus and Jocasta: Eteocles, Polyneices, Antigone, Ismene

C. curse and quarrel

D. The Seven against Thebes and the fate of the bodies

II. Some key points

A. typical tragic themes: ruin, mental blindness, late-learning, reciprocity (death for death)

B. cultural conflicts: man/god (ignorance/knowledge); oikos/polis; youth/age; male/female; instinct/thought

C. Creon and the polis: sympathetic and unsympathetic features

1. treatment of traitors

2. importance of polis over personal concerns: 175-190

3. being tested by ruling, nature of wisdom: 175-178, 469-470, 704-722, 734-739, 1023-32

4. tyrannical behavior: anger (280-283 and many other passages), threats, imagery of violent control, suspicion of political opposition and mercenary motives (221-222, 289-303, 1033-63), identification of self with state (733-739)

D. Antigone's heroism

1. violation of gender-norms (contrast to Ismene)

2. isolation and self-will: 69-89, 471-472, 509-510 (cf. 693-700), 536-560, 852-855, 872-875

3. valuing of family over marriage, duty to dead, gods of underworld, unwritten law: cf. 450-468 (compare chorus at 604-614), 891-928 [note that 572 should be spoken by Ismene, not by Antigone]

E. chorus

1. fence-sitting: some resistance or reluctance with Creon, but also inability to acknowledge Antigone's piety

2. "ode to man" (332-376); thought and elpis (hope)

3. second stasimon (582-628): heredity and atê and elpis

F. Haemon and Teiresias as warners

Friday, October 21, 2011

Euripides’ Medea, performed in 431 BCE

I. Argonautic saga and its aftermath

A. heroic quest, divine helper and princess helper

B. compulsion of love, help in Colchis

C. help against Pelias in Iolcus

II. Medea caught between heroic status and contemporary social system

A. Medea as peer of male heroes

1. oath exchanged with Jason (theme of right hand)

2. xenia and oath with Aegeus

3. honor, revenge, not being laughed at, help friends/harm enemies (807-810)

4. cowardice and bravery, military metaphors

B. Medea as woman and subordinate

1. Medea’s speech to chorus (214-266)

2. Jason’s dismissive attitude (446-464, 522-575)

3. Medea’s pretence before Jason (866-975)

III. contest and reversal

A. Hesiodic allusions and anti-Hesiodic stance in first stasimon (410-445)

B. agon-scene: Jason coldly calculating, clever planner

C. Medea's sophia: magic, rhetoric, planning, self-entrapment (1014)

D. Zeus, justice, and the gods; Aegeus’ arrival, Sun’s chariot

E. final scene: reversal of positions, Medea as quasi-divine

IV. the murder of the children

A. earlier versions: murder by Corinthians, accidental killing by Medea; deliberate killing by Medea?

B. evolution of Medea’s plan: step-by-step removal of obstacles by series of successful persuasions

C. the great monologue (1021-1080): maternal side vs. heroic/masculine side; not a simple struggle of passion vs. reason

V. Medea as the other and the same

A. Medea’s voyage, separation of Europe and Asia (Clashing Rocks, Bosporus)

B. Medea as sorceress

C. Greek law/custom vs. barbarian ways (536-538, 1330-1, 1339): distinction undercut by Jason as spokesman

D. Medea’s assimilation to male Greek heroes (Ajax, Achilles) and even to Jason

1. sophia and planning

2. concealment of true feeling/intention from a friend (659-62)

3. harming one’s philoi