Colin Dayan
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691070919
- eISBN:
- 9781400838592
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691070919.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This introductory chapter explains that when ghosts come before the law, they are sometimes treated as if real insofar as they have legal effect. Indeed, for legal purposes—in cases of undue ...
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This introductory chapter explains that when ghosts come before the law, they are sometimes treated as if real insofar as they have legal effect. Indeed, for legal purposes—in cases of undue influence, defamation, or fraud—spectral emanations may become proof, just like any facts. On this bewitched ground, the fantastic and the commonplace intermingle. In the case of wills, especially, even when the law does not acknowledge the unique gifts of spiritualists, it sometimes admits as valid the communications of the dead. In numerous eighteenth- and nineteenth-century appellate cases, especially, courts sustained the wills of those advised by mediums channeling the wishes of deceased loved ones into the minds of believers. The chapter also looks at the story of Hecuba. Changed into a dog, at once mystified and historicized, ghostly and corporeal, Hecuba shows the interstices of human and animal, person and god, living and dead.Less
This introductory chapter explains that when ghosts come before the law, they are sometimes treated as if real insofar as they have legal effect. Indeed, for legal purposes—in cases of undue influence, defamation, or fraud—spectral emanations may become proof, just like any facts. On this bewitched ground, the fantastic and the commonplace intermingle. In the case of wills, especially, even when the law does not acknowledge the unique gifts of spiritualists, it sometimes admits as valid the communications of the dead. In numerous eighteenth- and nineteenth-century appellate cases, especially, courts sustained the wills of those advised by mediums channeling the wishes of deceased loved ones into the minds of believers. The chapter also looks at the story of Hecuba. Changed into a dog, at once mystified and historicized, ghostly and corporeal, Hecuba shows the interstices of human and animal, person and god, living and dead.
Geraldine Cousin
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719061974
- eISBN:
- 9781781700976
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719061974.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
This book explores connections between theatre time, the historical moment, and fictional time. It argues that a crucial characteristic of contemporary British theatre is its preoccupation with ...
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This book explores connections between theatre time, the historical moment, and fictional time. It argues that a crucial characteristic of contemporary British theatre is its preoccupation with instability and danger, and traces images of catastrophe and loss in a wide range of recent plays and productions. The diversity of the texts that are examined is a major strength of the book. In addition to plays by contemporary dramatists, the book analyses staged adaptations of novels, and productions of plays by Euripides, Strindberg and Priestley. A key focus is Stephen Daldry's award-winning revival of Priestley's An Inspector Calls, which is discussed in relation both to other Priestley ‘time’ plays and to Caryl Churchill's apocalyptic Far Away. Lost children are a recurring motif. Bryony Lavery's Frozen, for example, is explored in the context of the Soham murders, which took place while the play was in production at the National Theatre, whilst three virtually simultaneous productions of Euripides' Hecuba are interpreted with regard to the Beslan massacre of schoolchildren.Less
This book explores connections between theatre time, the historical moment, and fictional time. It argues that a crucial characteristic of contemporary British theatre is its preoccupation with instability and danger, and traces images of catastrophe and loss in a wide range of recent plays and productions. The diversity of the texts that are examined is a major strength of the book. In addition to plays by contemporary dramatists, the book analyses staged adaptations of novels, and productions of plays by Euripides, Strindberg and Priestley. A key focus is Stephen Daldry's award-winning revival of Priestley's An Inspector Calls, which is discussed in relation both to other Priestley ‘time’ plays and to Caryl Churchill's apocalyptic Far Away. Lost children are a recurring motif. Bryony Lavery's Frozen, for example, is explored in the context of the Soham murders, which took place while the play was in production at the National Theatre, whilst three virtually simultaneous productions of Euripides' Hecuba are interpreted with regard to the Beslan massacre of schoolchildren.
Victoria Wohl
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691166506
- eISBN:
- 9781400866403
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691166506.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Ancient History / Archaeology
This chapter asks about the ethics of (lyric and structural) beauty and the politics of pathos in two plays, Trojan Women and Hecuba. The first, Trojan Women, presents a tale of unmitigated misery ...
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This chapter asks about the ethics of (lyric and structural) beauty and the politics of pathos in two plays, Trojan Women and Hecuba. The first, Trojan Women, presents a tale of unmitigated misery and renders it self-consciously beautiful. But how are we to watch this sublime suffering? The play won't let us maintain a safe spectatorial distance; it demands that we watch with pity, but also suggests the insufficiency of that response. Our tears do no good. The insufficiency of pity is also a central theme of the second play, Hecuba. Here pity is shown to be not only politically ineffectual, but in fact morally dangerous: the beauty of tragic suffering generates a perverse investment in that suffering itself, and our longing for the beautiful symmetry of justice makes us complicit in a vicious act of injustice. Both plays thus propose that aesthetic judgments bear ethical and political consequences, but neither takes it for granted that beauty will make us just.Less
This chapter asks about the ethics of (lyric and structural) beauty and the politics of pathos in two plays, Trojan Women and Hecuba. The first, Trojan Women, presents a tale of unmitigated misery and renders it self-consciously beautiful. But how are we to watch this sublime suffering? The play won't let us maintain a safe spectatorial distance; it demands that we watch with pity, but also suggests the insufficiency of that response. Our tears do no good. The insufficiency of pity is also a central theme of the second play, Hecuba. Here pity is shown to be not only politically ineffectual, but in fact morally dangerous: the beauty of tragic suffering generates a perverse investment in that suffering itself, and our longing for the beautiful symmetry of justice makes us complicit in a vicious act of injustice. Both plays thus propose that aesthetic judgments bear ethical and political consequences, but neither takes it for granted that beauty will make us just.
Victoria Wohl
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691166506
- eISBN:
- 9781400866403
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691166506.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Ancient History / Archaeology
This chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. It argues that Euripides' imperfect alignment of form and meaning forces form itself onto center stage. It makes us aware of a ...
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This chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. It argues that Euripides' imperfect alignment of form and meaning forces form itself onto center stage. It makes us aware of a play's form, granting it density and texture. Even at its emptiest, form is always full, replete with meaning. We have seen Euripides exploring that meaning, thinking in form about tragic form and its fullness and emptiness. The plays have shown us form as generative and enabling, producing, for example, an aspiration to justice (in Hecuba and Trojan Women), or a renewed attachment to the polis (in Ion), or even history itself (in Suppliants and Orestes. We have also seen the constraints and oppressions of form, both dramatic and social. In Electra, empty forms encrusted with outdated content constrained human behavior and foreclosed radical social possibilities. Form functioned as a deadweight upon the play's own imagination.Less
This chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. It argues that Euripides' imperfect alignment of form and meaning forces form itself onto center stage. It makes us aware of a play's form, granting it density and texture. Even at its emptiest, form is always full, replete with meaning. We have seen Euripides exploring that meaning, thinking in form about tragic form and its fullness and emptiness. The plays have shown us form as generative and enabling, producing, for example, an aspiration to justice (in Hecuba and Trojan Women), or a renewed attachment to the polis (in Ion), or even history itself (in Suppliants and Orestes. We have also seen the constraints and oppressions of form, both dramatic and social. In Electra, empty forms encrusted with outdated content constrained human behavior and foreclosed radical social possibilities. Form functioned as a deadweight upon the play's own imagination.
Alan H. Sommerstein
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199568314
- eISBN:
- 9780191723018
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199568314.003.0019
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines the presentation by Sophocles of Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles. In Homer he is a flawless hero; in most other archaic poetry and art, he is mainly a perpetrator of ...
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This chapter examines the presentation by Sophocles of Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles. In Homer he is a flawless hero; in most other archaic poetry and art, he is mainly a perpetrator of atrocities; in the whole output of Aeschylus and Euripides he is never made a dramatic character at all. In Sophocles he is sometimes noble (The Scyrians, Eurypylus) and sometimes base (Hermione and probably Polyxena), far baser than he is made to seem in the corresponding Euripidean plays (Andromache, Hecuba) in which he does not appear. In Philoctetes, where his very presence is innovative, he gradually changes before our eyes from apprentice villain to true hero — but we are reminded at the end that he is destined not to maintain that standard.Less
This chapter examines the presentation by Sophocles of Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles. In Homer he is a flawless hero; in most other archaic poetry and art, he is mainly a perpetrator of atrocities; in the whole output of Aeschylus and Euripides he is never made a dramatic character at all. In Sophocles he is sometimes noble (The Scyrians, Eurypylus) and sometimes base (Hermione and probably Polyxena), far baser than he is made to seem in the corresponding Euripidean plays (Andromache, Hecuba) in which he does not appear. In Philoctetes, where his very presence is innovative, he gradually changes before our eyes from apprentice villain to true hero — but we are reminded at the end that he is destined not to maintain that standard.
Elton T.E. Barker
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199542710
- eISBN:
- 9780191715365
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199542710.003.0010
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter discusses the similar emphasis placed on spectating and speaking back by Euripides' Hecuba but from an alternative Odyssean strategy, which maximizes unease over tragedy's recuperative ...
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This chapter discusses the similar emphasis placed on spectating and speaking back by Euripides' Hecuba but from an alternative Odyssean strategy, which maximizes unease over tragedy's recuperative powers. It traces how this play makes a spectacle of Hecuba's suffering, maximizing sympathy for her as she first endures unending sorrow and then takes revenge. The play's Odyssean insistence on the authority of her suffering culminates when an on-stage judge (Agamemnon) sets up an agon in order expressly to deal with the fallout from her revenge, as Euripides establishes the most extreme test case of the agon's capacity to control and make use of dissent. Yet, the play ends not with the agon but with Polymestor's dissenting voice continuing to ring out, exposing Agamemnon to a few home truths and leaving the audience to make sense of dissent outside the secure comfort of any institutional framework, even the play itself.Less
This chapter discusses the similar emphasis placed on spectating and speaking back by Euripides' Hecuba but from an alternative Odyssean strategy, which maximizes unease over tragedy's recuperative powers. It traces how this play makes a spectacle of Hecuba's suffering, maximizing sympathy for her as she first endures unending sorrow and then takes revenge. The play's Odyssean insistence on the authority of her suffering culminates when an on-stage judge (Agamemnon) sets up an agon in order expressly to deal with the fallout from her revenge, as Euripides establishes the most extreme test case of the agon's capacity to control and make use of dissent. Yet, the play ends not with the agon but with Polymestor's dissenting voice continuing to ring out, exposing Agamemnon to a few home truths and leaving the audience to make sense of dissent outside the secure comfort of any institutional framework, even the play itself.
Pietro Pucci
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781501700613
- eISBN:
- 9781501704055
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501700613.003.0006
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines Hecuba's musings on the deficiency of language by focusing on her debate with Polymestor. In her debate with Polymestor before Agamemnon, Hecuba defends the revenge she has ...
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This chapter examines Hecuba's musings on the deficiency of language by focusing on her debate with Polymestor. In her debate with Polymestor before Agamemnon, Hecuba defends the revenge she has already taken on Polymestor, and her defense is a masquerade, a pretense, since Agamemnon is a complicitous judge. In an earlier scene, Agamemnon had already agreed with Hecuba that she should seek revenge. This chapter discusses the rhetorical art of Euripides's characters and suggests that its measure and qualification are always dependent on some aspect or connotation of sophia: skill, expertise, shrewdness, deceptiveness, sophistication, wisdom. It argues that Euripides's sophia is often able to disregard its own polysemic connotations and intends to deliver a truly “wise” message.Less
This chapter examines Hecuba's musings on the deficiency of language by focusing on her debate with Polymestor. In her debate with Polymestor before Agamemnon, Hecuba defends the revenge she has already taken on Polymestor, and her defense is a masquerade, a pretense, since Agamemnon is a complicitous judge. In an earlier scene, Agamemnon had already agreed with Hecuba that she should seek revenge. This chapter discusses the rhetorical art of Euripides's characters and suggests that its measure and qualification are always dependent on some aspect or connotation of sophia: skill, expertise, shrewdness, deceptiveness, sophistication, wisdom. It argues that Euripides's sophia is often able to disregard its own polysemic connotations and intends to deliver a truly “wise” message.
Pietro Pucci
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781501700613
- eISBN:
- 9781501704055
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501700613.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines the notion that the lewd gaze is what triggers erotic passion. It considers Gorgias's expression in his Encomium of Helen: “What wonder, then, if the eye of Helen, delighted by ...
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This chapter examines the notion that the lewd gaze is what triggers erotic passion. It considers Gorgias's expression in his Encomium of Helen: “What wonder, then, if the eye of Helen, delighted by Paris's body, provoked in her soul desire and craving for love?” This view, according to which the lover is the source of his/her own passion, goes along with the alternative traditional explanation suggesting that the source of sexual desire resides in the object itself—for instance, in the cheeks or the eyes of the seducing object. As the subjective gaze in viewing a desirable object produces erotic passion, the text implies that the enemy is not outside but inside us. This chapter also discusses Hecuba's claim that Paris's beauty is the source of Helen's craving, but it is Helen's wanton and greedy glance at Paris's beauty and wealth that turns her mind into lewd and wicked desire and adultery.Less
This chapter examines the notion that the lewd gaze is what triggers erotic passion. It considers Gorgias's expression in his Encomium of Helen: “What wonder, then, if the eye of Helen, delighted by Paris's body, provoked in her soul desire and craving for love?” This view, according to which the lover is the source of his/her own passion, goes along with the alternative traditional explanation suggesting that the source of sexual desire resides in the object itself—for instance, in the cheeks or the eyes of the seducing object. As the subjective gaze in viewing a desirable object produces erotic passion, the text implies that the enemy is not outside but inside us. This chapter also discusses Hecuba's claim that Paris's beauty is the source of Helen's craving, but it is Helen's wanton and greedy glance at Paris's beauty and wealth that turns her mind into lewd and wicked desire and adultery.
Pietro Pucci
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781501700613
- eISBN:
- 9781501704055
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501700613.003.0009
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines how sophia depersonalizes Aphrodite and divinizes sexual power in Euripides's poetics. It considers the intellectual predicament in which Euripides must have found himself, as a ...
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This chapter examines how sophia depersonalizes Aphrodite and divinizes sexual power in Euripides's poetics. It considers the intellectual predicament in which Euripides must have found himself, as a thinker and a dramatist, in interpreting the irrational and perverse nature of human sexual drive. It explains how Aphrodite's presence could account for the irrational behavior of Helen, and her return to make love with Paris after having strongly rejected that intercourse. It suggests that the mysterious, mad, and commanding force of erotic passion can be attributed to Aphrodite's instigation and imperious will. It also reflects on the debate between Helen and Hecuba in relation to the nature and effects of eros.Less
This chapter examines how sophia depersonalizes Aphrodite and divinizes sexual power in Euripides's poetics. It considers the intellectual predicament in which Euripides must have found himself, as a thinker and a dramatist, in interpreting the irrational and perverse nature of human sexual drive. It explains how Aphrodite's presence could account for the irrational behavior of Helen, and her return to make love with Paris after having strongly rejected that intercourse. It suggests that the mysterious, mad, and commanding force of erotic passion can be attributed to Aphrodite's instigation and imperious will. It also reflects on the debate between Helen and Hecuba in relation to the nature and effects of eros.
Pietro Pucci
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781501700613
- eISBN:
- 9781501704055
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501700613.003.0013
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines the spiritual misery of human life in Euripides's poetry. In Troades, Hecuba frames the whole glorious and painful adventure of Troy as the song that the poets will sing. Hecuba ...
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This chapter examines the spiritual misery of human life in Euripides's poetry. In Troades, Hecuba frames the whole glorious and painful adventure of Troy as the song that the poets will sing. Hecuba speaks in harmony with epic poetry and borrows from it the power to reduce the senseless and manifold devastation of the world to a sensible and simple image. For the proud aristocratic characters such as Polyxena, Cassandra, and Hector, sacrifices, defeats, and heroic death are sources and themes for songs immortalizing their glory. This chapter considers how the prospect of immortality through song gives sense and meaning to the violence that has been shown on stage. It also discusses Euripides's belief, implied in Troades, that living your life in order to warrant a great postmortem celebration is meaningless.Less
This chapter examines the spiritual misery of human life in Euripides's poetry. In Troades, Hecuba frames the whole glorious and painful adventure of Troy as the song that the poets will sing. Hecuba speaks in harmony with epic poetry and borrows from it the power to reduce the senseless and manifold devastation of the world to a sensible and simple image. For the proud aristocratic characters such as Polyxena, Cassandra, and Hector, sacrifices, defeats, and heroic death are sources and themes for songs immortalizing their glory. This chapter considers how the prospect of immortality through song gives sense and meaning to the violence that has been shown on stage. It also discusses Euripides's belief, implied in Troades, that living your life in order to warrant a great postmortem celebration is meaningless.
Eirene Visvardi
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199562329
- eISBN:
- 9780191724978
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199562329.003.0014
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter focuses on the choral discourse of pity in Euripides’ Hecuba and Trojan Women and suggests that both Athenocentrism and a panhellenic scope are often integral to the emotional politics ...
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This chapter focuses on the choral discourse of pity in Euripides’ Hecuba and Trojan Women and suggests that both Athenocentrism and a panhellenic scope are often integral to the emotional politics of Athenian tragedy. By proposing the inclusion of pity in the morality and practice of war, the two choruses construct a highly politicized concept of pity. Such concept can be shared, they suggest, because emotional experience and understanding are shaped by participation in the social, religious, and political institutions of the polis. In addition to giving prominence to Athenian institutions, the choruses also foreground the communal practices and values of the panhellenic Greek polis. They thus render their concept of pity potentially effective in the context of different Greek political communities. Given the centrality of the representation and evocation of pity in tragedy, this aspect of its choral manipulation contributes to the panhellenic appeal of the plays.Less
This chapter focuses on the choral discourse of pity in Euripides’ Hecuba and Trojan Women and suggests that both Athenocentrism and a panhellenic scope are often integral to the emotional politics of Athenian tragedy. By proposing the inclusion of pity in the morality and practice of war, the two choruses construct a highly politicized concept of pity. Such concept can be shared, they suggest, because emotional experience and understanding are shaped by participation in the social, religious, and political institutions of the polis. In addition to giving prominence to Athenian institutions, the choruses also foreground the communal practices and values of the panhellenic Greek polis. They thus render their concept of pity potentially effective in the context of different Greek political communities. Given the centrality of the representation and evocation of pity in tragedy, this aspect of its choral manipulation contributes to the panhellenic appeal of the plays.
Tanya Pollard
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198793113
- eISBN:
- 9780191835063
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198793113.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, Shakespeare Studies
Greek Tragic Women on Shakespearean Stages argues that ancient Greek plays exerted a powerful and uncharted influence on early modern England’s dramatic landscape. Drawing on original research to ...
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Greek Tragic Women on Shakespearean Stages argues that ancient Greek plays exerted a powerful and uncharted influence on early modern England’s dramatic landscape. Drawing on original research to challenge longstanding assumptions about Greek texts’ invisibility, the book shows not only that the plays were more prominent than we have believed, but that early modern readers and audiences responded powerfully to specific plays and themes. The Greek plays most popular in the period were not male-centered dramas such as Sophocles’ Oedipus, but tragedies by Euripides that focused on raging bereaved mothers and sacrificial virgin daughters, especially Hecuba and Iphigenia. Because tragedy was firmly linked with its Greek origin in the period’s writings, these iconic female figures acquired a privileged status as synecdoches for the tragic theater and its ability to conjure sympathetic emotions in audiences. When Hamlet reflects on the moving power of tragic performance, he turns to the most prominent of these figures: “What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba/ That he should weep for her?” Through readings of plays by Shakespeare and his contemporary dramatists, this book argues that newly visible Greek plays, identified with the origins of theatrical performance and represented by passionate female figures, challenged early modern writers to reimagine the affective possibilities of tragedy, comedy, and the emerging genre of tragicomedy.Less
Greek Tragic Women on Shakespearean Stages argues that ancient Greek plays exerted a powerful and uncharted influence on early modern England’s dramatic landscape. Drawing on original research to challenge longstanding assumptions about Greek texts’ invisibility, the book shows not only that the plays were more prominent than we have believed, but that early modern readers and audiences responded powerfully to specific plays and themes. The Greek plays most popular in the period were not male-centered dramas such as Sophocles’ Oedipus, but tragedies by Euripides that focused on raging bereaved mothers and sacrificial virgin daughters, especially Hecuba and Iphigenia. Because tragedy was firmly linked with its Greek origin in the period’s writings, these iconic female figures acquired a privileged status as synecdoches for the tragic theater and its ability to conjure sympathetic emotions in audiences. When Hamlet reflects on the moving power of tragic performance, he turns to the most prominent of these figures: “What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba/ That he should weep for her?” Through readings of plays by Shakespeare and his contemporary dramatists, this book argues that newly visible Greek plays, identified with the origins of theatrical performance and represented by passionate female figures, challenged early modern writers to reimagine the affective possibilities of tragedy, comedy, and the emerging genre of tragicomedy.
Pietro Pucci
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781501700613
- eISBN:
- 9781501704055
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501700613.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines Euripides's treatment of sex as the cause of the Trojan War. The first aspect of sexuality in Euripides that strikes us is the violence with which it assails its subjects—most ...
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This chapter examines Euripides's treatment of sex as the cause of the Trojan War. The first aspect of sexuality in Euripides that strikes us is the violence with which it assails its subjects—most often women—in excessive, perverse, and sometimes destructive forms. This violence is deployed in a particular way and has particular effects: it dislocates and dispossesses the self, making it a puppet of a drive that the subject often cannot clearly diagnose or identify. Eros is one of the most insidious and piercing instantiations of otherness and can ensnare the whole of a human being. This representation of sexual drive threatens Euripides's metaphysics, which gestures toward an imagined self, which, through its sophia, is able to build a solid and sure stronghold against forces that would pierce through it. This chapter discusses the debate between Helen and Hecuba in Troades and suggests that it represents a typical metalepsis of Euripides's sophia.Less
This chapter examines Euripides's treatment of sex as the cause of the Trojan War. The first aspect of sexuality in Euripides that strikes us is the violence with which it assails its subjects—most often women—in excessive, perverse, and sometimes destructive forms. This violence is deployed in a particular way and has particular effects: it dislocates and dispossesses the self, making it a puppet of a drive that the subject often cannot clearly diagnose or identify. Eros is one of the most insidious and piercing instantiations of otherness and can ensnare the whole of a human being. This representation of sexual drive threatens Euripides's metaphysics, which gestures toward an imagined self, which, through its sophia, is able to build a solid and sure stronghold against forces that would pierce through it. This chapter discusses the debate between Helen and Hecuba in Troades and suggests that it represents a typical metalepsis of Euripides's sophia.
Pietro Pucci
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781501700613
- eISBN:
- 9781501704055
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501700613.003.0014
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter focuses on figures of metalepsis in Euripides's plays. In her attack on Helen's self-defense, Hecuba explicitly mocks the most sacred epic and tragic convention, the divine epiphany. The ...
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This chapter focuses on figures of metalepsis in Euripides's plays. In her attack on Helen's self-defense, Hecuba explicitly mocks the most sacred epic and tragic convention, the divine epiphany. The audience must have thought that she had suddenly left the cultural frame of the story and had taken on a metadramatic role, declaring to them that she did not belong to the traditional story. This change in narrative sequence, tone, and consistency is a rhetorical phenomenon known as metalepsis. Analogous cases, in which a character plays an extended and coherent enlightened role, include Phaedra in Hippolytus, Theseus in Suppliant Women, and Teiresias in Bacchae. This chapter examines Euripides's enlightened transformation of traditional characters. More specifically, it considers how, in their adversarial roles, Hecuba and the others abandon the specific phenomenology of the myth and become what we call “literary” characters.Less
This chapter focuses on figures of metalepsis in Euripides's plays. In her attack on Helen's self-defense, Hecuba explicitly mocks the most sacred epic and tragic convention, the divine epiphany. The audience must have thought that she had suddenly left the cultural frame of the story and had taken on a metadramatic role, declaring to them that she did not belong to the traditional story. This change in narrative sequence, tone, and consistency is a rhetorical phenomenon known as metalepsis. Analogous cases, in which a character plays an extended and coherent enlightened role, include Phaedra in Hippolytus, Theseus in Suppliant Women, and Teiresias in Bacchae. This chapter examines Euripides's enlightened transformation of traditional characters. More specifically, it considers how, in their adversarial roles, Hecuba and the others abandon the specific phenomenology of the myth and become what we call “literary” characters.
Wendy Heller
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520209336
- eISBN:
- 9780520919341
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520209336.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter describes Dido, queen of Carthage, in Francesco Cavalli's La Didone. It also explains the tragic despair of Hecuba and Didone's guilt. It concentrates on the relationship between ...
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This chapter describes Dido, queen of Carthage, in Francesco Cavalli's La Didone. It also explains the tragic despair of Hecuba and Didone's guilt. It concentrates on the relationship between recitative and aria—that is, between “operatic speech” and song. It also considers the significance of Cavalli's somewhat idiosyncratic use of tonal language. La Didone provides an ideal vantage point from which to investigate the operatic encoding of women's voice and to view the emergence of a feminine musical rhetoric in the first decades of Venetian opera. Dido's story warns women about the debilitating nature of female desire and the necessity of retaining control when dealing with a client. The Trojan act highlights the difference between male and female virtues, and the importance of civic duty over private passion. Didone's political power and protestations about chastity must necessarily be overthrown.Less
This chapter describes Dido, queen of Carthage, in Francesco Cavalli's La Didone. It also explains the tragic despair of Hecuba and Didone's guilt. It concentrates on the relationship between recitative and aria—that is, between “operatic speech” and song. It also considers the significance of Cavalli's somewhat idiosyncratic use of tonal language. La Didone provides an ideal vantage point from which to investigate the operatic encoding of women's voice and to view the emergence of a feminine musical rhetoric in the first decades of Venetian opera. Dido's story warns women about the debilitating nature of female desire and the necessity of retaining control when dealing with a client. The Trojan act highlights the difference between male and female virtues, and the importance of civic duty over private passion. Didone's political power and protestations about chastity must necessarily be overthrown.
Christopher Collard
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781904675730
- eISBN:
- 9781781385364
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781904675730.003.0010
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The paper discusses the relation of the plays third and final choral ode to the other two, in themes, narrative design, mood and tone, and as climax. The ode's metrical character and pictorial ...
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The paper discusses the relation of the plays third and final choral ode to the other two, in themes, narrative design, mood and tone, and as climax. The ode's metrical character and pictorial quality are given special notice.Less
The paper discusses the relation of the plays third and final choral ode to the other two, in themes, narrative design, mood and tone, and as climax. The ode's metrical character and pictorial quality are given special notice.
Emily Katz Anhalt
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780300217377
- eISBN:
- 9780300231762
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300217377.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This book examines three ancient Greek myths—Homer's Iliad, Euripides' Hecuba, and Sophocles' Ajax—to illustrate the costs of rage and identify crucial prerequisites for the nonviolent resolution of ...
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This book examines three ancient Greek myths—Homer's Iliad, Euripides' Hecuba, and Sophocles' Ajax—to illustrate the costs of rage and identify crucial prerequisites for the nonviolent resolution of conflicts. Performed publicly as epic songs or tragic plays, ancient Greek myths expose tyranny and violence as universal toxins capable of destroying both perpetrator and victim. They emphasize the self-destructiveness of rage and undermine the traditional equation of vengeance with justice, but they also remind their audiences that human beings have better options for dealing with one another. The book analyzes the critique of rage in Iliad, which addresses the misuse of power and questions the utility of vengeance, and Hecuba and Ajax, both of which commend verbal persuasion over physical violence but also underscore the ambivalent potential of persuasive speech.Less
This book examines three ancient Greek myths—Homer's Iliad, Euripides' Hecuba, and Sophocles' Ajax—to illustrate the costs of rage and identify crucial prerequisites for the nonviolent resolution of conflicts. Performed publicly as epic songs or tragic plays, ancient Greek myths expose tyranny and violence as universal toxins capable of destroying both perpetrator and victim. They emphasize the self-destructiveness of rage and undermine the traditional equation of vengeance with justice, but they also remind their audiences that human beings have better options for dealing with one another. The book analyzes the critique of rage in Iliad, which addresses the misuse of power and questions the utility of vengeance, and Hecuba and Ajax, both of which commend verbal persuasion over physical violence but also underscore the ambivalent potential of persuasive speech.
Emily Katz Anhalt
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780300217377
- eISBN:
- 9780300231762
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300217377.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines Hecuba's emphasis on the abuse of power and its consequences. In its depiction of rage, Hecuba exposes the ramifications of people in power failing to respect any obligations ...
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This chapter examines Hecuba's emphasis on the abuse of power and its consequences. In its depiction of rage, Hecuba exposes the ramifications of people in power failing to respect any obligations toward the powerless. The play reminds its audience that democratic decision making, by empowering individuals, simultaneously requires individuals to take responsibility for their actions and to learn to judge and to choose to do what is best. The chapter also explains how Hecuba enables the audience to see that every violent act will produce further violence. The characters call this “justice,” but the audience cannot. In addition, the play insists that morality can be unlearned and stresses the gratuitous cruelty and suffering that human beings inflict on one another.Less
This chapter examines Hecuba's emphasis on the abuse of power and its consequences. In its depiction of rage, Hecuba exposes the ramifications of people in power failing to respect any obligations toward the powerless. The play reminds its audience that democratic decision making, by empowering individuals, simultaneously requires individuals to take responsibility for their actions and to learn to judge and to choose to do what is best. The chapter also explains how Hecuba enables the audience to see that every violent act will produce further violence. The characters call this “justice,” but the audience cannot. In addition, the play insists that morality can be unlearned and stresses the gratuitous cruelty and suffering that human beings inflict on one another.
Emily Katz Anhalt
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780300217377
- eISBN:
- 9780300231762
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300217377.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This conclusion summarizes the book's main themes and their significance for self-government in the twenty-first century. Ancient Greek myths remind us that rage provokes rage, brutality begets ...
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This conclusion summarizes the book's main themes and their significance for self-government in the twenty-first century. Ancient Greek myths remind us that rage provokes rage, brutality begets brutality, and atrocity evokes atrocity. The Iliad calls into question its characters' certainty that success in warfare is the highest form of human accomplishment, thus undermining the audience's eagerness to celebrate physical combat and violent vengeance above all else. Ajax warns against overconfidence in the value of democratic institutions alone, while Hecuba warns against the failure to uphold farsighted absolute standards of compassionate justice and humanity. Although the Athenians continued to employ violence in their relations with other “citizen-communities,” their experience and above all their stories remind us that self-government is necessary for a successful society and a fully realized human life.Less
This conclusion summarizes the book's main themes and their significance for self-government in the twenty-first century. Ancient Greek myths remind us that rage provokes rage, brutality begets brutality, and atrocity evokes atrocity. The Iliad calls into question its characters' certainty that success in warfare is the highest form of human accomplishment, thus undermining the audience's eagerness to celebrate physical combat and violent vengeance above all else. Ajax warns against overconfidence in the value of democratic institutions alone, while Hecuba warns against the failure to uphold farsighted absolute standards of compassionate justice and humanity. Although the Athenians continued to employ violence in their relations with other “citizen-communities,” their experience and above all their stories remind us that self-government is necessary for a successful society and a fully realized human life.
Helene P. Foley
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780520272446
- eISBN:
- 9780520953659
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520272446.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The epilogue examines the recent popularity of Euripides's Hecuba and Iphigeneia in Aulis on the American professional stage as symptomatic of a new willingness to confront the corrosive effects of ...
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The epilogue examines the recent popularity of Euripides's Hecuba and Iphigeneia in Aulis on the American professional stage as symptomatic of a new willingness to confront the corrosive effects of war, empire, and public rhetoric on American domestic and political life that requires reconsidering American exceptionalism. These productions can also look to a move beyond tragedy, represented in Euripides's Iphigeneia in Tauris, in order to offer a source of hope and a redefined place for women in American history. As was the case with Sophocles's Electra, discussed in the introduction, the representation of Iphigeneia often includes the dividing and doubling of the plays’ virginal heroine in the face of overwhelming historical forces.Less
The epilogue examines the recent popularity of Euripides's Hecuba and Iphigeneia in Aulis on the American professional stage as symptomatic of a new willingness to confront the corrosive effects of war, empire, and public rhetoric on American domestic and political life that requires reconsidering American exceptionalism. These productions can also look to a move beyond tragedy, represented in Euripides's Iphigeneia in Tauris, in order to offer a source of hope and a redefined place for women in American history. As was the case with Sophocles's Electra, discussed in the introduction, the representation of Iphigeneia often includes the dividing and doubling of the plays’ virginal heroine in the face of overwhelming historical forces.
