A Companion to Sophocles

This volume will indeed serve as an indispensable reference point for the future study of Sophocles.
Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Although the book is scholarly and packed with information, it is accessible to nonspecialists. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper–division undergraduates and above.
Choice

Few literary figures have gained more immediate or more long–lasting critical acclaim than the ancient Greek dramatist Sophocles. From Sophocles first victory in the Athenian spring drama competition in 468 BCE, his works went on to become celebrated for tackling such thorny issues as personal will, divine justice, and the limitations of human knowledge. His development of the self–motivated hero s inevitable clash with unavoidable circumstances is widely recognized as the birth of Western tragedy. A Companion to Sophocles presents a comprehensive collection of original essays by leading scholars that address all aspects of the life, works, and critical reception of Sophocles. Initial essays introduce Sophocles extant tragedies as well as fragments of his lost plays, including the Ichneutae. Subsequent readings explore Sophocles relation to the intellectual, social, and political currents of fifth–century Athens; issues of gender and sexuality; significant moments in the history of interpreting Sophocles; and the reception of Sophocles by both ancient and modern playwrights. A Companion to Sophocles offers illuminating insights into one of the most influential dramatists the world has ever known.

List of Illustrations x

List of Abbreviations xi

Notes on Contributors xv

Acknowledgments xx

1 Introduction 1
Kirk Ormand

PART I Text and Author 7

2 The Textual Transmission of Sophocles Dramas 9
P. J. Finglass

3 Sophocles Biography 25
Ruth Scodel

4 Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides 38
John Davidson

Part II The Plays and the Fragments 53

5 Antigone 55
André Lardinois

6 Polyphonic Ajax 69
Peter Burian

7 Oedipus Tyrannus 84
Vayos Liapis

8 Electra 98
Francis Dunn

9 The Divided Worlds of Sophocles Women of Trachis 111
Margaret Rachel Kitzinger

10 The Philoctetes of Sophocles 126
Paul Woodruff

11 Last Things: Oedipus at Colonus and the End of Tragedy 141
Thomas Van Nortwick

12 Sophocles Ichneutae or How to Write a Satyr Play 155
Willeon Slenders

13 Sophoclean Fragments 169
Carolin Hahnemann

Part III Sophoclean Techniques 185

14 Sophocles Didaskalos 187
C. W. Marshall

15 Poetic Speakers in Sophocles 204
Sarah H. Nooter

16 Sophocles Choruses 220
Sheila Murnaghan

17 Lament as Speech Act in Sophocles 236
Casey Dué

Part IV Sophocles and Fifth–Century Political, Religious, and Intellectual Thought 251

18 Sophocles and Class 253
Peter W. Rose

19 Sophocles and Contemporary Politics 270
Robin Osborne

20 Sophocles and Athenian Law 287
Edward M. Harris

21 The Necessity and Limits of Deliberation in Sophocles Theban Plays 301
Edith Hall

22 Heroic Pharmacology: Sophocles and the Metaphors of Greek Medical Thought 316
Robin Mitchell–Boyask

23 Sophocles and Hero Cult 331
Bruno Currie

Part V Gender and Sexuality 349

24 Cutting to the Bone: Recalcitrant Bodies in Sophocles 351
Nancy Worman

25 Staging Mothers in Sophocles Electra and Oedipus the King 367
Laura McClure

26 Marriage in Sophocles: A Problem for Social History 381
Cynthia Patterson

27 Masculinity and Freedom in Sophocles 395
Bruce M. King

Part VI Historical Interpretations 409

28 Aristotle on Sophocles 411
John T. Kirby

29 Sophocles and Homer 424
Seth L. Schein

30 Facing Up to Tragedy: Toward an Intellectual History of Sophocles in Europe from Camerarius to Nietzsche 440
Michael Lurie

31 Virginia Woolf, Richard Jebb, and Sophocles Antigone 462
Denise Eileen McCoskey and Mary Jean Corbett

32 Freud and the Drama of Oedipal Truth 477
Richard H. Armstrong

33 Sophocles with Lacan 492
Mark Buchan

Part VII Influence and Imitation 505

34 Oedipus on Oedipus: Sophocles, Seneca, Politics, and Therapy 507
Alex Dressler

35 Jean Anouilh s Antigone 523
Jed Deppman

36 Enter Antigone, Let the Agones Begin: Sophocles Antigone in Nineteenth–Century Greece 538
Gonda Van Steen

37 Tony Harrison s The Trackers of Oxyrhynchus 557
Hallie Rebecca Marshall

38 Black Oedipus 572
Emily Wilson

Index Locorum 586

Index 590

Kirk Ormand is Professor of Classics at Oberlin. He is author of Exchange and the Maiden: Marriage in Sophoclean Tragedy (1999), Controlling Desires: Sexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome (2009), and The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women and Archaic Greece (2014).