CLST 312: Greek and Roman Drama
Winter 2016
Supporting Materials for Lectures
Lecture 1: The Eleven Basic Roles in Production
1.
Producer (choregus) :
The playwright made application to the archon eponymos for a chorus; plays were chosen one month after the festival
in order to give eleven months for rehearsal. Discuss the liturgy such as choregeia (producing a
tragedy/comedy),trierarchia (outfitting a trireme), etc. and the antidosis to which one charged with a liturgy could
challenge any other citizen. In times of financial duress, co-producers, or sungchoregoi collaborated to foot the bill.
Discuss also the publication of a written text after the performance (e.g. Ar. Clouds); the law of Lycurgus (330 B.C.)
required an official text of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides to be kept in the Athenian archives and actors could
not depart from the wording of these texts. Discuss the proagon and its relevance to understanding the plays.
 E. Hiller, "Die Athenischen Odeen und der Proagon," Hermes 7 (1873) 393-407.
 W. A. Goligher, "Studies in Attic Law II: The Antidosis," Hermathena 14 (1907) 481-515.
 W. M. Calder III, "The Single-Performance Fallacy," Educational Theatre Journal 10 (1958) 237-9.
 A. R. W. Harrison, The Law of Athens (Oxford, 1968) vol. 2 pp. 236-8.
 D. M. MacDowell, The Law in Classical Athens (London 1978) 162-4.
 M. R. Christ, "Liturgy Avoidance and Antidosis in Classical Athens," Transactions of the American Philological
Association 120 (1990) 147-69.
 A. J. Podlecki, "Could Women Attend the Theatre in Ancient Athens?: A Collection of Testimonia," Ancient
World 21 (1990) 27-43.
 J. Henderson, "Women and Athenian Dramatic Festivals," Transactions of the Amerian Philological
Association 121 (1991) 133-47.
2.
Director/rice (didascalus) :
Discuss (i) the architectural form of the ancient theatre: the scene building, machinery such as the crane (geranos,
mechane) and the ekkuklema, (you might consider the effect caused by natural sunlight rather than by spot-lights, and
the effect of the enormous spectator area on one's appreciation of events in the orchestra), (ii) staging, scenery,
stage-properties (props) and production-techniques, (iii) masks and costume, (iv) dance and gesture, (v) music, (vi)
the use of a chorus, (vii) the use of actors to play multiple roles, of male actors to play female roles, messengers,
audience-address, and entrances and exits and (viii) aspects of production. Some modern production-methods might
be considered, e.g. Peter Arnott's marionette theatre production.
 T. B. L. Webster, Greek Theatre Production (London 1956).
 P. Arnott, Greek Scenic Conventions of the Fifth Century B. C. (Oxford 1962).
 N. C. Hourmouziades, Production and Imagination in Euripides (Athens 1965).
 A. Pickard-Cambridge, The Dramatic Festivals of Athens 2nd ed. (Oxford 1968).
 N. G. L. Hammond, "The Conditions of Dramatic Production to the Death of Aeschylus," Greek, Roman and
Byzantine Studies 13 (1972) 387-450.
 O. Taplin, The Stage-Craft of Aeschylus (Oxford 1977).
 P. Burian, "The Play before the Prologue: Initial Tableaux on the Greek Stage," in J. H. D'Arms and J. W. Eadie
edd., Ancient and Modern (Ann Arbor 1977) 79-94.
 D. Seale, Vision and Stage-Craft in Euripides (London and Canberra 1982).
 M. R. Halleran, Stagecraft in Euripides (London and Sydney 1985).
 G. Ley and M. Evans, "The Orchestra as Acting Area in Greek Tragedy," Ramus 14 (1985) 75-84.
 R. B. Parker, "The National Theatre's Oresteia, 1981-82," in M. Cropp et al. edd., Greek Tragedy and its Legacy =
Festschrift D. J. Conacher (Calgary 1986) 337-57.
 K. B. Frost, Exits and Entrances in Menander (Oxford 1988).
3.
Stage-Manager (architecton or theatrones) and Prompter (hypoboleus):
The stage-manager was responsible for leasing the theatre from the state and selling tickets. He got to work
themechane and ekkuklema.
Pericles (in Plutarch Moralia 813F) advised himself to "imitate the actors, who, while putting into their performances
their own passion, character and reputation, yet listen to the prompter and do not go beyond the degree of liberty in
rhythms and metres provided by those in authority over them." Could the property-altar on stage double as a
prompter's box?


A. L. H. Robkin, "That Magnificent Flying Machine: On the Nature of the 'Mechane' of the Theatre of Dionysus at
Athens," Archaeological News 8 (1978) 1-6.
D. J. Mastronarde, "Actors on High: The Skene Roof, the Crane and the Gods in Attic Drama," Classical
Antiquity 9 (1990) 247-94.
4.
1.
Chorus Leader (choryphaeus):
Dance and Gesture:
Discuss the number of members of the chorus (15 in tragedy, 24 in comedy, 12 in satyr-play and 50 in dithyramb).
Discuss the use of gesture in the dance; on the exaggerated nature of gesture on "the small screen" (about the size of
a television set in contrast to movie-theatre screens), consider the marionette theatre of the later Peter Arnott.
Stereotypic gestures were different in Greece from what they are among us: nodding up means "no" while nodding
down means "yes", scratching the face was a sign of grief as was raising one arm above the head. Spontaneous
dancing, like St. Vitus' dance, was associated with the worship of Dionysus; see E. R. Dodds,Euripides: Bacchae, 2nd
ed. (Oxford 1960) xiv-xvi. Cf. Archilochus fr. 120 West, "I know how to lead the fair song of the dithyramb for Lord
Dionysus when thunder-blasted in my wits by wine". Each dramatic genre had its own particular dance: emmeleia in
tragedy, kordax in comedy and the sikinnis in satyr-play. Comment on the circular motion of the chorus moving in
deasil and withershins motion. Does this have anything to do with the circumpolar motion of the stars (east to west in
the strophe) and of the planets (west to east in the antistrophe)?
 W. Ridgeway, Dramas and Dramatic Dances (Cambridge 1915).
 L. Séchan, La danse grecque antique (Paris 1930).
 C. Sachs, World History of the Dance (New York 1937).
 *H. D. F. Kitto, "The Dance in Greek Tragedy," Journal of Hellenic Studies 75 (1955) 36-41.
 *L. B. Lawler, The Dance of the Ancient Greek Theater (Iowa City 1964).
 G. Prudhommeau, La danse grecque antique (Paris 1965).
 E. K. Borthwick, "The Dances of Philocleon and the Sons of Carcinus in Aristophanes' Wasps," Classical
Quarterly 18 (1968) 44-51.
 J. W. Fitton, "Greek Dance," Classical Quarterly 23 (1973) 254-74.
 L. Ellfeldt, Dance: From Magic to Art (Dubuque, Iowa 1976).
 W. T. MacCary, "Philokleon Ithyphallos: Dance, Costume and Character in the Wasps," Transactions of the
American Philological Association 109 (1979) 137-47.
 *B. Gredley, "Dance and Greek Drama," 25-30 in Drama, Dance and Music = Themes in Drama 3 (Cambridge
1981).
 M. MacDonald, Ancient Sun, Modern Light (New York 1992) 93.
2.
Music:
Music was crucial to tragedy (Modern Greek tragoudhi = "song"). Although it is not now preserved with the exception
of a few lines (338-44) from Euripides' Orestes (there is a good reproduction in Feaver) the musical accompaniment of
Greek drama was very important. We need only consider that Greek drama inspired modern opera to see that this is
so. From the evidence available, consider the nature of the musical component in ancient drama. Discuss singing,
instrumental accompaniment by the kithara, lyre or "guitar" and aulos, flute or more precisely oboe, and lack of
harmony and counterpoint. Modern opera knows of something between speech and songs recitative, Sprachestimme; is there an ancient equivalent? One can listen to reconstructions of ancient Greek music
on Gregorio Paniagua and Atrium Musicae de Madrid, Musique de la grèce antique (Harmonia Mundi 1978).
 J. F. Mountford, "Greek Music in the Papyri and Inscriptions," in J. U. Powell and E. A. Barber edd., New Chapters
in the History of Greek Literature, 2nd ed (Oxford 1924) 146-83.
 R. P. Winnington-Ingram, "Fragments of Unknown Greek Tragic Texts with Musical Notation: II The
Music,"Symbolae Osloenses 31 (1955) 29-87.
 R. P. Winnington-Ingram, "Ancient Greek Music," Lustrum 3 (1958) 5-57.
 D. Feaver, "The Musical Setting of Euripides' Orestes," American Journal of Philology 81 (1960) 1-15.
 H. A. Haldane, "Musical Themes and Imagery in Aeschylus," Journal of Hellenic Studies 85 (1965) 33-41.
 J. D. Solomon, "A Diphonal Diphthong in the Orestes Papyrus," American Journal of Philology 97 (1976) 172-3.
 J. D. Solomon, "Orestes 344-345, Collometry and Music," Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 18 (1977) 71-83.
 T. J. Fleming, "The Musical Nomos in Aeschylus' Oresteia," Classical Journal 72 (1977) 222-3.
 S. Michaelides, The Music of Ancient Greece: An Encyclopaedia (London 1978).
 E. A. Moutsopoulos, "Musique grecque ou barbare (Eurip. Iph. Taur. 279-184)?," Eirene 21 (1984) 25-31.
 W. C. Scott, Musical Design in Aeschylean Theatre (Hanover and London 1984).
 C. W. Willink, Euripides: Orestes (Oxford 1986) liv-lv.
 M. Mass and J. M. Snyder, Stringed Instruments of Ancient Greece (New Haven 1989).
 M. L. West, Ancient Greek Music (Oxford 1992).
5.
6.
7.
Lead Actor (protagonistes)
Supporting Actor (deuteragonistes)
Third Actor (tritagonistes):
0.
Actors:
Discuss the terms hypocrites, histrio, the number of actors at various times (early tragedies require 2, later ones 3,
comedy 4), the "stage directions" incorporated into the text of the plays and the set-speech or rhesis.
The playwright Thespis, traditional inventor of the actor ("thespian"; literally, 'inspired speaker'), acted in his own plays.
By 499 B.C. a prize for acting was introduced in the festival. By this point, presumably, the age of the actor-playwright
was over. Consider the anecdotes concerning famous actors: e.g. Hegelochus' mispronunciation at Eur.Orestes 279
in which instead of saying "I see a calm coming over the waves" he said, "I see a weasel coming over the waves"
(Ar. Frogs 303-4) [see S. G. Daitz, "Euripides Orestes 279 galen' > galen or How a Blue Sky Turned into a
Pussycat," Classical Quarterly 33 (1983) 294-5]; Polus playing the role of the paedagogus in Soph. Electraholding an
urn (cf. line 758) containing the ashes of his dead son (Aulus Gellius Noctes Atticae 6.4); and Callipides as a
laughing-stock (Ar. Nub. 64, see D. M. Lewis "Aristophanes Clouds 64," Classical Review 20 [1970] 288-9). Other
famous actors include Theodorus, who refused to allow anyone to come on stage before him
(Aristotle Politics 1336b27), Thettalus, Neoptolemus, Athenodorus and Molon (Euripides' leading actor according to
Demosthenes 19.246). As actors grew in prominence, they developed the habit of interpolating lines into the texts of
the plays to show off their skills to best advantage.
Discuss soliloquies, asides (e.g. Teiresias in Soph. OT), and eavesdropping (Phaedra in Eur. Hipp., Orestes in
Eur. El. 111, Polonius in Shakespeare Hamlet; J. N. Hough, "The Development of Plautus' Art," Classical Philology30
[1935] 43-57 and Transactions of the American Philological Association 70 [1939] 231-4). Discuss the interaction of
actor and audience in comedy in which actors throw nuts and figs at the audience (Ar. Vesp. 58f,Plut. 797ff, Pax 9606); Socrates stood up so that the audience could compare his face with the comic mask in Ar.Nub. (Aelian VH 2.12)
and the audience called for a repetition of the first lines of Eur. Or. (Cicero Tusc. 4.63).
Note: Soph. OC can only be played by three actors if different actors take the title-role at different points in the play.
 J. B. O'Connor, Chapters in the History of Actors and Acting in Ancient Greece (Princeton 1908).
 D. Page, Actors' Interpolations in Greek Tragedy (Oxford 1934).
 R. C. Flickinger, "Off-Stage Speech in Greek Tragedy," Classical Journal 34 (1939) 355-60.
 G. F. Else, "The Case of the Third Actor," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological
Association 76 (1945) 1-10.
 F. L. Shisler, "The Use of Stage Business to Portray Emotion in Greek Tragedy," American Journal of Philology56
(1945) 377-97.
 M. Bieber, "The Entrances and Exits of Actors and Chorus in Greek Plays, " Amerian Journal of Archaeology58
(1954) 277-81.
 H. Koller, "Hypokrisis und Hypokrites," Museum Helveticum 14 (1957) 100-107.
 G. Else, "Hypokrites," Wiener Studien 72 (1959) 75-105.
 B. M. W. Knox, "Aeschylus and the Third Actor," American Journal of Philology (1972) reprinted in Word and
Action: Essays on the Ancient Theater (Baltimore 1979).
 L. Bain, "Audience Address in Greek Tragedy," Classical Quarterly 25 (1975) 13-25.
 F. H. Sandbach, "Menander and the Three-Actor Rule," in Hommages à Claire Préaux, edd. J. Binger et al.
(Brussels 1975) 197-204.
 P. Ghiron-Bistagne, Recherches sur les acteurs dans la grèce antique (Paris 1976).
 D. Bain, Actors and Audience: A Study of Asides and Related Conventions in Greek Drama (Oxford 1977).
 T. V. Buttrey, "Hypo- in Aristophanes and Hypokrites," Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 18 (1977) 5-24.
 O. Taplin, "Did Greek Dramatists Write Stage Directions?" Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society23
(1977) 121-32.
 R. Hamilton, "Announced Entrances in Greek Tragedy," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 82 (1978) 63-82.
 D. J. Mastronarde, Contact and Discontinuity = University of California Publications in Classical Antiquity 21
(Berkeley 1979).
 G. Chancellor, "Implicit Stage Directions in Ancient Greek Drama: Critical Assumptions and the Reading
Public," Arethusa 12 (1979) 133-52.
 D. Bain, Masters, Servants and Orders in Greek Tragedy (Manchester 1981).
 W. G. Arnott, "Off-Stage Cries and Choral Presence: Some Challenges to Theatrical Convention in
Euripides,"Antichthon 16 (1982) 35-43.
 B. Gredley, "Greek Tragedy and the ‘Discovery' of the Third Actor," 1-14 in J. Redmond ed., Drama and the Actor
= Themes in Drama 6 (Cambridge 1984).
 D. Raeburn, "Greek Tragedy and the Actor Today," 15-38 in ibid.
 D. F. Sutton, "The Theatrical Families of Athens," American Journal of Philology 108 (1987) 9-26.
 R. Hamilton, "Cries within the Tragic Skene," American Journal of Philology 108 (1987) 585-99.
1.
The Agon:
Sometimes in tragedy and always in old comedy the first and second actors face off against one another in a formal,
rhetorical debate or agon in which they give speeches of nearly equal length with the chorus serving as moderator.
 J. Duchemin, L'Agon dans la tragédie grecque (Paris 1945).
 C. Collard, "Formal Debates in Euripides' Drama," Greece and Rome 22 (1975) 58-71.
 M. A. Lloyd, The Agon in Euripides (Oxford 1992).
2.
Stichomythia:
When two or more characters speak in dialogue, they will usually speak in alternating single lines of verse
(stichomythia) or couplets (distichomythia). When this pattern is interrupted, it is called antilabe.
 J. L. Hancock, Studies in Stichomythia (Chicago 1917).
 B. Seidensticker, "Die Stichomythie," in W. Jens ed., Die Bauformen der griechischen Tragödie (Munich 1971)
183-200.
 S. Ireland, "Stichomythia in Aeschylus," Hermes 102 (1974) 509-24.
 C. Collard, "On Sichomythia," Liverpool Classical Monthly 5 (1980) 77-85.
 A. S. McDevitt, "Antilabe in Sophoclean Kommoi," Rheinisches Museum 124 (1981) 19-28.
3.
Messengers:
The original function of the actor as messenger, who must relate murders and suicides offstage (see Horace Ars
P. 188). The messenger (angelos, nuntius) remains a major role of the actor throughout the Classical period.
 D. Bassi, "Il nunzio nella tragedia greca," Rivista di filologia classica 27 (1899) 50-89.
 J. Fischl, De nuntiis tragicis, diss. Vienna 1910.
 D. P. Stanley-Porter, Messenger-Scenes in Euripides, diss. London 1968.
 J. M. Bremer, "Why Messenger Speeches?" 29-48 in J. M. Bremer et al. edd. Miscellanea tragica in honorem J. C.
Kamerbeek (Amsterdam 1976).
 A. Rijksbaron, "How Does a Messenger Begin his Speech?" ibid. 293-308.
 I. de Jong, Narrative in Drama: The Euripidean Messenger-Speech = Mnemosyne Supplement 116 (Leiden 1991).
8.
0.
Set Designer (scenographus):
The Set:
Discuss the significance of the opposite parodoi (e.g. left for city, right for country or sea-port (or vice versa), Pollux
4.126-7, Vitruvius 5.6.8). Was there a second stage-altar (bomos) to serve as a prop for altars and tombs, or did the
real altar in the orchestra (thumele) serve this function (see J. P. Poe, "The Altar in the Fifth-Century
Theatre," Classical Antiquity 8 [1989] 116-39)? Discuss "mirror scenes" or "visual rhymes" (e.g. Clytaemnestra leading
Cassandra into the house in Aesch. Ag. = Orestes leading Clytaemnestra into the house in Cho.), getting the last
word, the address to the retreating back motivation for entrances and exits, cancelled entries = initial tableaux, the
opening and closing of skene-doors, the role of servants (mostly unnamed in the texts, but indicated occasionally in
plural numbers of verbs and the like), etc. Comment on the importance of things NOT available to ancient setdesigners such as curtains, blackouts, and spotlights. Mary Renault, The Mask of Apollo describes an ancient
dramatic production.
 T. B. L. Webster, "Staging and Scenery in the Ancient Greek Theatre," Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 42
(1959-60) 493-504.
1.
Masks:
Masks were part and parcel of the loss of identity implicit in the worship of Dionysus and their use helps to account for
the prominence of disguise and recognition themes in Greek drama. The first masking involved dyeing the face
purple; see Horace Ars poetica 276-7, Hesychius s.v. hiereus Dionusou, scholiast recentior ad Ar. Frogs 308a,
scholiast ad Aristophanes Acharnians 499, and Sophron fr. 94 Kaibel.
Discuss the theory found in Aulus Gellius Attic Nights 5.7 that masks (Latin personae) were used to amplify the voices
that "sound through" (personant) them. You may want to consider the use of masks in contemporary Japanese No
theatre.
Discuss the use of masks in DECAPITATION-SCENES (according to Pseudo-Apollodorus Bibl. the heads of the
Aegyptii were buried in different places from their bodies; is this relevant for Aesch. Danaid tetralogy?;
Eur. Bacch.1165ff; despite repeated hints [Aesch. Libation Bearers 396, 883-4, 1047, Eumenides 592] Orestes
probably did not decapitate Clytaemnestra; see also P. D. Kovacs, "Where is Aegisthus' Head?," Classical
Philology 82 [1987] 139-41).
Discuss possible CHANGES OF MASK for a single character (e.g. in the blinding-scene in Soph. Oedipus the
King1185-1298; see W. M. Calder III, "The Blinding: Oedipus Tyrannus, 1271-4" American Journal of Philology 80
[1959] 301-5 at 301 n. 2; in Eur. Cyclops 663; see Seaford's note; and at Ar. Clouds 1170 to show Pheidippides'
transformation into a sophist; see F. M. Cornford, The Origins of Attic Comedy (London 1913) 17. Sophocles'
lostThamyras allegedly used a single mask with one white and one black eye to represent both the sighted and the
blind character; see A. C. Pearson, The Fragments of Sophocles 1 [Cambridge 1917] 177-8; and the Furies must
become Eumenides in Aeschylus' play without benefit of a mask-change). Could a chorus remove their masks on
stage as the satyrs did in Aesch. Isthmiastai, according to E. Fraenkel, seminar Proceedings of the British
Academy 28 (1942) 245; R. G. Ussher, "The Other Aeschylus," Phoenix 31? Were masks sexually colour-coded:
brown for males, white for females, bearded for old men, clean-shaven for young? Tyro's mask is black and blue after
a beating in Soph. Tyro according to Pollux 4.141 = page 463 TrGF.
Discuss the use of PORTRAIT-MASKS. On the portrait-mask of Socrates in Aristophanes Clouds see Aelian Varia
Historia 2.13 and Dover's edition of the play, page xxxiii. How was the masking of the one-eyed Cyclops managed?
(See Ussher on Eur. Cyclops 20-22). How does one show change of emotion while wearing a mask?
 O. Hense, Die Modifizierung der Maske in der griechischen Tragödie (Freiburg 1902).
 F. B. Jevons, "Masks and the Origin of Greek Drama," Folk Lore 27 (1916) 171-92.
 J. Dickins, "The Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia," Journal of Hellenic Studies Supplementary Paper 5 (1929).
 C. Kerenyi, "Men and Masks," in Spiritual Disciplines ed. J. Campbell (New York 1960).
 T. B. L. Webster, "The Poet and the Mask," in Classical Drama and Its Influence = Festschrift H. D. F. Kitto, ed. M.
J. Anderson (New York 1965) 3-13.
 A. Pickard-Cambridge, The Dramatic Festivals of Athens 2nd ed (Cambridge 1968) 190-6.
 C. W. Dearden, "The Poet and the Mask Again," Phoenix 29 (1975) 75-82.
 P. G. M. Brown, "Masks, Names and Characters in the New Comedy," Hermes 115 (1987) 181-202.
 D. Wiles, The Masks of Menander (Cambridge 1991).
2.
Costumes:
Discuss the double-costuming of disguised characters: Dionysus disguised as a man and Pentheus as a woman in
Eur. Bacchae, Alcestis disguised as a foreigner in Eur. Alcestis, and Dionysus disguised as Heracles in Ar. Frogs.
How were giants represented on stage: Cyclops, Prometheus? On the "puppet-theory" see M. Griffith, Aeschylus:
Prometheus Bound (Cambridge 1983) 8 n. 25.
Consider the following passages and the implications that they have for costumes: Aesch. Suppl. 73-4 (foreign
complexion), Soph. Aj. 1168-81 (haircut), Eur. Hipp. 219-220 (Phaedra's hair), Bacch. 455-6 (beauty of Dionysus),
Ismene's hat, Euripides' rags.
All female roles were played by males; a result of this is that transvestism was a pervasive fact of the Greek theatre,
sometimes as in Eur. Bacchae or Ar. Thesmophoriazusae entering also as a theme.
 C. Gallini, "Il travestismo rituale di Penteo," Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni 34 (1963) 211-28.
 R. Baker, Drag: A History of Female Impersonation on Stage (London 1976).
 F. Muecke, "I Know You–by Your Rags–Costume and Disguise in Fifth-Century Drama," Antichthon 16 (1982) 1734.
 S.-E. Case, "Classic Drag: The Greek Creation of Female Parts," Theatre Journal 37 (1985) 317-28.
 E. A. Schmoll, "The Wig of Pentheus," Liverpool Classical Monthly 12 (1987) 70-72.
 J. E. Howard, "Crossdressing, the Theatre and Gender Struggle in Early Modern England," Shakespeare
Quarterly 39 (1988) 418-40.
 K. Bassi, "The Actor as Actress in Euripides' Alcestis," in J. Redmond ed., Women in Theatre (Cambridge 1989)
19-30.
 L. Ferris, ed. Crossing the Stage (London and New York 1993)
9.
Chorus-Member (choreutes):
Discuss the use of the first person singular; the use of speech and song; the activity or inactivity of the chorus while
not speaking; half or divided choruses. The chorus in Aesch. Libation Bearers 730 and Eur. Ion actually changes the
course of the play by telling their mistress that her husband has fathered an illegitimate child; more typically the
chorusfails to intervene in the action (e.g. Aesch. Agam. 1346-71, Soph. Trach. 588-9). The chorus very rarely leaves
the orchestra during the chorus of the play, an event called metastasis – e.g. Aesch. Eum. 231, Soph. Ajax 814-66 (in
both of which there is a change of dramatic locale), Eur. Alc. 746-861, Hel. 385-515, [Eur.] Rhesus 654-75, Ar. Ec.,
310-478 and possibly Pr. 283-397, on which see Griffith on Pr. 128-92, O. Taplin, The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford
1977) 256-62, and M. L. West, "The Prometheus Trilogy" Journal of Hellenic Studies (1979) 130-48, esp. 138-9 and
Eur.Phaethon. In Eur. Hipp. Phaedra invites the chorus on stage to help her eavesdrop; they decline to do so. In such
cases, it is necessary for the chorus to re-enter the orchestra by means of a song called an epiparodos (Pollux 4.108).
A point to consider: the entire chorus of Aesch. Nurses of Dionysus was boiled. Consider the five-act division of later
drama (see Horace Ars P. 189-90), the change of persona of a chorus that in Aesch. Eum. changes from Furies to
Eumenides, that in Ar. Frogs from Frogs to initiates, and the decline of the chorus in the time of Menander. The
chorus in Shakespeare's Henry V and Romeo and Juliet was a single person; the multiple-member chorus has
occasionally be revived, e.g. by T.S. Eliot in Murder in the Cathedral.
 E. Capps, "The Chorus in Later Greek Drama with Reference to the Stage Question," American Journal of
Archaeology 11 (1895) 287-325.
 J. Lammers, Die Doppel- und Halbchöre in der antiken Tragödie (Paderborn 1931).
 W. Kranz, Stasimon (Berlin 1933).
 W. J. Maidment, "The Later Comic Chorus," Classical Quarterly 29 (1935) 1-24.
 H. Lloyd-Jones, "The ‘Supplices' of Aeschylus: the New Date and Old Problems," L'Antiquité classique 33 (1964)
365-74 = H. Hommel ed., Wege zu Aischylos = Wege der Forschung 87, (Darmstadt 1974) 101-24 = E. Segal
ed.,Oxford Readings in Greek Tragedy (Oxford 1983) 42-56 = Lloyd-Jones Greek Epic, Lyric and Tragedy (Oxford
1990) 262-77.
 A. M. Dale, "The Chorus in the Action of Greek Tragedy," Classical Drama and Its Influence (1965) 17-27
=Collected Papers (Cambridge 1969) 210-20.
 P. H. Vellacott, "The Chorus in Oedipus Tyrannus," Greece and Rome 14 (1967) 109-25.
 A. S. McDevitt, "The Dramatic Integration of the Chorus in Oedipus Tyrannus," Classica et Mediaevalia 30 (1969)
78-101.
 M. Kaimio, The Chorus of Greek Drama within the Light of the Person and Number Used (Helsinki 1970).
 T. B. L. Webster, The Greek Chorus (London 1970).
 B. M. Sifakis, Parabasis and Animal Choruses (London 1971).
 R. G. G. Coleman, "The Role of the Chorus in Sophocles' Antigone," Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological
Society 18 (1972) 4-27.
 D. J. Conacher, "Interaction between Chorus and Character in the Oresteia," American Journal of Philology 95
(1974) 323-43.
 M. McCall, "The Secondary Chorus in Aeschylus, Supplices," California Studies in Classical Antiquity 9 (1976)
117-31.
 R. W. B. Burton, The Chorus in Sophocles' Tragedies (Oxford 1980).
 V. Bers, "The Perjured Chorus in Sophocles' Philoctetes," Hermes 109 (1981) 500-504.
 W. M. Calder III, "The Size of Thespis' Chorus," American Journal of Philology 103 (1982) 319-20.
 J. F. Davison, "The Circle and the Tragic Chorus," Greece and Rome 33 (1986) 38-46.
 C. P. Gardiner, The Sophoclean Chorus (Iowa City 1987).
10. Extra/Spear-Carrier (kophon prosopon):
Although the number of actors was at various periods strictly limited, there was a potentially unlimited number of
unspeaking roles.
 D. P. Stanley-Porter, "Mute Actors in the Tragedies of Euripides," Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 20
(1983) 68-93.
11. Priest of Dionysus:
Who attended the theatre (Citizens? Males? Everybody?). Who were the judges? What were their methods of
judging? What were the categories in which prizes were awarded? What were the prizes?
Supporting Materials for Lectures
Lecture 2: Space and Time
1.
The Architecture of the Theatre
Discuss the old acting-area in the agora and the collapse circa 499 B.C. of the bleachers (ikria) that led to its
abandonment. Discuss various features of the fifth-century theatre: the skene (where was it located? Did it move
around from play to play? Did it have one front-door or three? Did it/they open inward or outward? [outward according
to Eur. Or. Menelaus tells his servants to swing the doors outwards] were there inner doors as well as outer ones?
[Mooney 11])
Discuss the back-door: Greek houses ought not to have back doors, but that of the skene is useful and its existence is
acknowledged in Soph. Phil. 19 and Eur. Cycl. 706), orchestra (was it circular, polygonal [Dinsmoor], or rectangular
[Gebhard])? Did it originate out of a threshing-floor for which the Classical Greek is halos hence English "halo", Mod.
Greek aloneia [Gardiner]?, raised stage or logeion (did it exist? How high was it?, formal thrones, the passageway
(diazoma), entrance ramps (eisodoi, parodoi), the altar in the orchestra (thymele) at which Aeschylus had to seek
refuge after divulging the secret of the mysteries, ekkuklema, mechane, roof or theologeion, seating-capacity (circa
14,000-20,000, less than Plato's "thirty thousand" [Symp. 175e6], acoustics, etc.; discuss the curtain
(siparium, aularia) in the Roman theatre and the lack of a Greek equivalent apart from choral songs to mark the
division of episodes. Discuss the scenae frons and scene-painting.
 J. W. White, "The Stage of Aristophanes," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 2 (1891) 165-72.
 E. Capps, "The Greek Stage According to the Extant Dramas," Transactions of the American Philological
Association 22 (1891) 64-5.
 E. A. Gardner, Ancient Athens (New York 1902) 123.
 W. W. Mooney, The House-Door on the Ancient Stage (Baltimore 1914).
 F. Robert, Thymele (Paris 1939).
 D. A. W. Dilke, "Details and Chronology of Greek Theatre Caveas," Annual of the British School at Athens 45
(1950) 21-62.
 W. B. Dinsmoor, "The Athenian Theater of the Fifth Century," in Studies Presented to D. M. Robinson (St. Louis
1951-1953).
 O. Broneer, "Odeion and Skene," American Journal of Archaeology 56 (1952) 172.
 A. M. Dale, "Interior Scenes and Illusion in Greek Drama," Collected Papers (Cambridge 1969) 259-71.
 H. Petersmann, "Philologische Untersuchungen zur antiken Bühnentür," Wiener Studien 84 (1971) 91-109.
 J. Travlos, A Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens (London 1971).
 F. Bader, "The Psophos of the House-Door in Greek New Comedy," Antichthon 5 (1971) 35-48.
 N. G. L. Hammond, "The Conditions of Dramatic Production to the Death of Aeschylus," Greek, Roman and
Byzantine Studies 13 (1972) 387-450.
 S. Melchinger, Das Theater der Tragödie (Munich 1974).
 E. Gebhard, "The Form of the Orchestra in the Early Greek Theatre," Hesperia 43 (1974) 428-40.
 W. W. Wurster, "Die neuen Untersuchungen am Dionysostheater in Athen," Architectura 9 (1979) 58-76.
 A. L. H. Robkin, "That Magnificent Flying Machine: On the Nature of the 'Mechane' of the Theatre of Dionysus at
Athens," Archeaological News 8 (1979) 1-6.
 E. Simon (C. E. Vafopoulou-Richardson trans.), The Ancient Theatre (London and New York 1981).
 E. Pöhlmann, "Die Prohedrie des Dionysostheaters im 5 Jahrhundert und das Bühnenspiel der Klassik," Museum
Helveticum 38 (1983) 129-46.
 G. Ley and M. Evans, "The Orchestra as Acting Area in Greek Tragedy," Ramus 14 (1985) 75-84.
 J. F. Davison, "The Circle and the Tragic Chorus," Greece and Rome 33 (1986) 38-46.
 R. Hamilton, "Cries within the Tragic Skene," American Journal of Philology 108 (1987) 585-99.
 D. J. Mastronarde, "Actors on High: The Skene Roof, the Crane and the Gods in Attic Drama," Classical
Antiquity 9 (1990) 247-94.
2.
The Left-Right Distinction
The left parodos stood for exit to the city, the right for exit to the country (Pollux 4.126-7, Vitruvius 5.6.8).
 K. Rees, "The Significance of the Parodoi in the Greek Theatre," American Journal of Philology 32 (1911) 378ff.
 W. Beare, "Side Entrances and Periactoi," Classical Quarterly 32 (1938) 209.
 M. Bieber, "Entrances and Exits of Actors and Chorus in Greek Plays," American Journal of Archaeology 58
(1959) 278ff.
3.
Dramatic Illusion and Metatheatricality
The invisible "fourth wall" that separated the acting area from the spectators in the theatre was more or less respected
in tragedy, but often broken for humorous effect in comedy. Scholars have dubbed the breaking of this fourth wall
"metatheatricality".
 B. M. Sifakis, Parabasis and Animal Choruses (London 1971) 7-14.
 R. Crahay and M. Delcourt, "Les ruptures d'illusion dans les comédies antiques," Mélanges Henri Gregoire
IV (=Ann. Phil. Hist. 12 [Brussels 1953]) 83-92.
 Abel, Metatheatre (1963).
 F. Muecke, "Playing with the Play: Theatrical Self-Consciousness in Aristophanes," Antichthon 11 (1977) 52-67.
 A. M. Wilson, "Breach of Dramatic Illusion in the Old Comic Fragments," Euphrosyne 9 (1978-79) 145-50.
 G. A H. Chapman, "Some Notes on Dramatic Illusion in Aristophanes," American Journal of Philology 104 (1983)
1-23.
 D. Bain, "Some Reflections on the Illusion in Greek Tragedy," Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 34
(1987) 1-14.
4.
The Motif of the Single Day and Other Aspects of Time:
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," said Jesus (Matthew 6.34) and this may be taken in many ways as an
epigraph for all Greek tragedy. The Greeks spoke of man as "ephemeral" (Pindar Pythian 8.95) by which they did not
mean so much "short-lived" as "subject to what each day brings," e.g. one day a person may be a king and the next
enduring his "day of slavery" (Eur. Hecuba 56), or one day be a wanderer and yet hope to see his "day of
homecoming" (Odyssey 1.9). This is what they mean by saying that a "rhythm" governs human life (Archilochus fr.
128 West) and by the phrase, "count no man happy until he is dead" (Solon apud Herodotus 1.32.9,
Soph. OT 1527, El. 651). In keeping with these views many plays of Sophocles and Euripides are explicitly tied to the
course of a single day, e.g. Soph. Oedipus the King 438, 615, Ajax 131-2, 753-5, Philoctetes 82-5, Eur. Medea 340 =
Sen. Medea 294. In the myth of Jason, Medea's drugs rendered him invulnerable to iron or fire for one day only.
Ghosts must leave before daybreak: Thyestes in Sen. Ag. and Hamlet père in Shakespeare Hamlet. Consider these
and other aspects of time in Greek tragedy.
One important aspect of time is the idea of "the nick of time" (kairos) and of being "too late" (cf. Admetus in Eur. Alc.
940, Deianira's recognition-scene, and Aeneas' in Vergil Aen. 6. and St. Augustine's line quoted by W. B. Yeats, sero
te amavi, o pulcritudo tam nova et tam antiqua).
It may be worth considering some later manifestations of similar concerns, e.g. the Roman notion of the dies
fastus and the dies nefastus as well as the "seize the day" Epicureanism of Horace; and Castelvetro's "three unities"
along with their influence on French classical drama.
The regular alteration of episode and choral song gives the plays a particular rhythm that tends to defeat time,
especially in that the songs often deal either with the past or with gnomic propositions that act to generalize the lesson
pointed by the previous episode.
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L. Carney, "Father Time," Classical Philology 23 (1928) 187-8.
H. Fränkel, "Man's Ephemeros Nature," Transactions of the American Philological Association 77 (1946) 131-45.
B. A. Van Groningen, In the Grip of the Past (Leiden 1953).
H. Meyerhoff, Time in Literature (Berkeley 1955).
T. G. Rosenmeyer, "Ajax: Tragedy and Time," The Masks of Tragedy (Berkeley 1961) 155-98.
S. Accame, "La Concezione del tempo nell'età omerica e arcaica," Rivista di filologia e d'istruzione classica 37
(1961) 359-94.
R. A. Santiago, "Observaciones sobre algunos usos formularios de emar en Homero," Emerita 30 (1962) 139-50.
J. Pepin, "Le temps et le mythe," Études Philosophiques 17 (1962) 55-68.
D. E. Gerber, "What Time Can Do," Transactions of the American Philological Association 93 (1962) 30-33.
I. M. Linforth, "Electra's Day in the Tragedy of Sophocles," University of California Publications in Classical
Philology19 (1963) 89-126.
F. Kermode, The Sense of an Ending (Oxford 1967) 46-50.
J. de Romilly, Time in Greek Tragedy (Ithaca, New York 1968).
J. Palm, "Lag die Zukunft der Griechen hinter ihnen?" Annales Academiae Regiae Scientiarum Upsaliensis 13
(1969).
P. Vivante, "On Time in Pindar," Arethusa 5 (1972) 107-31.
P. E. Ariotti, "The Concept of Time in Western Antiquity," 69-80 in J. T. Fraser and N. Lawrence edd., The Study
of Time II (New York, Heidelberg and Berlin 1975).
M. W. Dickie, "On the Meaning of Ephemeros," Illinois Classical Studies 1 (1976) 7-14.
A. H. Komornicka, "La notion du temps chez Pindare," Eos 64 (1976) 5-15.
J. F. Callahan, Four Views of Time in Ancient Philosophy (Westport, Conn. 1979).
J. R. Wilson, "Kairos as Due Measure," Glotta 58 (1980) 181-3 and 199-200.
W. H. Race, "The Word Kairos in Greek Drama, Transactions of the American Philological Association 111 (1981)
197-213.
R. Sorabji, Time, Creation and the Continuum: Theories in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (London 1983).
Supporting Materials for Lectures
Lecture 3: Dionysus and the Origin of Drama
Dionysus Although the Greeks may frequently have said of the tragedies they saw, "this has nothing to do with
Dionysus," Polybius 39.2.3), the plays were performed in his honour and may reasonably be expected-perhaps at a
deep level-to reflect his true nature. Consider the nature of this god and its possible impact upon the plays performed
in his theatre. You may wish to consider his status as god of the whole liquid element (Plutarch, Isis and Osiris 35,
364a, quoting Pindar fr. 153 Maehler), and his consequent association with epiphytal vegetation such as ivy, mistletoe
and the vine, the role of intoxication with wine and the concomitant experience of intensified mental power (mania),
mob-psychology or "the Madness of Crowds" (this being the subtitle of Charles Mackay's 1852 work, Extraordinary
Popular Delusions 2nd ed, e.g. during thepannuchis or night-long revel) in contrast to the Apollonian principium
individuationis or "principle of Individuation", covering the face with purple wine lees (Horace Ars P. 276-7) and later
with masks, loss of identity in play-acting, the role of Dionysus as a "kommender Gott" or a god who irrupts into the
normal orderly life of the community (e.g. the myths of Dionysus and Lycurgus, the pirates and Pentheus). Discuss
Dionysus as Liber. Consider the discovery of wine: Icarius gave it to his neighbours, who thinking that he had
poisoned them, murdered him; cf. the story of Noah lying naked in his tent.
 *E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1951) 270-82.
 H. Jeanmaire, Dionysos (Paris 1951) 268-331.
 E. R. Dodds, Euripides: Bacchae 2nd ed. (Oxford 1960) xi-lix.
 W. F. Otto, Dionysus: Myth and Cult trans. R. B. Palmer (Bloomington and London 1965) esp. 209-10.
 J.-P. Grépin, The Tragic Paradox (Amsterdam 1968).
 C. Kerényi, Dionysus, trans. R. Manheim (Princeton 1976).
 M. Detienne, Dionysus Slain, trans. M. and L. Muellner (Baltimore and London 1979).
 R. S. Kraemer, "Ecstasy and Possession: The Attraction of Women to the Cult of Dionysus," Harvard Theological
Review72 (1979) 55-80.
 H. P. Foley, "The Masque of Dionysus," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological
Association 110 (1980) 107-33.
 S. G. Cole, "New Evidence fo the Mysteries of Dionysus," Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 21 (1980) 22338.
 R. Seaford, "Dionysiac Drama and the Dionysiac Mysteries," Classical Quarterly 31 (1981) 252-75.
 *A Henrichs, "Loss of Self, Suffering, Violence: The Modern View of Dionysus from Nietzsche to Girard," Harvard
Studies in Classical Philology 88 (1984) 205-40.
 T. H. Carpenter, Dionysian Imagery in Archaic Greek Art (Oxford 1986).
 M. Detienne, Dionysus at Large, trans. A. Goldhammer (Cambridge, Mass. 1989).
The Origin of TragedyThe origin of tragedy has been sought (i) in the spirit of music (Nietzsche), (ii) in the "Year
Daimon" alleged to govern the calendar of the agricultural year: agon, pathos, threnos, angelos, anagnorisis and
apotheosis (Murray), (iii) the trance-dance of the shaman's ritual nome (Lindsay and Kirby), and (iv) in animal-sacrifice
(Burkert; on a goat (tragos) as the price/prize for a song (aoidos), see Theocritus 7; note the central altar of
the thumele in the orchestra). Discuss these rival theories.
 *F. Nietzsche (W. Kaufmann trans.), The Birth of Tragedy 1886 (New York 1967).
 W. Ridgeway, The Origin of Tragedy (Cambridge 1910).
 M. P. Nilsson, "Der Ursprung der Tragödie," Neue Jahrbücher 14 (1911) 609-42 = Opuscula selecta (Lund 1951)
1.61-145.
 *G. Murray, "Excursus on the Ritual Forms Preserved in Greek Tragedy," 341-63 in J. A. Harrison, Themis 1912
(New York and Cleveland 1962).
 D. C. Stuart, "The Origin of Greek Tragedy in the Light of Dramatic Technique," Transactions and Proceedings of
the American Philological Association 47 (1916) 173-204.
 E. Schuré, The Genesis of Tragedy and the Sacred Drama of Eleusis (London 1936).
 A. C. Mahr, The Origin of the Greek Tragic Form (New York 1938).
 B. Hunningher, The Origin of the Theater (The Hague and Amsterdam 1955).
 J. Carrière, "Sur l'essence et l'évolution du tragique chez les Grecs," Revue des études grecques 79 (1960) 6-37.
 H. Patzer, Die Anfänge der griechischen Tragödie (Wiesbaden 1961).
 *J. Lindsay, The Clashing Rocks: A Study of Early Greek Religion and Culture and the Origins of Drama (London
1965).
 F. G. Else, The Origin and Early Form of Greek Tragedy = Martin Classical Lectures 20 (Cambridge, Mass. 1965)
 *W. Burkert, "Greek Tragedy and Sacrificial Ritual," Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 7 (1966) 87-121.
 B. M. W. Knox, "Myth and Attic Tragedy," in Word and Action: Essays on the Ancient Theater (Baltimore 1970).
 *E. T. Kirby, Ur-Drama: The Origins of Theater (New York 1975).
 M. S. Silk, Nietzsche on Tragedy (Cambridge 1981).
 R. Friedrich, "Drama and Ritual," 159-223 in J. Redmond ed., Drama and Religion = Themes in Drama 5
(Cambridge 1983).
The Origin of Comedy The word "comedy" is related to several other Greek words. (I) It suggests komos (Athletic or
military) victory celebration, or carnival. Discuss the nature of the carnival-world (i.e. topsyturviness, e.g. women in
power inLysistrata: Women Celebrating the Feast of Demeter and Women in the Assembly, escape-valve, e.g. from
war in Peace) and how it is preserved in ancient comedy. (Ii) The word is also related to kome, which, according to
Aristotle Poet. 1448a 35ff is a word for "village". Consider the comic nature of village life with its rusticity or nonurbanity and its relaxation of the laws of the city, especially as regards sex (cf. Hamlet's punning reference to
"country/cunt-ry matters" in ShakespeareHamlet 3.2.116). (Iii) The word is also, perhaps, related to koimao "to sleep"
and koma "a deep sleep", thereby suggesting the oneiric or dream-like, wish-fulfillment quality of comedy as well as
the nocturnal setting of the Dionysiac ritual, the pannuchis. (Iv) the word recalls enkomion or "praise" and hints that
comedy involves an ambiguous relation to its characters, at once glorifying the eiron and deriding the alazon. Discuss
also the politically conservative nature of comedy.
 F. Cornford, The Origins of Comedy (London 1914).
 M. Roberston, Greek Painting (Geneva 1959) 30.
 G. Giangrande, "The Origin of Attic Comedy," Eranos 61 (1963) 1-24.
 M. Bakhtin, trans. H. Iswolsky, Rabelais and His World (Cambridge 1968).
 E. Segal, "The Eymologies of Comedy," Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 14 (1973) 75-81.
 J. C. Carrière, Le carnaval et la politique (Paris 1979).
Supporting Materials for Lectures
Lecture 4: Turning Points
1.
1.
Dramas of Choice
Choice
The question, "What shall I do?" (Greek ti draso?, Latin quid facerem?) is common in drama - in fact the word "drama"
is related to the word draso. Those tragedies that do not, like Aristotle's beloved Oedipus the King, enter on an
ignorant character's recognition of himself or another, involve instead a moment of dilemma and choice and hence
some such question as this. Consider these moments of choice. Relate this topic to the moment of crisis in epic as
discussed by J. Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness (Toronto 1976). Consider the possibility of repenting one's
choices, as in the nurse's line in Eur. Hippolytus 436, "in this world second thoughts, it seems, are best." Oedipus
chooses to know the truth, however painful; compare the character in Missing who says, "the worst thing is not
knowing". If persuasion can manifest itself as temptation or seduction, can choice manifest itself as conversion?
Relevant ancient passages are Aesch. Suppliant Maidens 379-80, Agamemnon 206-7, Libation Bearers 899,
Soph. Ajax 457, Oedipus the King 1443, Philoctetes 908, Herodotus 1.11.3-4, and the Gyges-tragedy (fr. adespoton
664 TrGF 8f Euripides Alcestis 380 (cf. Medea 502 and Ennius' translation), Dresphontes 36 (Mette's emendation,
see Hermes 92 [1964] 391-5), Neophron Medea (in Stobaeus Florilegium 20.34; cf. Catullus 64.177),
Vergil Eclogues 7.14, Aeneid 4.534, Ter. Eun. 966, etc.
 B. Snell, Aischylos und das Handeln im Drama (Leipzig, 1928) 13, 32f, 131f.
 B. M. W. Knox, "Second Thoughts in Greek Tragedy, " Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 7 (1966) 213-32.
 R. L. Fowler, "The Rhetoric of Desperation," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 91 (1987) 5-38.
2.
Persuasion
In those tragedies in which the tragic action hinges upon the deliberate choice of the main character, that choice is
often brought about as a result of the persuasion (peitho) of another character. Consider the nature of this persuasion.
You might contrast persuasion on the one hand with brute force (bia), e.g. in Aesch. Supp. between the Argives and
the Egyptians, and on the other with cunning guile (dolos) and note that persuasion usually occurs
in stichomythia while deception takes the form of a set-speech, rhesis. Compare the Platonic opposition of philosophic
dialectic versus sophistic rhetoric.
Relevant ancient passages are Aesch. Agam. 918-98, Eur. Alcestis 1042-1108, Bacchae 787-846. Does persuasion
ever fail in Greek tragedy (cf. Aesch. Lib. Bearers 89608)? What is it about Sophocles' characters that prevents them
from resorting to persuasion? Persuasion in a sexual context is seduction, in a moral one is temptation.
 A. P. Burnett, "Human Resistance and Divine Persuasion in Euripides' Ion," Classical Philology 57 (1962) 89-103.
 G. Kennedy, The Art of Persuasion in Greece (Princeton 1963).
 A. F. Garvie, "Deceit, Violence and Persuasion in the Philoctetes," in Studi classici in onore di Quintino
Cataudella (Catania 1972) 213-26.
 N. S. Rabinowitz, "From Force to Persuasion: Aeschylus' Oreteia as Cosmognoic Myth," Ramus 10 (1981) 15991.
 R. G. A. Buxton, Persuasion in Greek Tragedy (Cambridge and New York 1982).
 K. Wilkenson, "From Hero to Citizen: Persuasion in Early Greece," Philosophy and Rhetoric 15 (1982) 104-25.
 H. Konishi, "Agamemnon's Reasons for Yielding," American Journal of Philology 110 (1989) 189-209.
3.
Warning
The opposite of persuasion is the warning figure (nouthetes), e.g. Oceanus in Aesch. Prom. Bound 307-20, Ismene in
Soph. Ant. 1ff, Croesus in Herodotus, and the "restrainer" on the Boston Oresteia crater.
 R. Lattimore, "The Wise Advisor in Herodotus," Classical Philology 34 (1939) 24-35.
2.
1.
Dramas of Error
Error
In his Poetics 13.5 (1453a 8-23) Aristotle says that tragedy presents a great man brought low by a megale
hamartia (his examples are Oedipus and Thyestes). The phrase is taken to mean very different things by different
people: either (i) a moral failing or character-flaw (German Schuld; Harsh) or (ii) an intellectual error in judgement or
even a mistake about the identity of a person (Van Braam, Breme) or (iii) some kind of combination of the two
(Stinton). Which of these views is closest to describing the central problem of Greek tragedy? Comment on the
possible relationship of the term hamartia (rarely used by the tragedians themselves) with ate (see Dawe and
Golden). Is ate itself just a fancy term for "the Devil made me do it"? If so, why do those who plead ate accept their
punishment like Agamemnon in the Iliad? (See J. Stallmache, Ate [Meisenheim am Glan 1968] and R. E. Doyle,Ate:
Its Use and Meaning [New York 1984].) Consider the Latin term culpa as applied e.g. by Vergil to Dido (Aeneid 4.19;
Moles).
Compare the paradoxical words of Prometheus in Aesch. Prom Bound 266, "willingly, willingly did I do wrong",
Antigone's claim that she knew what she was doing, Socrates' statement, "no-one does wrong willingly" (Plato Prot.
345d, cf. Simonides apud Gorg. 509e, etc.) And that of St. Paul, "the good I see I do not..." (Romans 7.15). Medea
says video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor (Ovid Met. 7.21, cf. Eur. Hipp. 380-1 with the comments of E. R.
Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational [Berkeley and Los Angeles 1951] 186-7). Does Dawe's equation
ofhamartia and ate with its implication that the Gods are to blame undermine the equation of hamartia and culpa or
does the concept of "overdetermination" account for this? See G. Calogero, "Gorgias and the Socratic Principle
ofnemo sua sponte peccat," Journal of Hellenic Studies 77 (1957) 12-7.
Error plays a role in comedy as well as in tragedy: there is a character named Agnoia ("misapprehension") in
Menander's The Girl with the Haircut (Periceiromene) ; see H. W. Prescott, "The Comedy of Errors," Classical
Philology 24 (1929) 32-41, R. Pack, "Errors as Subjects of Comic Mirth," Classical Philology 33 (1938) 405-10, and E.
Segal, "The Menaechmi: Roman Comedy of Errors," Yale Classical Studies 21 (1969) 77-93.
 *P. van Braam, "Aristotle's Use of Hamartia," Classical Quarterly (1912) 266.
 O. Hey, "Hamartia," Philologus 83 (1927) 1-17, 137-63.
 S. E. Bassett, "The Hamartia of Achilles," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological
Association 65 (1934) 47-69.
 M. K. Flickinger, The "Hamartia" of Sophocles'Antigone = Iowa Studies in Classical Philology 2 (Scottsdale, PA
1935) 11-18.
 R. A. Pack, "A Passage of Alexander of Aphrodisias Relating to the Theory of Tragedy," American Journal of
Philology 58 (1937) 418-36.
 R. A. Pack, "Fate, Chance and Tragic Error," American Journal of Philology 60 (1939) 350-6.
 R. A. Pack, "On Guilt and Error in Senecan Tragedy," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological
Association 71 (1940) 360-71.
 *P. W. Harsh, "Hamartia Again," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 76
(1945) 47-58.
 I. M. Glanville, "Tragic Error," Classical Quarterly 43 (1949) 47-57.
 H. B. Jaffee, "How Tragic is the Tragic Flaw?," Classical Bulletin 26 (1950) 13ff.
 C. H. Whitman, Sophocles: A Study of Tragic Heroism (Cambridge, Mass. 1951) chapter 2 on Scholarship and
Hamartia".
 K. von Fritz, "Tragische Schuld und poetische Gerechtigkeit in der griechischen Tragödie," in Antike und moderne
Tragödie 2nd ed. (Berlin 1962) 194-237.
 G. E. Else, Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument (Cambridge, Mass. 1957) 376-99.
 M. Ostwald, "Aristotle on Hamartia and Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus," Festschrift Ernst Kapp (Hamburg 1958)
93-108.
 H. Funk, Die sogennante tragische Schuld (Cologne 1962).
 R. D. Dyer, "Hamartia in the Poetics and Aristotle's Model of Failure," Arion 4 (1965) 658-64
 *A. H. W. Adkins, "Aristotle and the Best Kind of Tragedy," Classical Quarterly 16 (1966) 78-103.
 D. W. Lucas, Aristotle: Poetics (Oxford 1968) 299-307.
 *R. D. Dawe, "Some Reflections on Ate and Hamartia," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 72 (1968) 89-123.
 *J. M. Bremer, Hamartia: Tragic Error in the Poetics of Aristotle and in Greek Tragedy (Amsterdam 1969).
 M. J. Anderson, "Kreon's Hamartia," Greece and Rome 17 (1970) 119-217.
 *T. C. W. Stinton, "Hamartia in Aristotle and Greek Tragedy," Classical Quarterly 25 (1975) 221-54 =Collected
Papers (Oxford 1990) 143-85.
 S. Osterud, "Hamartia in Aristotle and Greek Tragedy," Symbolae Osloenses 51 (1976) 65-80.
 L. Golden, "Hamartia, Ate and Oedipus," Classical World 72 (1978) 3-12.
 L. Said, La faute tragique (Paris 1978).
 J. A. Arieti, "History, Hamartia and Herodotus," 1-26 in D. V. Stump ed., Hamartia: The Concept of Error in the
Western Tradition = Festschrift J. M. Crossett (New York 1983).
 C. Lindsay, "Aphrodite and the Equivocal Argument: Hamartia in Hippolytus," 51-7 in ibid.
 P. A. Cavallero, "La hamartia en el teatro de Sofocles," Agros 8 (1984) 5-32.
 J. L. Moles, "Aristotle and Dido's Hamartia," Greece and Rome 31 (1984) 48-54.
2.
Recognition
In plays of homecoming and in plays where the central character makes an intellectual error, there is often a scene
inherited from the epic in which the returning character is recognized (Odysseus, Orestes) or in which the victim
of hamartia recognizes the truth (Deianira, Admetus); in a famous case where both are true the homecoming victim
recognizes himself (Oedipus). Consider the nature of these recognition-scenes (anagnorises, Latincognitiones).
Does anagnorisis relate in any way to the Platonic doctrine of anamnesis? Lichas recognizes Encolpius by his penis in
Petronius Sat. 105. On recognition that comes too late, see the motif of the single day. Jesus was recognized after
meeting his disciples on the road to Eumaus and breaking bread with them; he offers his wounds to Thomas as
recognition-tokens.
2.1 Recognition in Homer
 J. A. Scott, "Helen's Recognition of Telemachus in the Odyssey," Classical Journal 25 (1930) 383-85.
 E. Basabe, "Las ultimas anagnorisis de la Odissea," Helmantica 1 (1950) 339-61.
 A. Auerbach, Mimesis (Princeton 1953) 3-23.
 C. P. Segal, "Andromache's Anagnorisis: Formulaic Artistry in Iliad 22.437-476," Harvard Studies in Classical
Philology 75 (1971) 33-57.
 A. Köhnken, "Die Narbe des Odysseus," Antike und Abendland 22 (1976) 101-114.
 P. Han, "Recognition in the Odyssey," Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire 59 (1981) 50-55.
 N. J. Richardson, "Recognition Scenes in the Odyssey," Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar 4 (1983) 219ff.
 S. Murnaghan, Disguise and Recognition in theOdyssey (Princeton 1987).
2.2 Recognition in Drama in General
 D. C. Stuart, "The Function and the Dramatic Value of the Recognition Scene in Greek Tragedy," American
Journal of Philology 39 (1918) 268-90.
 F. Solmsen, Electra and Orestes: Three Recognitions in Greek Tragedy (Amsterdam 1967).
 T. Tarkow, "The Scar of Orestes: Observations on an Euripidean Innovation," Rheinisches Museum 124 (1981)
143-53.
2.3 Recognition in Aeschylus Libation Bearers 205ff (for recognition by means of footprints, see M. Twain, The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn chapter 4)
 L. A. Tregenza, "The Return of Orestes in the Choephori," Greece and Rome 2 (1955) 59-61.
 H. Lloyd-Jones, Some Alleged Interpolations in Aeschylus' Choephori and Euripides' Electra," Classical
Quarterly 11 (1961) 171-84 = Greek Epic, Lyric and Tragedy (Oxford 1990) 335-52.
 W. Burkert, "A Note on Aeschylus Choephori 205ff," Classical Quarterly 13 (1963) 177.
3.
Deception
A number of heroes and heroines, particularly in Sophocles, are led to commit acts of hamartia because they are the
victims of deception or apate. Apate involves active distortion, e.g. through suppression or ambiguity concerning
motive as distinct from objective falsehood concerning facts (lying, pseudos such as Phaedra's letter in Eur. Hipp.); in
this respect, deception is closely linked to IRONY. Consider these scenes: e.g. Aesch. Pers 352ff,Cho. [Orestes says
that he himself is dead], Oedipus the King 123-5 and 783-5 and Trachiniae 248-90, 569-77 and 610-3, Electra 680763, Ajax 644-92 (Does Ajax deliberately lie to his friends or has he unintentionally misled them?)
And Philoctetes 343-90, Eur. Medea 964-75, Vergil, Aeneid 2.57-75. Note the artful word-order in Lichas' speech and
the creative invention in the paedagogus' speech in the Electra.
Consider the theological aspects of deception. Note that gods are capable of deception in Homer (Iliad 2.1-15,
14.153-352) and Aeschylus (fr. 350 Nauck2 = Plato Republic 383 A) but not in Herodotus (1.90-1) or in Sophocles,
with the possible exception of Athena in the Ajax. Pindar and Plato react to Xenophanes' charge that the gods commit
adultery, like and deceive one another by emending the relevant myths. Deception seems to escape censure in the
Bible (Laban and his daughters; the blessing of Jacob).
Deception is present in comedy, as when Xanthias claims to be a god (Ar. Frogs) or the Spartan woman claims to be
pregnant (Ar. Lysistrata), but it becomes crucial to the plot only in New Comedy, e.g. the claim that the house is
haunted in Plaut. The Haunted House. (See R. Z. Burrows, "Deception as a Comic Device in the Odyssey,"Classical
World 59 (October 1965) 33-6.
 T. G. Rosenmeyer, "Gorgias, Aeschylus and Apate," American Journal of Philology 76 (1955) 225-60.
 A. F. Garvie, "Deceit, Violence and Persuasion in the Philoctetes," in Studi classici in onore di Quintino
Cataudella I (Catania 1972) 213-26.
 J. H. Kells, Sophocles: Electra (Cambridge 1973) ad loc.
 H. Musurillo, "The Problem of Lying and Deceit and the Two Voices of Euripides' Hippolytus 925-31,"Transactions
of the American Philological Association 104 (1974) 231-8.
 J. Moore, "The Dissembling Speech of Ajax," Yale Classical Studies 25 (1977) 47-66.
 S. Goodhart, "Leistas Ephaske: Oedipus and Laius' Many Murderers," Diacritics 8 (1978) 55-71.
 R. P. Winnington-Ingram, Sophocles: An Interpretation (Cambridge 1980) 332-3.
 D. A. Hester, "Deianira's 'Deception' Speech," Antichthon 14 (1980) 1-8.
 D. A. Hester, "Some Deceptive Oracles: Sophocles Electra 32-7," Antichthon 15 (1981) 15-25.
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W. J. Verdenius, "Gorgias' Doctrine of Deception," in G. B. Herferd ed., The Sophists and Their Legacy =Hermes
Einzelschriften 44 (Wiesbaden 1981) 116-29.
P. E. Easterling, Sophocles: Trachiniae (Cambridge 1982) ad loc.
M. Davies, "Lichas' Lying Tale," Classical Quarterly 34 (1984) 480-3.
P. T. Stevens, "Ajax in the Trugrede," Classical Quarterly 36 (1986) 327-36.
C. M. Emlyn-Jones, "True and Lying Tales in the Odyssey," Greece and Rome 33 (1986) 1-10.
M. R. Halleran, "Lichas' Lies and Sophoclean Innovation," Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 27 (1986) 23948.
K. V. Hartigan, "Salvation via Deceit: A New Look at Iphigeneia in Tauris," Eranos 84 (1986) 119-25.
D. Lateiner, "Deceptions and Delusions in Herodotus," Classical Antiquity 9 (1990) 230-46.
3.
1.
Reversal
Reversal
The perfect tragedy, according to Aristotle Poetics 1450a 37, 1452a 23 does not march on relentlessly toward doom,
but rather presents a reversal of fortune (peripeteia) by which the apparently fortunate hero is suddenly brought low.
Consider this process. A tragedy with a simple plot has a gradual development from joy to sorrow (e.g. Aesch. Pers.)
or vice versa (e.g. Aesch. Eum.); this development is called metabasis. A tragedy with a complex plot has a sudden
reversal from joy to sorrow (e.g. Soph. OT, Eur. Her.) or vice versa (e.g. Eur. Alc.). Such a tragedy often involves the
allegedly desirable coincidence of peripeteia and recognition. There are plays without any reversal at all (e.g.
Aesch. Supp., Prom. Bound), although these may be structurally incomprehensible divorced, as they now are, from
the tetralogies that originally contained them.
In comedy, reversal may be a tool in the joke that operates through defeat of expectation (para prosdokian).
 H. M. Reynolds, "Peripeteia and Allied Terms in Aristotle's Poetics," Transactions and Proceedings of the
American Philological Association 11 (1893) xliv-xlvii.
 G. E. Else, Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument (Cambridge, Mass. 1957) ad loc.
 J. H. Lawson, Theory and Technique of Playwriting (New York 1960).
 D. W. Lucas, "Pity, Terror and Peripeteia," Classical Quarterly 12 (1962) 52-60.
 S. Smiley, Playwriting: The Structure of Action (Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1971).
 J. A. Barlow, "Stereotype and Reversal in Euripides Medea," Greece and Rome 36 (1971) 158-71.
 J.-P. Vernant, "Ambiguity and Reversal: On the Enigmatic Structure of Oedipus Rex," New Literary History 9
(1978) 475-501.
 A. F. Garvie, "Aeschylus' Simple Plots," Dionysiaca = Festschrift D. L. Page (Cambridge 1978) 63-86.
 A. C. Coolidge, Jr., Beyond the Fatal Flaw (Lake MacBride 1980) chapter 3.
 O. J. Schrier, "A Simple View of Peripeteia," Mnemosyne 33 (1980) 96-118.
2.
Surprise
A possible ingredient in reversal is surprise. How can we speak of surprise in a play whose story is known to everyone
in advance, as is the case with all surviving tragedies?
 R. G. Tetstall, "An Instance of 'Surprise' in the Hecuba," Mnemosyne 7 (1954) 340-41.
 W. G. Arnott, "Euripides and the Unexpected," Greece and Rome 20 (1973) 49-64.
 W. G. Arnott, "Red Herrings and Other Baits: A Study in Euripidean Techniques," Museum Philologum
Londiniense 3 (1978) 1-24.
 W. G. Arnott, "Tension, Frustration and Surprise; A Study of Theatrical Techniques in Some Scenes of
Euripides' Orestes," Antichthon 17 (1983) 13-28.
Supporting Materials for Lectures
Lecture 5: People On Stage and Off
1.
1.
Dramatis Personae
Character
Do tragedians bother to create consistent characters (ethe) for the figures in their plays? If so, by what means? Are
the characters three-dimensional and does such three-dimensionality arise from consistency or inconsistency? What
is the essential nature (or "spine") of certain characters in Greek tragedy? Is there a Greek word for "will" and the
concept to match? Discuss the role of nature and nurture in producing character, esp. in Soph. Phil. Discuss the use
of "foil" characters. Contrast the tragic idea of a distinct individual person with the comic idea of a stock, easily
replicated type. Persons can change and grow, while types can only repeat their distinctive actions; in lieu of growth
they can at best be expelled from society. Particularly interesting are the minor characters who are transformed by a
few strokes from mere ciphers to living, breathing people (e.g. the watchman in Aesch. Ag., Cilissa in Cho. and the
guard in Soph. Ant.).
1.
General
 C. Garton, "Characterization in Greek Tragedy," Journal of Hellenic Studies 77 (1957) 247-54.
 G. H. Gellie, "Character in Greek Tragedy," Journal of the Australasian Universities Languages and Literatures
Association 20 (1963) 24-56.
 R. Sauer, "Charakter und Tragische Schuld," Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 46 (1964) 50-59.
 C. Lord, "Tragedy without Character," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 20 (1969) 55-62.
 J. Gould, "Dramatic Character and 'Human Intelligibility' in Greek Tragedy," Proceedings of the Cambridge
Philological Society 24 (1978) 43-67.
 J.-P. Vernant and P. Vidal-Naquet, Tragedy and Myth in Ancient Greece (Brighton, UK 1981) 28-62.
 C. Gill, "The Question of Character and Personality in Greek Tragedy," Poetics Today 7 (1986) 251-73.
 G. Held, "The Meaning of Ethos in the Poetics," Hermes 113 (1986) 280-93.
 E. Schutrumpf, "The Meaning of Ethos in the Poetics: A Reply," Hermes 115 (1987) 175-81.
 P. E. Easterling, "Constructing Character in Greek Tragedy," 83-99 in C. Pelling ed., Characterization and
Individuality in Greek Literature (Oxford 1990).
2.
Aeschylus
 F. M. B. Anderson, "The Character of Clytaemnestra in the Agamemnon of Aeschylus," Transactions and
Proceedings of the American Philological Association (1929) 136-54.
 R. D. Dawe, "Inconsistency of Plot and Character in Aeschylus," Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological
Society 9 (1963) 21-62.
 P. E. Easterling, "Presentation of Character in Aeschylus," Greece and Rome 20 (1973) 3-19.
 M. Pope, "The Democratic Character of Aeschylus' Agamemnon," Greek Tragedy and Its Legacy =Festschrift D.
J. Conacher (Calgary 1986) 13-26.
3.
Sophocles
 A. N. W. Saunders, "Plot and Character in Sophocles," Greece and Rome 4 91934) 18-9.
 H. Lloyd-Jones, "Tycho von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff on the Dramatic Technique of Sophocles," Classical
Quarterly 22 (1972) 214-28 = Blood for the Ghosts (Baltimore 1982) 219-37 = Greek Epic, Lyric and
Tragedy (Oxford 1990) 401-18.
 P. E. Easterling, "Character in Sophocles,' Greece and Rome 24 (1977) 121-9.
 M. W. Blundell, "The Moral Character of Odysseus in Philoctetes," Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies28 (1987)
307-29.
4.
Euripides
 S. Flygt, "Treatment of Character in Euripides and Seneca: The Hippolytus," Classical Journal 29 (1933-4) 50716.
 A. M. Dale, Euripides: Alcestis (Oxford 1954) xxv.
 B. Frischer, "Concordia discors and Characterization in Euripides' Hippolytus," Greek, Roman and Byzantine
Studies 11 (1970) 85-100.
 G. H. Gellie, "The Character of Medea," Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 35 (1988) 15-22.
 J. Griffin, "Characterization in Euripides: Hippolytus and Iphigeneia in Aulis," 128-49 in C. Pelling
ed.,Characterization and Individuality in Greek Literature (Oxford 1990).
5.
Seneca
 C. Garton, "Senecan Characterization," Personal Aspects of the Roman Theatre (Toronto 1972).
2.
Hubris (and Sophrosyne)
Tragic characters are frequently led into error through the feeling of "hubris" (originally a Greek word), meaning one
who has gotten too big for his britches and who, in consequence does not know himself.
 M. Dirat, L'Hybris dans la tragédie grecque (Lille 1973).
 J. T. Hooker, "The Original Meaning of Hybris," Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 19 (1975) 125-37.
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D. M. MacDowell, "Hybris in Athens," Greece and Rome 23 (1976) 14-31.
M. Gagarin, "Socrates' Hybris and Alcibiades' Failure," Phoenix 31 (1977) 22-37.
A. N. Michelini, "Hybris and Plants," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 82 (1978) 35-44.
E. Cantarella, "Spuntidi reflessione critica su hybris e time in Omero," 85-96 in Dinakis ed., Symposion
1979(Cologne and Vienna 1981).
R. Scodel, "Hybris in the Second Stasimon of the Oedipus Tyrannus," Classical Philology 77 (1982) 214-23.
M. W. Dickie, "Hesychia and Hybris in Pindar," 83-109 in Greek Poetry and Philosophy = Festschrift L. E.
Woodbury (Chico, CA 1984).
O. Murray, "The Solonian Law of Hybris" 139-45 in Nomos: Essays in Athenian Law, ed. P. A. Cartledge et al.
(Cambridge 1990).
D. Cohen, "Sexuality, Violence and the Athenian Law of Hubris," Greece and Rome 38 (1991) 171-88.
N. R. E. Fischer, Hybris: A Study of the Values of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greece (Warminster 1992).
G. O. Rowe, "The Many Facets of Hybris in Demosthenes' Against Meidias," American Journal of Philology119
(1993) 397-406.
3.
Irony (and Alazoneia)
Consider the question of dramatic irony as it is used by the Greek tragedians (particularly Soph., e.g. Oedipus the
King) and the relation of this device to the sequence of error and recognition. Irony is sometimes involved in deception
whereby one character misleads the other without actually uttering a falsehood (e.g. Ajax in theTrugrede). Often it
involves ambiguity. Consider the role of the audience's foreknowledge of ready-made plots and/or plots divulged to
the audience at the outset by a divine prologue-speech and of Freudian slips like Oedipus' "robber" for "robbers".
Discuss the word eiron, both in its role in comedy (in contrast to alazon) and in connection with Socrates (who
preferred truth over appearance and who was the inspiration for a whole genre of quasi-drama, the dialogue.
The eiron operates by means of questioning and cross-examination (elenchos); this makes him similar to the
persuader.
F. Ahl, Sophocles' Oedipus (Ithaca, NY 1991) 63 speaks of "a kind of reverse dramatic irony, where something known
to the character in a play or epic is withheld from the audience". Is there any scope for this in Greek drama?
0. Irony
 B. Thirwall, "On the Irony of Sophocles," The Philological Museum 2 (1833) 483-537.
 J. A. K. Thomson, Irony: An Historical Introduction (Cambridge 1927).
 S. K. Johnson, "Some Aspects of Dramatic Irony in Sophoclean Tragedy," Classical Review 42 (1928) 209-14.
 G. G. Sedgewick, Of Irony: Especially in Drama 2nd ed. (Toronto 1948).
 G. M. Kirkwood, A Study in Sophoclean Drama (New York 1958) 247-87.
 G. Zuntz, "On Euripides' Helena: Theology and Irony," Euripide = Fondation Hardt: Entretiens sur l'antiquité
classique 6 (Vandoeuvres 1960) 199-241.
 W. D. Smith, "The Ironic Structure in Alcestis," Phoenix 14 (1960) 127-45.
 R. Di Virgilio, "L'ironia tragica nell' 'Antigone' di Sofocle," Rivista di filologia e d'istruzione classica 94 (1966) 26-33.
 R. C. Muecke, "Irony," The Critical Idiom 13 (London 1970) 64-6.
 B. L. States, Irony and Drama: A Poetics (Ithaca 1971).
 G. Markantonatos, "'Tragic Irony' in the Antigone of Sophocles," Emerita 41 (1973) 491-7.
 G. Markantonatos, "'Tragic Irony' in the Trachiniae of Sophocles," Platon 26 (1974) 73-9.
 P. Vellacott, Ironic Drama: A Study in Euripides' Method and Meaning (Cambridge 1975).
 G. Markantonatos, "On the Main Types of Dramatic Irony as Used in Greek Tragedy," Platon 29 (1977) 79-84.
 T. G. Rosenmeyer, "Irony and Tragic Choruses," in J. H. D'Arms and J. W. Eadie eds., Ancient and
Modern = Festschrift G. F. Else (Ann Arbor 1977) 31-44.
 D. C. Muecke, "Analyses de l'ironie," Poétique 36 (1978) 478-94.
 T. A. Szlezák, "Sophokles' Elektra und das Problem des ironischen Dramas," Museum Helveticum 38 (1981) 1-21.
 G. Paduano, "Sull'ironia tragica," Dioniso 54 (1983) 61-81.
 A. L. Motto, "Irony in Senecan Tragedy," Philological Papers (Marganton West Virginia University) 32 (1987) 1-9.
1.
Ambiguity
 W. B. Stanford, Ambiguity in Greek Literature (Oxford 1939) 66.
 L. C. Rees, "Structural Ambiguity: A Note on Meaning and the Linguistic Analysis of Literature," Language
Learning 6 (1955) 62-7.
 K. Quinn, "Syntactical Ambiguity in Greek and Latin," Journal of the Australasian Universities' Modern Language
Association (1960) 36-46.
 G. Devereux, "The Exploitation of Ambiguity in Pindaros Ol. 3.27," Rheinisches Museum 109 (1966) 289-98.
 R. F. Renehan, "Conscious Ambiguities in Pindar and Bacchylides," Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies10
(1969) 219-21.
 N. E. Collinge, "Ambiguity in Literature: Some Guidelines," Arethusa 2 (1969) 13-29.
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G. Lozza, "L'ambiguitá di linguaggion nelle Olimpiche di Pindaro," Acme 29 (1976) 163-77.
R. C. W. Oudemans and A. P. M. H. Lardinois, Tragic Ambiguity: Anthropology, Philosophy and
Sophocles'Antigone (Leiden 1987).
D. Hester, "Ironic Interaction in Aeschylus and Sophocles," Prudentia 27 (1995) 14-43.
2.
1.
The Audience
Imitation
In the tenth book of Plato's Republic Socrates enunciates his theory that poetry is an imitation (mimesis) of reality, and
on this basis he develops his rule about which artists should be allowed into the idea state (namely, only those who
imitate noble actions). This idea of imitation is taken up by Aristotle in his Poetics, who holds that the ideal work of art
should be the entelechical expression of what it seeks to represent or imitate, yet Plato's idea of imitation (that seeing
bad actions inspires people to act badly) is opposed to Aristotle's notion of catharsis (that seeing bad actions frees
one from the desire to act badly). How does this view of art accord with its true nature? Why do we enjoy a
representation of something that in real life disgusts us?
 J. Tate, "'Imitation' in Plato's Republic," Classical Quarterly 22 (1928) 16-23.
 J. Tate, "Plato and Imitation," Classical Quarterly 26 (1932) 161-9.
 W. J. Verdenius, Mimesis: Plato's Doctrine of Artistic Imitation (Leiden 1949).
 R. McKeon, "Literary Criticism and the Concept of Imitation in Antiquity," in R. S. Crane ed., Critics and Criticism:
Ancient and Modern (Chicago 1952) 147-75.
 K. Burke, "A 'Dramatistic' View of Imitation," Accent 12 (1952) 229-41.
 H. Koller, Die Mimesis in der Antike (Bern 1953).
 G. F. Else, "Imitation in the Fifth Century," Classical Philology 53 (1958) 73-90.
 L. Golden, "Is Tragedy the 'Imitation of a Serious Action'?," Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 6 (1965) 283-9.
 H. D. Goldstein, "Mimesis and Catharsis Reexamined," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 24 (1966) 567-77.
 G. Sörbom, Mimesis and Art (Uppsala 1966).
 D. W. Lucas, Aristotle:Poetics (Oxford 1968) 258-72.
 O. B. Hardison, "Epilogue: On Aristotelian Imitation," in L. Golden and O. B. Hardison Jr., Aristotle's
Poetics(Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1968) 281-96.
 L. Golden, "Mimesis and Catharsis," Classical Philology 64 (1969) 145-53.
 L. Golden, "Plato's Concept of Mimesis," British Journal of Aesthetics 15 (1975-6) 118-31.
 A. Nehamas, "Plato on Imitation and Poetry in Republic 10," 47-78 in J. Moravscik and P. Tempo edd., Plato on
Beauty, Wisdom and the Arts (Totowa, NJ 1982).
 E. Belfiore, "A Theory of Imitation in Plato's Republic," Transactions of the American Philological Association114
(1984) 121-46.
 L. Golden, Aristotle on Tragic and Comic Mimesis (Atlanta 1992).
2.
Catharsis
Aristotle says in the Poetics 1449b 28 that the function of tragedy is to provide a katharsis of the emotions of the
spectators. Modern scholars have claimed that the term katharsis refers to (i) PSYCHOLOGICAL PURGATION
whereby tragedy acts as a homeopathic cure for the "disease" of fear and pity, using the make-believe terror and pity
vicariously experienced of the stage to drive out the real terror and pity from the minds of the audience viewed as
consisting of four humours that must be balanced in order to produce a good temperament, an interpretation which
recalls the etymological connection of "drama" to "drastic" [but do we feel this way about violence on television?]
(Bernays); (ii) MORAL PURIFICATION whereby a proper discipline is placed on the audience's reaction to pity and
fear (Aristotle Nic. Eth. 1106b); (iii) EXONERATION OF THE TRAGIC HERO (Else pages 224-32, 423-47); and (iv)
INTELLECTUAL CLARIFICATION whereby tragedy imitates by mimesis pity and fear and so allows the audience to
understand them better (Golden 1976). Explain this idea and consider its merits. Discuss also the comic catharsis of
(antisocial) wishes and hopes (Reckford).
 J. Bernays, Zwei Abhandlungen über die aristotelische Theorie des Drama (Berlin 1857); see K. Grunder, "Jacob
Bernays und der Streit um die Katharsis," in H. Barion et al. edd., Epirrhosis = Festschrift C. Schmitt(Berlin 1968)
vol 2 pp. 495-528.
 J. Tate, "Tragedy and Black Bile," Hermathena 50 (1937) 1-25.
 W. F. Trench, "The Place of Katharsis in Aristotle's Aesthetics," Hermathena 26 (1938) 110-34.
 F. Dirlmeier, "Katharsis Pathematon," Hermes 75 (1940) 81-92.
 E. P. Papnoutsos, "La catharsis aristotélienne," Eranos 46 (1948) 77-93.
 W. J. Verdenius, Katharsis ton Pathematon: autour d'Aristote (Louvain 1958) 367-73.
 G. van Boekel, Katharsis (Utrecht 1957).
 G. F. Else, Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument (Cambridge, Mass. 1957).
 K. Burke, "On Catharsis, or Resolution, with a Postscript," The Kenyon Review 21 (1959) 337-75.
 V. Kostic, "Aristotle's Catharsis in Renaissance Poetics," Ziva Antika 10 (1960) 61-74.
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3.
K. Burke, "Catharsis-Second View," Centennial Review of Arts and Sciences 5 (1961) 107-32.
C. Diano, "Euripide auteur de la catharsis tragique," Numen 8 (1961) 117-41.
L. Golden, "Catharsis," Transactions of the American Philological Association 93 (1962) 51-60.
T. Brunius, Inspiration and Katharsis (Uppsala 1966).
H. D. Goldstein, "Mimesis and Catharsis Reexamined," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 24 (1966) 567-77.
H. D. F. Kitto, "Catharsis," in The Classical Tradition = Festschrift Caplan, ed. L. Wallach (Ithaca, NY 1966) 13347.
E. Schaper, Prelude to Aesthetics (London 1968) 101-118.
D. W. Lucas, Aristotle: Poetics (Oxford 1968) 273-90.
L. Golden, "Mimesis and Catharsis," Classical Philology 64 (1969) 145-53.
A. Freire, "A catarse tragica em Aristoteles," Euphrosyne 3 (1969) 31-45.
A. Nicev, L'enigme de la catharsis tragic dans Aristote (Sofia 1970).
P. Lain-Entralgo, The Therapy of the Word in Classical Antiquity (New Haven 1970).
K. G. Srivastava, "A New Look at the 'Katharsis' Clause of Aristotle's Poetics," British Journal of Aesthetics 12
(1972) 258-75.
L. Golden, "The Purification Theory of Catharsis," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 31 (1973) 473-9.
K. J. Reckford, "Desire with Hope; Aristophanes and Comic Catharsis," Ramus 3 (1974) 41-69.
L. Golden, "The Clarification Theory of Katharsis," Hermes 104 (1976) 437-52.
K. J. Reckford, "Catharsis and Dream-Interpretation in Aristophanes' Wasps," Transactions of the American
Philological Association 107 (1977) 283-312.
D. Keesey, "On Some Recent Interpretations of Catharsis," Classical World 72 (1978-9) 193-205.
A. Nicev, La catharsis tragique d'Aristote (Sofia 1982).
F. Sparshott, "The Riddle of Katharsis," 14-37 in E. Cook et al. edd., Centre and Labyrinth = Festschrift N.
Frye (Toronto 1983).
C. Wagner, "Katharsis in der aristotelischen Tragödiendefinition," Grazer Beiträge 11 (1984) 67-87.
J. Lear, "Katharsis,' 315-40 in A. O. Rorty ed., Essays on Aristotle'sPoetics (Princeton 1992).
Terror and Pity
According to Aristotle, the function of tragedy is to arouse in the spectators feelings of terror (phobos) and pity (eleos),
yet Phynicus was fined for his Sack of Miletus because it reminded the Athenians of their own suffering, and all the
pregnant women in the audience of Aesch. Eum. miscarried. Consider the emotional response of the audience to
tragedy. Compare the appeal for pity in forensic oratory, on which see Carey on Lysias 7.41. A handbook on this
subject was written by Thrasymachus (Plato Phaedr. 267c, Aristotle Rhet. 1404a 14).
 D. C. Stuart, "The Function and the Dramatic Value of the Recognition Scene," American Journal of Philology39
(1918) 268-90.
 F. L. Shisler, "The Technique of the Portrayal of Joy in Greek Tragedy," Transactions of the American Philological
Association 13 (1942) 277-92.
 F. L. Shisler, "The Use of Stage Business to Portray Emotion in Greek Tragedy," American Journal of Philology66
(1945) 377-97.
 W. Schadewaldt, "Furcht und Mitleid?," Hermes 83 (1955) 129-71 = Hellas und Hesperia 2nd ed (Zurich 1970) vol.
1 pp. 194-236.
 M. Pohlenz, "Furcht und Mitleid?: Ein Nachwort," Hermes 84 (1956) 49-74.
 D. W. Lucas, "Pity, Terror and Peripeteia," Classical Quarterly 12 (1962) 52-60.
 B. R. Rees, "Pathos in the Poetics of Aristotle," Greece and Rome 19 (1972) 1-11.
 P. Pucci, The Violence of Pity in Euripides' Medea (Ithaca and New York 1980) 169-74.
 W. B. Stanford, Greek Tragedy and the Emotions (London 1983).
 M. M. Kokolakis, "Greek Drama: The Stirring of Pity," 170-8 in J. H. Betts et al. edd., Studies in Honour of T. B. L.
Webster (Bristol 1986).
 M. Heath, The Poetics of Greek Tragedy (London 1987) 5-36.
Supporting Materials for Lectures
Lecture 6: The Basic Plot Types
The plots of Greek plays seem in general to fall into four categories, (i) sacrifice-plots, (ii) suppliant plots, (iii)
homecoming-plots, and (iv) quest-plots. Consider each of these four types. Discuss the kinds of plot types that
do not exist, such as love-stories like Romeo and Juliet, Dido and Aeneas, and Twelfth Night or stories of spiritual
salvation, such as passion plays,Faust or Parsifal.
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S. Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk Literature (Bloomington 1932-6).
V. Propp, Morphology of the Folktale (Bloomington 1958).
R. Lattimore, Story Patterns in Greek Tragedy (Ann Arbor 1965), esp. 46-9.
A. J. Greimas, "Les actants, les acteurs, et le figures," Semiotique narrative et textuelle, ed. C. Chabroi (Paris
1973).
A. P. Burnett, Catastrophe Survived: Euripides' Plays of Mixed Reversal (Oxford 1971) passim.
D. Hensius, On Plot in Tragedy, trans. P. Sellin and J. McManmon (Northridge, Ca. 1971).
O. Taplin, The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford 1977) 124, 192.
B. Berke, Tragic Thought and the Grammar of Tragic Myth (Bloomington, Ind. 1982).
1.
Sacrifice Plots
Consider the number of individuals who are sacrificed in Greek tragedy: Alcestis (Eur. Alc. passim), Iphigeneia
(Aesch.Agam. 100ff, Eur. IA), Makaria (Eur. Heracleidae 50ff), Polyxena (Eur. Hecuba 518-83), Menoeceus
(Soph. Ant. 1302, Eur. Phoen. 913), cf. Protesilaus in Iliad 2.699-702 and less relevantly Palinurus in Vergil, Aeneid 5.
Compare the story of Japhtha's daughter (Judges 11). Note that literal blood-sacrifice never takes place during any
extant play except for the sacrifice of the wine-skin in Ar. Thesm.; sometimes awkward interventions are necessary to
avoid having it take place (e.g. Ar. Peace 1017, Birds 848, Acharnians 241). Sacrifice is sometimes for the good of the
state (Polyxena, Menoeceus, Iphigeneia) and sometimes for that of the family (Antigone, Alcestis). Old men are never
the victims, young men seldom so, virgins almost always. The sacrificial victim is almost always a volunteer and in a
religious context would be a martyr.
 J. Schmitt, "Freiwilliger Opfertod bei Euripides," Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Borarbeiten 17 (1921) 1103.
 P. Roussel, "Le thème du sacrifice volontaire dans la tragédie d'Euripide," Revue Belge de philologie et
d'histoire(1922) 225-40.
 K. Meuli, "Griechische Opferbrauche," in O. Gigon, ed. Phyllobolia = Festschrift P. von der Mühll (Basel 1946)
195-288.
 C. Fontenoy, "Le sacrifice nuptial de Polyxena," Antiquité Classique 19 (1950) 383-96.
 H. M. Schreiber, Iphigenies Opfertod (Frankfurt 1963).
 F. Zeitlin, "The Motif of the Corrupted Sacrifice in Aeschylus' Oresteia," Transactions of the American Philological
Association 96 (1965) 463-508.
 F. Zeitlin, "Postscript to Sacrificial Imagery in the Oresteia," Transactions of the American Philological
Association97 (1966) 645-53.
 W. Burkert, "Greek Tragedy and Sacrificial Ritual," Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 7 (1966) 87-121.
 R. Rebuffat, "Le sacrifice du fils de Creon dans les Phéniciennes d'Euripide," Revue des études anciennes 74
(1972f) 14-31.
 D. Sansone, "The Sacrifice-Motif in Euripides' IT," Transactions of the American Philological Association 105
(1975) 283-96.
 R. Girard, Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore 1977).
 A. Henrichs, "Human Sacrifice in Greek Religion: Three Case Studies," 221-33 in Le sacrifice dans
l'antiquité(Geneva 1981).
 R. Somsen, "The Sacrifice of Agamemnon's Daughter in Hesiod's Ehoeae," American Journal of Philology 102
(1981) 353ff.
 (A. M. Eckstein, "Human Sacrifice and Fear of Military Disaster in Republican Rome," American Journal of Ancient
History 7 [1982] 75-81.)
 H. P. Foley, Ritual Irony: Poetry and Sacrifice in Euripides (Ithaca, NY 1985).
 J. Bremmer, "Scapegoat Rituals in Ancient Greece," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 87 (1983) 299-320.
 N. Loraux (A. Forster trans.), Tragic Ways of Killing a Woman (Cambridge, Mass. 1987).
 E. A. M. E. O-Connor-Visser, Aspects of Human Sacrifice in the Tragedies of Euripides (Amsterdam 1987).
2.
Suppliant Story-Pattern
See Aesch. Suppl., Eur. Suppl., Heracleidae. The suppliant or supplicant was the ancient world's equivalent of the
refugee. Those most often in need of refuge are women and children, and they sought sanctuary by means of touch,
either of chin (genus), knee (gonu) or altar.
 W. Headlam, "The Last Scene in the Eumenides," Journal of Hellenic Studies 26 (1906) 266-77.
 J. Kopperschmidt, Die Hikesie als dramatische Form (dissertation Tübingen 1967).
 J. Pitt-Rivers, "Women and Sanctuary in the Mediterranean," in J. Pouillon and P. Maranda edd., Mélanges LéviStrauss (The Hague 1970) vol. 2 pp. 862-75.
 J. Gould, "Hiketeia," Journal of Hellenic Studies 93 (1973) 74-103.
 P. Burian, "Suppliant and Savior: Oedipus at Colonus," Phoenix 28 (1974) 408-29 = H. Bloom ed., Sophocles
(New York 1990) 77-96.
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V. Pedrick, "Supplication in the Iliad and the Odyssey," Transactions of the American Philological Association 112
(1982) 125-40.
E. Csapo, "Hikesia in the Telephus of Aeschylus," Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 63 (1990) 41-52.
J. P. Wilson, The Hero and the City (Ann Arbor 1997) 29-62.
3.
Homecoming-Story-Pattern
The revenge-tragedy that is so familiar to students of Elizabethan theatre, e.g. Shakespeare, Hamlet, is found in the
classical drama (see A. P. Burnett, "Medea and the Tragedy of Revenge," Classical Philology 68 [1973] 1-24, and R.
Meridor, "Hecuba's Revenge," American Journal of Philology 99 [1978] 28-35), but usually as a component of the
homecoming (nostos, origin of the English word, "nostalgia") story-pattern. The homecoming is often linked to (i)
revenge: e.g. Odyssey, Aesch. Sept., Ag. Lib. Bearers, Soph. El., OT, Eur. El., Bacchae, (ii) when the person
returning kills those at home, as when Theseus forgot to change the colour of his sails or with the hero who cannot
leave his work at the office, e.g. Soph. Aj., Eur. Heracles, W. B. Yeats, "Cuchulain's Fight with the Sea" and J.
Shay, Achilles in Vietnam (New York 1994), (iii) when the person returning is killed by those at home like Agamemnon
or finds his home in ruins like Theseus in Eur. Hipp., or (iv) sacrifice like Jephthah's daughter (Judges 11.29-40,
Beauty and the Beast). Note that we all get together to throw things at victors: the tickertape parade and its ancient
forerunner, the phylloboliaor "throwing of leaves" where the leaves are a harmless substitute for more lethal weapons
such as stones (See W. Burkert, Homo Necans [Berkeley 1983] 5). Is the person who returns the same as the one
who went away (cf. Le retour de Martin Guerre, Summersby)? Note the relation of homecoming to choice (with
disguise and recognition) and error (with subsequent recognition).
 U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Homerische Untersuchungen (Berlin 1884) 114 and 162 note (on "the return of
the hero at the new moon").
 H. J. Treston, Poine : a Study in Ancient Greek Blood-Vengeance (London 1923) 276-422.
 M. L. Lord, "Withdrawal and Return: An Epic Story Pattern in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and the Homeric
Poems," Classical Journal 62 (1966-7) 241-8.
 D. Frame, The Myth of Return in Early Greek Epic (New Haven 1978).
 K. Crotty, Song and Action (Baltimore and London 1982) 104-38.
 C. A. Sowa, Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns (Chicago 1984) 95-120.
 W. J. Slater, "Nemean One: The Victor's Return in Poetry and Politics," 241-64 in D. E. Gerber ed., Greek Poetry
and Philosophy = Festschrift L. E. Woodbury (Chico, Ca 1984).
4.
Quest Story-Pattern
This story-pattern is typical of comedy. The eiron is on a quest to ride the alazon out of town, as in a western.
Sometimes instead he goes to bring somebody back to the community, e.g. Ar. Peace in which Trygaeus flies to
heaven on a dung-beetle to seek Zeus's help in ending the Peloponnesian war, and Frogs in which Dionysus goes to
Hell to bring back the recently dead Euripides.
 W. Burkert, "Goes: zum griechische Schamanismus," Rheinische Museum 105 (1962) 36-55.
 H. Lloyd-Jones, "Heracles at Eleusis," Maia 19 (1967) 206-29 = Greek Epic, Lyric and Tragedy (Oxford 1990) 16787.
 W. Burkert, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London 1972) 78-98.
 M. Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (New York 1964).