Greek 541B: Sophocles' Electra and Trachiniae

 

 

Instructor

Aara Suksi, Department of Classical Studies

My office: Talbot College 429 Phone 661 2111 ex 82278

e-mail: asuksi@uwo.ca

web-site: http://publish.uwo.ca/~asuksi/

 

Time and Place

Monday, 9-11am

TC 403

Description

Sophocles' Trachiniae (first) and Electra will be read in Greek, the other five tragedies in translation. Topics for discussion will include lament, marriage, revenge, sickness, and the transformation of the Greek hero.

 

Texts

Patricia Easterling. Sophocles Trachiniae. Cambridge 1982.

Jennifer March. Sophocles: Electra. Aris & Phillips 2001.

H. Lloyd-Jones and N.G. Wilson. Sophoclis Fabulae. Oxford 1990. (suggested, not required)

 

Evaluation

preparation and participation                                     15%

presentation                                                               15%

research paper (linked to presentation)                     15%

term test (translation and commentary) March 8        20%

final exam (translation, commentary and essay)        35%

BIBLIOGRAPHY (partial)

 

Commentaries

 

Jebb, R.C. Sophocles: the plays and fragments. (Cambridge University Press, 1902-1908)

 

Jebb's excellent commentaries are accessible online at Perseus: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cache/perscoll_Greco-Roman.html#secondary1

 

Kamerbeek, J. C.,  The plays of Sophocles;  (Leiden, E.J. Brill 1984)

Electra

 

J. H. Kells. Sophocles Electra. (Cambridge, 1973)

Jenny March. Sophocles, Electra. (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 2001)

Trachiniae

 

Malcolm Davies. Sophocles: Trachiniae, with Introduction and Commentary. (Oxford, 1991)

Patricia Easterling Sophocles: Trachiniae  (Cambridge University Press, 1982)

 

Interpretation

 

Greek Drama in general

Belfiore, E. Murder among Friends: Violations of Philia in Greek Tragedy (Oxford 2000).
des Bouvrie, S. Women in Greek Tragedy, (Oxford 1990) 

Csapo, E. & Slater, W. The Context of Ancient Drama, (Michigan 1994)

Dobrov, G. Figures of Play: Greek Drama and Metafictional Poetics, (Oxford 2001)

Dunn, F. Tragedy's End, (New York 1996)

Easterling, P.E. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy, (Cambridge, 1998)

Foley, Helene P. Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, (Princeton, 2001)

Goff, B. History, Tragedy, Theory, (Austin 1995)

Goldhill, S. `The Great Dionysia and civic ideology', JHS 107 (1987) 58-76, reprinted in Winkler and Zeitlin (below)

Goldhill, S.D. Reading Greek Tragedy, (Cambridge, 1986)

Green, J. R. & Handley, E. (eds.) Images of the Greek Theatre (London 1995)

Griffin, J. (ed.) Sophocles Revisited, (Oxford, 1999)

Loraux, N. Tragic Ways of Killing a Woman (Harvard 1987)

McClure, L., Spoken Like a Woman: Speech and Gender in Greek Tragedy (Princeton 1999)

Meier, C. The Political Art of Greek Tragedy (Cambridge 1993)

Padel, R. Whom Gods Destroy: Elements of Greek and Tragic Madness (Princeton 1995)

Pickard -Cambridge, A.W. The Dramatic Festivals of Athens, 2nd edition revised by Gould and Lewis (Oxford, l968)

Rehm, R. Greek tragic theatre, (London 1992)

________. From Marriage to Death: the Conflation of Wedding and Funeral Rituals in Greek Tragedy (Princeton 1994)

Segal, E. (ed.) Oxford readings in Greek tragedy, (Oxford, 1983)

Silk, M.S. (ed.) Tragedy and the Tragic: Greek Theatre and Beyond, (Oxford, 1966)

Sommerstein, A. Greek Drama and Dramatists, (London 2002)

Taplin, O.P. Greek Tragedy in Action, (London, 1978)

Vernant, J.-P. and Vidal-Naquet, P. Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece, English translation, l98l

Walton, J. Greek Theatre Practice, (Westport, Conn. 1980)

Wiles, D. Tragedy in Athens, (Cambridge 1997, 1999)

Wilson, P. The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia (Cambridge 2000)

Winkler, J. & Zeitlin, F. (edd.) Nothing to do with Dionysus? Athenian Drama in its Social Context (Princeton, 1990)

 

Sophocles in general

 

Blundell, M.W. Helping Friends and Harming Enemies (Cambridge 1989)

Burnett, A.P. Revenge in Attic and Later Tragedy (California 1998) (with a good chapter on Electra).

Burton, R.W.B. The Chorus in Sophocles' Tragedies (Oxford 1980)

Buxton, R.G.A. Sophocles (Greece and Rome New Surveys 16, 1984)

Easterling, P. 'Character in Sophocles' Greece and Rome 24 (1977) 121-9; reprinted in E. Segal (ed.) Oxford Readings in Greek Tragedy (Oxford 1983) 138-45 and I. McAuslan & P. Walcot (eds) Greek Tragedy (Oxford 1993) 58-65.

Gardiner, C.P. The Sophoclean Chorus  (1987)

Gellie, G. Sophocles: a Reading (Melbourne 1972)

Kirkwood, G.M.  A Study in Sophoclean Drama (Ithaca N.Y., 1958)

Knox, B.M.W.  The Heroic Temper (Berkeley 1966)

Long, A.A.  Language and Thought in Sophocles (London 1968)

Reinhardt, K.Sophocles (Oxford 1979)

Ringer, Mark. Electra and the Empty Urn (Chapel Hill and London 1998)

Segal, Charles,  Tragedy and Civilization: An Interpretation of Sophocles  (Cambridge, Mass. 1981)

________ Sophocles' Tragic World, (Cambridge, MA 1995)

Waldock, A.J.A. Sophocles the Dramatist (Cambridge 1951)

Wiersma, S.,  "Women in Sophocles," Mnemosyne 37 (1984) 25-55

Wilamowitz, T.Die dramatische Technik des Sophokles (Berlin 1917): those without German could consult the summary in H. Lloyd-Jones Blood for the Ghosts (London 1982) ch. 19.

Winnington-Ingram, R.P. Sophocles: an Interpretation (Cambridge 1980)

________ "Sophocles and Women," in 
   Entretiens sur l'antiquité classique. Fondation Hardt 29 (1982) 233-257.

 

Electra


Bowman L., 'Klytaimnestra's Dream: Prophecy in Sophokles' Elektra', Phoenix 51 (1997) 131-151
Davidson, J.F. 'Homer and Sophocles' Electra', Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 35 (1989) 45-72
Davidson, J.F, 'The daughters of Agamemnon (Soph. El. 153-163)', Rheinisches Museum 133 (1990) 407-409; 'The Sophoclean axe', ibid. p. 410
Harder, M.A. "'Right" and "Wrong" in the Electra's', Hermathena 159 (1995) 15-31
Kitzinger, R 'Why mourning becomes Electra', Classical Antiquity 10 (1991) 298-327
Seaford, R. 'The destruction of limits in Sophocles' Electra', Classical Quarterly 35 (1985) 315-323

Sorum, C.E., "The Family in Sophocles' Antigone and Electra," CW 75 (1982) 201-211.

Woodard, T., "The Electra of Sophocles," in Sophocles, T. Woodard ed., (NJ 1966) 125-45

 

Trachiniae

 

Davies M. "Lychas' lying tale. Sophocles, Trachiniae 260 ff." CQ 1984 XXXIV : 480-483

Easterling P. E. "The end of the Trachiniae". ICS 1981 VI N° 1 : 56-75
Esposito, S. 'The Third Stasimon of Sophocles' Trachiniae', Classical World 91.1 (1997) 21-38

Faraone, Christopher A. "Deianira's mistake and the demise of Heracles" Helios 1994 21 : 115-135
Finnkelberg, M. 'Sophocles Tr. 634-639 and Herodotus', Mnemosyne 48 (1995) 146-152

Heiden Bruce. Tragic rhetoric. An interpretation of Sophocles' Trachiniae (Bern, 1989)
Kopff, E.C. review of Davies 1991 (and of the Lloyd-Jones/Wilson Sophocles OCT), American Journal of Philology 114 (1993) 155-163
Parry, H. 'Aphrodite and the Furies in Sophocles' Trachiniae', in M. Cropp et al. (eds.), Greek Tragedy and its Legacy: Essays Presented to D.J. Conacher (Calgary 1986), pp. 103-114

Segal, C 'Sophocles' Trachiniae: myth, poetry, and heroic values', in Yale Clasical Studies vol.XXV on Greek Tragedy, 1977, pp. 99-158 .

_______ "The oracles of Sophocles'  Trachiniae" HSPh 2000 100 : 151-171

Sorum, C.E., "Monsters and the Family: the Exodos of Sophocles' Trachiniae," GRBS 19 (1978) 59-73.

Wilson, Edmund. The Wound and the Bow (New York 1929)

 

See further bibliographies at:

http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Lobby/9581/P_Biblia_secondary/tragedie_grecque_Bibliographie/GreekTragedyBibliography_latestAdditon_18_Aug_01.html

 

http://www.usask.ca/antharch/cnea/Biblios/PorterDramaBib.html