Heroic Temper
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A01=Bernard M. W. Knox
ancient greek plays
ancient literature
antigone
Author_Bernard M. W. Knox
Category=DSBB
Category=DSG
character analysis
classic drama
classic literature
drama historians
drama scholars
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
greek drama
greek tragedy
heroic figures
historical perspective
intro to tragedy
language analysis
literary analysis
literary criticism
literary critics
literary studies
oedipus
philoctetes
play analysis
playwrights
political context
sophoclean heroes
sophocles
tragedy
tragedy formula
tragic heroes
Product details
- ISBN 9780520049574
- Weight: 272g
- Dimensions: 140 x 210mm
- Publication Date: 04 May 1983
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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The first two chapters of this book isolate and describe the literary phenomenon of the Sophoclean tragic hero. In all but one of the extant Sophoclean dramas, a heroic figure who is compounded of the same literary elements faced a situation which is essentially the same. The demonstration of this recurrent pattern is made not through character-analysis, but through a close examination of the language employed by both the hero and those with whom he contends. The two chapters attempt to present what might, with a slight exaggeration, be called the 'formula' of Sophoclean tragedy. A great artist may repeat a structural pattern but he never really repeats himself. In the remaining four chapters, a close analysis of three plays, the Antigone, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus, emphasizes the individuality and variety of the living figures Sophocles created on the same basic armature.
This approach to Sophoclean drama is (as in the author's previous work on the subject) both historical and critical; the universal and therefore contemporary appeal of the plays is to be found not by slighting or dismissing their historical context, but by an attempt to understand it all in its complexity. 'The play needs to be seen as what it was, to be understood as what it is'.
Bernard M. W. Knox, Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington, D.C., was formerly Professor of Classics at Yale University. He is the author of numerous articles and monographs including The Serpent and the Flame, and Oedipus at Thebes.
