Sophocles, the playwright

192 Pages·1957·4.091 MB·English

by  Sinclair MacLardy Adams

SOPHOCLES THE PLAYWRIGHT
THE PHOENIX
SUPPLEMENTARY VOLUMES
I. Studies in Honour of Gilbert Norwood, edited by
Mary E. White
II. Arbiter of Elegance: A Study of the Life and Works of
C. Petronius, by Gilbert Bagnani
III. Sophocles the Playwright, by S. M. Adams
LSOPHOCLES
THE PLAYWRIGHT
BY
S. M. ADAMS
THE PHOENIX
JOURNAL OF THE CLASSICAL
ASSOCIATION OF CANADA
SUPPLEMENTARY VOLUME III
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS: 1957
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
MARY E. WHITE
CHAIRMAN'
ROBERT J. GETTY
J. WALTER GRAHAM
Copyright 0, Canada, 1957, by
University of Toronto Press
Printed in Canada
London: Oxford University Press
PREFACE
I
N recent years a number of interesting and valuable works on
Sophocles have been produced. It may therefore seem that the
present book is quite unnecessary. But, despite ·assertions by various
writers that the dramatist in Sophocles is their especial concern, I
cannot think that justice has been done to him in this respect. That is
the deficiency I seek to remedy; I make no attempt to deal with Sophocles
the poet. These essays will, I hope, be of service both to those who
read Sophocles in Greek and to those who read him in translation; but
their scope is limited. I am content if it is recognized that the plays
of Sophocles are the sort of drama to which contemporary Athenian
audiences were accustomed and of which, with good reason, they
approved. A play by Sophocles is not the work of a writer feeling his
way, with occasional flashes of genius, towards a later and more effective
art-form; to the people for whom it was composed, nothing in it was
undramatic: his plays are artistic wholes, with nothing superfluous and
nothing missing. In attempting to show this I have borne in mind what
is perhaps self-evident: if it is true that we must not read into a drama
things that are not there, it is at least as true that we must not overlook
what the dramatist has actually written; we must be not only perceptive
but alert, for here, from beginning to end, every line, if not every word,
has its significance. The Greeks knew this; and they knew their dramas
in what seems to us astonishing detail, as anyone who reads Aristo
phanes will bear witness; we may remember that, with no widely pub
lished literature, they depended much upon the spoken word.
We are all aware that many differences between Greek and later art
forms are due especially to the fact that tragedy in ancient Greece was
a form of religious observance, its subject-matter drawn almost exclu
sively from legend. But not everyone realizes the importance of religion
in Sophocles, and I have tried to show that this association of drama
with religion not only prescribes the substance of his plays and divinely
validates his insistence on the need for piety and justice, but also gives
unity to all his works. We shall not see this unity unless we recognize a
controlling power exercised by a god or goddess, with divine participation
in the affairs of men.
T
PREFACE
VI
At the same time, since tragedy was from its beginning the visual
presentation of a story, what we call drama naturally emerged, to become
the brilliant rival of religious significance in the interest attaching to
the whole. The story, once the means towards the end, became itself
an end, and Sophocles was quick to realize this-if, indeed, he was not
the first to see it clearly. What he achieved in this respect is so impressive
that, from the modern point of view, it seems to be the only thing that
matters. We tend to think of it alone as genuinely effective, and conclude
that everything else is only a concession to religion and tradition. This
is not seeing Sophoclean tragedy as a whole.
Both elements, the divine and the human, must concern us, for they
are inseparably interwoven, with resulting unity. So far as the telling
of the story is concerned, there appears to be no need for the critic to
engage in philosophical subtleties or probe exhaustively into the inner
most soul of man. This may be a legitimate field for scholarly investi
gation; but dramatic effect is not the offspring of obscurity, and it is
rather on the basic human emotions, which change little, if at all, that
Sophocles habitually plays. Certain ideas current in fifth-century
Athens must, of course, be grasped; but there is no good reason why any
one with an appreciation of drama should fail to understand a Sophoclean
play, either in part or in entirety. He need only realize that it is at once
the presentation of a story and a demonstration of the way in which
mortals, with all their strength and greatness, are guided or supported
by Olympian will and wisdom.
Entertainment value was, of course, well understood by Sophocles,
as may be seen by the way in which he not infrequently increased such
value by attaching interest to a secondary personage, when the story
of the central figure did not, perhaps, contain sufficient novelty, or where
the central figure's quality could be displayed effectively by comparison
or contrast with the qualities of others. This we may all admit; but on
one point we must be clear: the central figure is always so drawn as to
control dramatic structure, the play thereby conforming to some standard
pattern. Sometimes, as in the Tyrannus, attention is concentrated on a
central figure, and we may think that this is what Sophoclean drama
should be like. In other plays, a figure secondary in the structure may
seem at times to take the leading role; interest may, indeed, be so divided
that a play appears to have two central figures. So far as structure is
concerned, this is nothing but delusion: in every case it is one central
figure who controls the drama as an entity. Of this the Antigone, as I
hope to show, is an unusually good example; but other Sophoclean plays
are similar. Each is fitted ·into a scheme prescribed by custom and
PREFACE
Vll
religion, and entertainment value, however delightful it may be in itself
and however vigorously Sophocles has recognized and used_ it, is, strictly
speaking, a side-issue. Here was drama contained within the forms pecu
liar to its day, and it should be judged not by the criteria of a later age
but by its own.
It is perhaps as well to add that in what follows "drama," a Greek
word, is used of an imitative or representational work the chief purpose
of which is to affect the emotions, and "dramatic" is used of anything
that pertains to such a work or seems especially effective therein. Our
word "play" is, of course, included in "drama," but is not a synonym.
My indebtedness to many writers will be obvious. In the first chapter
I have been influenced by a desire to leave much-debated matters as
uncomplicated as possible for the general reader, to whom the chapter
is especially addressed, and also (I confess) by belief in the Aristotelian
and certain other traditions; I have therefore referred, with what is
perhaps a maximum of restraint, to the monumental works of Sir Arthur
Pickard-Cambridge. For essays on the plays, the incomparable volumes
of Sir Richard J ebb's Sophocles have been indispensable. Three works,
each entitled Greek Tragedy, by Sir John Sheppard, Gilbert Norwood,
and H. D. F. Kitto, have been most valuable; I owe much gratitude to
the perceptiveness of the first, the brilliance of the second, and the
careful thinking of the third. Of great value also have been Sheppard's
edition of the Tyrannus, Sir Maurice Bowra's Sophoclean Tragedy, and
J.
F. H. Letters' Sophocles, as well as other books and numerous articles in
classical periodicals; I would mention especially the several papers on
Sophoclean plays by E. T. Owen in the University of Toronto fl2.,uarterly
and by G. M. Kirkwood in the Transactions of the American Philological
Association.
Two of the essays (on the Ajax and the Antigone) have already ap
peared in The Phoenix; a third (on the Coloneus), originally appearing
therein, has been somewhat altered and enlarged. The rest of the book
is new. In all cases I have attempted to analyse the plays as they develop,
and for this I offer no apologies because I do not think that there is any
other satisfactory way of dealing with a drama: it must be taken as it
grows. On the other hand, so much has been written about the plays
that some introductory comment on each has seemed desirable.
My thanks are due to Professor Mary \Vhite, Editor of The Phoenix,
and to the members of her Editorial Board, both for permission to in
clude material already published and for the honour done me in producing
the collection as a supplementary volume. I am grateful also to Professors
,iii PREFACE
J.
R. Getty, G. M. A. Grube, and L. E. Woodbury of this University,
particularly for drawing my attention to errors of commission and
omission; such errors as remain must be attributed to my own obtuseness
or perversity. My thanks are likewise due to the Classical Association of
Canada and the University of Toronto Press, and I am most appreciative
of the valuable assistance given by the Editorial Department of the
Press.
S. M.A.
June, 1957
CONTENTS
PREFACE V
I Heritage and Achievement 3
II Aiax 23
v III Antigone 42
IV Electra 59
V Oedipus Tyrannus 81
VI Trachiniae 108
VII P lziloctetes 134
VIII Oedipus Coloneus 160
179
INDEX