Theatrical Space and Historical Place in Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus

203 Pages·1996·25.532 MB·English

by  Lowell Edmunds

Theatrical Space and
Historical Place in Sophocles’
Oedipus at Colonus
Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches
General Editor: Gregory Nagy, Harvard University
On the front cover: A calendar frieze representing the Athenian months, reused in the
Byzantine Church of the Little Metropolis in Athens. The cross is superimposed,
obliterating Taurus of the Zodiac. The choice of this frieze for books in Greek Studies:
Interdisciplinary Approaches reflects this series’ emphasis on the blending of the diverse
heritages—Near Eastern, Classical, and Christian—in the Greek tradition. Drawing by
Laurie Kain Hart, based on a photograph. Recent titles in the series are:
The Transformation of Hera: A Study of Ritual, Hero, and the Goddess
in the Iliad, Joan V. O'Brien, Southern Illinois University
Hegemony and Greek Historians, John Wickersham, Ursinus College
The Scepter and the Spear: Studies on Forms of Repetition in the
Homeric Poems, Steven Lowenstam, University of Oregon
The Origins and Development of Ancient Greek Democracy, James L.
O’Neil, The University of Sydney
Heat and Lust: Hesiod’s Midsummer Festival Scene Revisited, J. D. B.
Petropoulos, Democritean University of Thrace
The Pastoral Narcissus: A Study of the First Idyll of Theocritus, Clayton
Zimmerman, Carleton College
An Archaeology of Ancestors: Tomb Cult and Hero Cult in Early
Greece, Carla M. Antonaccio, Wesleyan University
The Seal of Orestes: Self-Reference and Authority in Sophocles’ Electra,
Ann G. Batchelder, College of the Holy Cross
The Shield of Achilles and the Poetics of Ekphrasis, Andrew Sprague
Becker, Virginia Polytechnic Institute
The Blinded Eye: Thucydides and the New Written Word, Gregory
Crane, Tufts University
The Wrath of Athena: Gods and Men in the Odyssey, Jenny Strauss
Clay, University of Virginia
Talking Trojan: Speech and Community in the Iliad, Hilary Mackie, Rice
University
Poet and Audience in the Argonautica of Apollonius, Robert V. Albis,
The Hotchkiss School
Theatrical Space and Historical Place in Sophocles’ Oedipus at
Colonus, Lowell Edmunds, Rutgers University
Theatrical Space and
Historical Place in Sophocles’
Oedipus at Colonus
LOWELL EDMUNDS
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham * Boulder +» New York * London
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Published in the United States of America
by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
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Copyright © 1996 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
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without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Cataloging in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Edmunds, Lowell.
Theatrical space and historical place in Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus
/ Lowell Edmunds.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8476-8319-2 (cloth : alk. paper). — ISBN 0-8476-8320-6
(paper : alk. paper)
1. Sophocles. Oedipus at Colonus. 2. Political plays, Greek—History and criticism.
3. Greek drama (Tragedy)}—History and criticism. 4. Oedipus (Greek mythology) in
literature. 5. Sophocles—Political and social views. 6. Politics and literature—Greece.
7. Sophocles—Dramatic production. 8. Space and time in literature. 9. Theater—
Semiotics.
PR4413.053E36 1996
882’.01—dc20 96-23870
CIP
ISBN 0-8476-8319-2 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 0-8476-8320-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Printed in the United States of America
& The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI 239.48-1984,
Contents
Foreword vil
Preface
Introduction
Part I
1 Theorizing Theatrical Space
2 Theatrical Space in Oedipus at Colonus
Part Il
3 Historical Place in Oedipus at Colonus
Historical background and apologetic tendency. Mythical
background and apologetic tendency. Code of place. Exile
and ἔγκτησις. ἀτιμία. Philia (1). Philia (2). Livelihood and
Curse, Xenia. Self-exoneration and Draco homicide law.
Eumenides. Soteria. Oedipus in Pindar, Pyth. 4.236-69.
Conclusion 149
Appendix
Life of Sophocles and Reception of Oedipus at Colonus 163
Works Cited 169
Indexes 181
About the Author 19]

Greek Studles:
Interdisciplinary Approaches
Foreword
by Gregory Nagy, General Editor
Building on the foundations of scholarship within the disciplines of philol-
ogy, Philosophy, history, and archaeology, this series spans the continuum
of Greek traditions extending from the second millennium B.C.E. to the
present, not just the Archaic and Classical periods. The aim is to en-
hance perspectives by applying various different disciplines to problems
that have in the past been treated as the exclusive concer of a single
given discipline. Besides the crossing-over of the older disciplines, as in
the case of historical and literary studies, the series encourages the appli-
cation of such newer ones as linguistics, sociology, anthropology, and
comparative literature. It also encourages encounters with current trends
in methodology, especially in the realm of literary theory.
Theatrical Space and Historical Place in Sophocles’ “Oedipus
at Colonus,” by Lowell Edmunds, re-examines the historical context of
this drama in light of its political impact as a theatrical—not just poetic—
masterpiece. The semiotic world of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus,
Edmunds argues, is built from its very essence as theater. Even Colonus,
the outlying Athenian district that serves as a dramatic setting for Oedi-
pus at Colonus, turns out to be a most significant landmark of this world,
and itis no coincidence that Colonus happens to be the birthplace of that
premier dramatist of his era, Sophocles himself. Nor can we forget that
Sophocles had been a premier statesman of Athens as we begin to con-
template the political implications of this last drama of his, this poetic
and theatrical and political swansong composed toward the very end of
vill Foreword
his long life of over ninety years, in the turbulent times that engulfed the
_ city-state of Athens In the wake of the oligarchical revolution of 411 B.C.E.
Sophocles died before his Oedipus at Colonus was released, and we can
only begin to imagine the theatrical and political excitement of this post-
humous drama on the awaited day of its premiére, as the audience of
citizens at long last quieted down to hear the poet's final words, as if
spoken from the dead.
Preface
If | give a brief record of the writing of this book, which went on for several
years, it is not for the sake of autobiography but to express thanks for the
various events and encounters (many face to face, some through e-mail,
some epistolary in the old sense) without which the result would look
different. The origin of Part Il was Charles Segal's seminar on Sophocles
at Princeton, at which, in December, 1988, | presented the outline of the
historical reading and the substance of Chapter 3§3 (on the theme of
place). In the fall of 1989, Oedipus at Colonus was one of the tragedies
I read with students in a seminar at Rutgers. In April, 1990, 1 gave five
seminars on this tragedy at the University of Venice and a lecture at the
University of Urbino. In July, | gave a paper, based mainly on Chapter
3§1 (on horses, Knights, and Poseidon) at a conference at the University
of Nottingham organized by Alan Sommerstein, where | had the good
fortune to meet P. E. Easterling, who later read Chapter Three and sent
me detailed comments. | also met Mary Whitlock Blundell at this confer-
ence and she, too, read this chapter. In September, | gave a new version
of the Nottingham paper at the University of Toronto and, in December,
yet another version at the University of Pennsylvania. | am most grateful
to interlocutors at Nottingham and at the universities | have named. In
the footnotes, | have thanked still others who have given me help.
I was fortunate to be able, in May and June 1991, to take a Rutgers
University “Course for Faculty” taught by Elin Diamond (Department of
English), a specialist in theory of drama. She has been generous with
comment on Chapter One despite qualms about several of my arguments.
A shorter version of Chapter One was presented at a conference (“Antike
Dramatheorien und ihre Rezeption”) in Zurich, September 23, 1991.1] am
grateful to Bemhard Zimmermann for the invitation to participate and to
several other participants for their comments. Fellow-convegnisti Angela
Andrisano, Lutz Kappel, and Bernd Seidensticker later sent me useful
references. Stephen Halliwell and David Wiles generously sent written
comments on Chapter One, which caused me to rethink several points,
x Preface
though probably not to the point of agreement. Michael Issacharoff, whose
course in semiotics of comedy | audited at Johns Hopkins in the mid-
1980s and whose divisions of theatrical space | have appropriated in
Chapter One, kindly sent me extensive bibliographical information and
advice. Victor Bers, Richard Hamilton, Jeffrey Henderson, Donald
Mastronarde, Robert Renehan, and Niall Slater responded to my calls of
boéthia while | was writing Chapter Two. The last-named kindly allowed
me to read his “From Ancient Performance to New Historicism,” then
forthcoming in DRAMA 2 (Slater 1993). Kurt Raaflaub sent me the gal-
ley proofs of his “Politisches Denken und Krise der Polis: Athen im
Verfassungskonflikt des späten 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr.” (Raaflaub 1992),
an article that masterfully describes the situation to which | believe that
Oedipus at Colonus was pro tanto a response. Elli Mylonas sent me a
photograph from Athens that helped clear up a point (in Chapter Two)
concerning the Theater of Dionysus.
In the spring of 1992, | took another Rutgers “Course for Faculty,”
this time on Jacques Derrida, taught by Derek Attridge. This course helped
me as much with rethinking the conclusion of my book as Elin Diamond's
had helped with the beginning. (The relation between the beginning, on
the theatrical sign in theatrical space, and the end, on the sign in the
vector of différance, is adumbrated further on in this preface.) During the
summer, | received very useful sets of detailed comments on the manu-
script from Victor Bers, to whom l again express my gratitude, and from
Gregory Nagy, whom I also thank. In January 1993, | had the opportu-
nity of reading the first chapter (“Approaches to Theatrical Space”) of a
book in progress by David Wiles, which, in effect, continued the dialogue
begun over a year earlier and led to further rethinking of my own opening
chapter.
One of the reactions | received from a reader was the question:
“have you justified adequately your choice of Antonin Artaud?” | had in
fact taken my statement about Artaud and Brecht at the beginning of
Chapter One, that they are the two principal mid-twentieth-century theo-
rists of drama, as axiomatic. If it is necessary, however, to justify my use
of Artaud as a pivotal figure in the history of the theory of drama, | can
refer to the relevant articles in, say, The Encyclopaedia Britannica, or |
can cite the introduction to the special 1992 issue of PMLA on theater
(Benston 1992), in which Artaud and Brecht are fundamental influences
and stand for fundamental alternatives. This citational gesture would sat-
isfy the expectations of many and would constitute a certain kind of jus-
tification of my use of Artaud. But a more fundamental issue would re-
main. What is the standing of a book on an ancient tragedy and on the