Greek Tragedy

We start with a theatre, and two moments of astonishing gender transgression. One happened in a theatre on a hillside in the center of Athens on a spring day in late March of 431 BCE. The second happened there sixteen years later, in March of 415 BCE. Both took place as the audience watched tragedies by the poet Euripides. These plays were about gendered oppression, sexual pain, rape, slavery and the horrors of war.

This paper explores Martha Graham’s Cave of the Heart and Graham's approach to the Medea myth. It focuses especially on Graham’s decisions to situate Medea in a gynocentric world, not to include the children, and to make Medea’s sexual jealousy the central theme. I examine the similarities and differences between Martha Graham’s approach and that of Euripides and show that the two works have a different focus but bring about a similar effect: they both show Medea triumphant at the end, a woman who asserts her power by taking on both subhuman and superhuman features. The similarity of the endings serves in turn to underline basic differences in the two artists’ interests and approaches to the myth: Euripides focuses on the characters’ intellect and mental experience and questions sexual jealousy as being trivial and insignificant, while Martha Graham examines emotion through complex and unfamiliar movements of the body, showcases the overwhelming power of jealousy, and celebrates its intensity and importance.

Parmenides is probably the most influential of all Presocratics on the subsequent history of philosophy, yet he has been poorly served by his English translators. They persistently turn his poem into awkward and deadening prose, as if he had written an obscure treatise on logic. By rendering Parmenides’ poetry as poetry, in an English equivalent of its meter, this translation aims to show that his medium is essential to his message — that he is not a would-be analytic logician but a mystical visionary.striving to convey a revelation of ultimate reality.

This paper offers a close reading of ‘Orestes’, the earliest (1962–1966) of the monologues eventually included (after being published as separate volumes) in Yiannis Ritsos’ Fourth Dimension. Its principal aim is to explore Ritsos’ extensive reworking of the myth of the Atreids, especially as retold by the three great tragedians, in the light of existentialist philosophy and drama.

In Rhetoric and Power, Nathan Crick dramatizes the history of rhetoric by explaining its origin and development in classical Greece beginning the oral displays of Homeric eloquence in a time of kings, following its ascent to power during the age of Pericles and the Sophists, and ending with its transformation into a rational discipline with Aristotle in a time of literacy and empire. Crick advances the thesis that rhetoric is primarily a medium and artistry of power, but that the relationship between rhetoric and power at any point in time is a product of historical conditions, not the least of which is the development and availability of communication media.
Investigating major works by Homer, Heraclitus, Aeschylus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Thucydides, Aristophanes, Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle, Rhetoric and Power tells the story of the rise and fall of classical Greece while simultaneously developing rhetorical theory from the close criticism of particular texts. As a form of rhetorical criticism, this volume offers challenging new readings to canonical works such as Aeschylus's Persians, Gorgias's Helen, Aristophanes's Birds, and Isocrates's Nicocles by reading them as reflections of the political culture of their time.
Through this theoretical inquiry, Crick uses these criticisms to articulate and define a plurality of rhetorical genres and concepts, such as heroic eloquence, tragicomedy, representative publicity, ideology, and the public sphere, and their relationships to different structures and ethics of power, such as monarchy, democracy, aristocracy, and empire. Rhetoric and Power thus provides a foundation for rhetorical history, criticism, and theory that draws on contemporary research to prove again the incredible richness of the classical tradition for contemporary rhetorical scholarship and practice.

La tesi tratta di un'opera particolare, Il Prometeo Incatenato, a lungo attribuita ad Eschilo e vuole dimostrarne la non autenticità. Per come è costruita strutturalmente quest'opera rappresenta, pur sulla base di un nucleo eschileo, lo stadio appena precedente alla disgregazione operata nel corso del IV e III secolo. Le sue lunghe scene discorsive (l’intero secondo episodio è costituito da una lunga rhesis di Prometeo) sembrano configurarsi come un momento che preluda a quella che sarà la disgregazione della tragedia nelle selezioni di brani avulsi dal loro contesto tragico. Le scene del Prometeo sembrano distaccate l’una dall’altra con l’unica particolarità che tutti i personaggi, tranne forse Io, che con il protagonista ha altro tipo di collegamenti, vengono a trovare uno solo, Prometeo. Sebbene le due scene in cui appaiono le Oceanine e Oceano sembrino ancora lievemente collegate, non dal fatto che si tratta di padre e figlie quanto dal fatto che l’una funge da contraltare per l’altra e tutte e due si spiegano vicendevolmente, tutte le altre scene, però, possono tranquillamente essere distaccate fra loro e, più di una volta negli studi moderni, si parla per Io di una “tragedia nella tragedia”. La presenza di ritmi e metri in luoghi non canonici (il prologo dialogico, l’uso particolare della sticomitia, la parodo epirrematica) segnala una prima fase di disgregazione delle forme drammatiche; a ciò si accompagnano tutte le innovazioni tecniche come l’entrata iniziale di quattro personaggi, il particolare ingresso del Coro che è immaginato volare, l’uso della macchina del volo per Oceano, il cataclisma finale ad effetto che ricercano senza dubbio il modo di spostare e sorprendere l’occhio dello spettatore, cioè, in altre parole, ricercano un “realismo visivo” che mostri quanto immaginato nel testo non nella semplice forma di “spettacolo” teatrale ma nel modo più concreto possibile, servendosi dunque di tutta la “tecnologia” disponibile. Anche a livello contenutistico, seppure non possiamo dire con certezza quanto il Prometeo si discosti dal pensiero eschileo, poiché si tratta di una valutazione oltremodo soggettiva, vi sono dei punti, come i passaggi geografici e l’ultimo, forzato, accenno di lealtà delle Oceanine per Prometeo che, se non sicuramente interpolati, sono stati certamente rimaneggiati secondo la cultura e il gusto di un pubblico tardo. La staticità dell’opera come tale e il fatto che sia costituita in massima parte da rheseis, (profezie e racconti di come Prometeo abbia aiutato e insegnato le arti agli uomini oppure dei viaggi di Io), la riduzione delle parti corali, anche se non sono ancora avulse dal contesto tragico, e la struttura rigida delle partiture del Coro che, oltre agli stasimi, si esprime in maniera sistematica solo in quartine, rendono questa tragedia adatta sia alla perfomance sia alla semplice lettura e la avvicinano a quel mondo e a quel contesto in cui questo tipo di letteratura si stava appena affermando. Il Prometeo viene qui inteso come una sorta di prototipo, un ibrido in cui il processo di disgregazione delle convenzioni classiche non si è ancora compiuto ma che si è appena avviato ad esserlo; e quello che era stato il Prometeo di Eschilo, ormai trasfigurato, si avviava forse a diventare la tragedia di apertura dei grandi agoni tragici del IV secolo, tra le tragedie con cui nessun autore vivente avrebbe potuto competere.

Nietzsche's philosophy is both revolutionary and profound, reaching into all spheres of the arts. The acuity of his ideas and the complexity of his writings ensure Nietzsche's enduring power to engage his readers.

Nietzsche's first book, 'The Birth of Tragedy', is an astonishing analysis of the meaning of Greek tragedy. He confronts us with the idea that the grave truth to our existence can be revealed through tragic art, and that our relationship to the world can be transfigured from pessimistic despair into sublime elation and affirmation.

'Nietzsche and The Birth of Tragedy' provides a clear account of the text and its philosophical, literary and historical influences. Each chapter examines part of the text, explaining the ideas presented and assessing relevant scholarly points of interpretation. The book will be an invaluable guide to readers in philosophy, literary studies and classics coming to 'The Birth of Tragedy' for the first time.

This article offers a new interpretation of Athenian tragedy, in which the poets competed for their audience's favour by constructing stories in which the protagonists suffer and die because they act within a world which lacks the institutional compensations of which fifth-century Athenians were so proud. Far from being a subversive or apolitical art form (the most popular current poles of scholarly interpretation), Athenian tragedy was heavily and positively involved in its contemporary social and political discourse.

Ο Διόνυσος, υιός του θεού Δία και της θνητής Σεμέλης --θεός κι ο ίδιος απ' τη σύλληψη και τη γέννησή του-- καταφθάνει στην πόλη των Θηβών απ' την Ασία, συνοδευόμενος από τις «Βάκχες», τις ακολούθους του. Αυτές, ενδεδυμένες με δέρματα ελαφιών («νεβρίδες») και κρατώντας στα χέρια τους θύρσο (κοντάρι τυλιγμένο με κισσό, σύμβολο και φορέα της θεϊκής δύναμης του Διονύσου), βιώνουν την έκσταση που τους προκαλεί η μέθεξη στα ιερά μυστήρια του θεού, ενόσω βρίσκονται σε κατάσταση ένθεης μανίας --έχοντας απελευθερώσει τον νου τους απ' τα δεσμά και τους κανόνες των εγκοσμίων, και έχοντας συνενωθεί σ' ένα σώμα και σε μια ψυχή, η οποία πάλλεται στον ρυθμό των τυμπάνων και δονείται απ' το γλυκό κελάηδημα των φρυγικών αυλών. Σκοπός του θεού είναι να μυήσει τη Θήβα, πόλη της καταγωγής του, πρώτη ανάμεσα σ' όλη την Ελλάδα στη νέα αυτή ελευθεριάζουσα λατρεία.

Με το τελευταίο του έργο, τις «Βάκχες», ο Ευριπίδης εισάγει «καινά δαιμόνια» στη γνωσιολογία της αττικής Τραγωδίας αλλά και στη δομή της θεατρικής της πράξης, προσπαθώντας ταυτοχρόνως να τα εισαγάγει και στον τρόπο αντίληψης και σκέψης των θεατών· περισσότερο, ίσως, για να τους προειδοποιήσει, παρά για να τους μεταρρυθμίσει γνωσιολογικώς. Οι «Βάκχες» αποτελούν ίσως περισσότερο μια πολιτισμική κραυγή αγωνίας και μια ποιητική διαμαρτυρία απέναντι στο διαφαινόμενο τέλος της ίδιας της αττικής Τραγωδίας, της αθηναϊκής δημοκρατίας και του κλασικού ελληνισμού, και λιγότερο ένα αμιγώς διδακτικό περιεχόμενο με σκοπό τη νοητική αυτοβελτίωση εκάστου εκ των θεατών. Ο Ευριπίδης νεωτερίζει, ανασκευάζοντας τους μηχανισμούς προσληψιμότητας (και, εν μέρει, και αισθητικής) της αρχαίας αττικής Τραγωδίας· την «καταργεί» ως διακριτό είδος ποιητικής και θεατρικής δημιουργίας και την «ενταφιάζει» (ίσως προσδοκώντας μια πιθανή επαναγέννεσή της στο μέλλον, με τρόπο παρόμοιο με τη διπλή γένεση του Διονύσου, του δημιουργού του θεάτρου), λίγο μόλις καιρό πριν κι ο ίδιος πεθάνει με τρόπο παρόμοιο με αυτόν του πρωταγωνιστή του δράματος.

Tο βιβλίο περιλαμβάνει το αρχικό (μερικώς ανακατασκευασμένο) αρχαίο κείμενο των "Βακχών", σε έμμετρη μετάφραση στα νέα ελληνικά. Η μετάφραση συνοδεύεται από τον σχολιασμό ενός επιλεγμένου αριθμού στίχων και από έναν εκτενή Πρόλογο --στον οποίο αναλύονται οι «Βάκχες» και το περιεχόμενό τους, συμπεριλαμβανομένης μιας σύνθετης ερμηνευτικής θέωρησης της τραγωδίας.


The god Dionysus --son of Zeus and of the mortal woman Semele-- arrives in the city of Thebes from Asia, impersonating a mortal and accompanied by the "Bacchae", his female followers. The latter, clad in deer skins and holding in their hands the "thyrsus" (a wooden staff wrapped in ivy --the symbol and the carrier of the divine power of Dionysus), experience the ecstasy by participating in the sacred mysteries of the god Dionysus, while being at the same time in a state of divine madness --after having freed their mind from the worldly bonds and rules, united in one body and one soul; their body pulsating in the rhythm of the drums, and vibrating to the sweet warbling of the Phrygian flutes. The purpose of Dionysus is to initiate Thebes, his natal city, first among all of Greece, in his new liberating cult.

In his last work, the "Bacchae", Euripides introduces novelties in the epistemology of the Attic Tragedy as well as in the structure of its theatrical representation; at the same time, he tries to introduce these novelties in the way of perception and thinking of the spectators (perhaps, more in an effort to warn them, rather than to reform their mindset). The "Bacchae" can be considered more as a cultural cry of agony as well as a poetic protest against the looming end of the Attic Tragedy itself, the end of the Athenian democracy and the end of the classical Hellenism, and less as a purely didactic content which aims at the intellectual self-improvement of the spectators. Euripides brutally modernizes and reconstructs the mechanisms of the theatrical receptivity (and, in part, of the aesthetics) of the ancient Attic Tragedy; he "abolishes" it as a distinct kind of poetic and theatrical creation, and "buries" it (perhaps anticipating its possible rebirth in the future, in a manner similar to the double birth of Dionysus, the creator of the theater), shortly before he himself dies, in a manner similar to that of the protagonist of the drama.

This book includes the original (partially reconstructed) ancient text of the "Bacchae", translated side-by-side in modern greek, in verse. The translation is accompanied by commentary on a selected number of verses, and by an extensive Prologue (both in modern greek) --in which the "Bacchae" and its contents are analyzed, including a composite interpretive view of the tragedy.

Mezősi Miklós Musiké, logos és a deinon: a többszólamú próza születése a szofisták szelleméből Tragikus história: Aischylos, Sophoklés és Thukydidés Bevezetés Amikor Bulgakovnál, A Mester és Margarita első fejezetében a földre szállt Sátán bemutatkozik, okmányokkal igazolva kilétét, történetíróként-"историк"-aposztrofálja magát ("Igen, talán historikus is vagyok"). Majd hozzáteszi: "Ma este érdekes históriák színhelye lesz a Patriarsije Prudi". A gyanútlan olvasó talán nem sejti még, hogy e "históriák" deinos, azaz a jelenlévők számára rettenetes, hamarosan bekövetkező szörnyű eseményekre, azaz "önmagukon túllépő, a logosszal szorosan összetartozó sorscsapásokra" utalnak. Érdekes históriák színhelye az irodalom-történetírás is.... Jelen írás középpontjában három olyan fogalom áll, amelyek együttesen döntő szerepet játszottak az irodalom történeti fejlődésében. A zene és irodalom kapcsolatának, valamint a tragédiaköltészet prózába merülésének a leírására a musiké, a logos, valamint harmadikként a kettő közös szorításában lévő deinon ("rettenet; félelmetes dolog") szavak látszanak alkalmasnak. Első lépésként a musikénak és a logosnak a bekövetkező deinont létrehozó kooperatív poétikáját Aischylos Agamemnónjának "operajelenetén" mutatom meg. Ezt követi egy Sophoklés-kardal kulcsszavának, a "deinos" melléknévnek (újra)értelmezése, amelynek köszönhetően beláthatóvá válik a műfajok fejlődésének azon szakasza, amely mentén a dráma előkészíti a terepet a próza számára. A deinon a továbbiakban az új műfaj, a történetírás poétikája építőköveként funkcionál. A történetírás a legelső prózai műfaj; egyedül a görög világképben a Kr. e. 5. század derekától beálló változásokra új művészi eszközökkel reflektáló Thukydidés történetírása bizonyult képesnek a tragédia lényegi jegyeinek produktív átmentésére. Darien Shanske, aki az attikai tragédia meghatározó jegyeként írja le a deinont, ami "az önmagán túllépő, a logosszal szorosan összetartozó sorscsapásra vonatkozik", ugyanezt a fogalmat a thukydidési történetírás központi kategóriájává teszi meg. Shanske Thucydides and the Philosophical Origins of History című könyvében

Resumo: O presente artigo busca discutir a ficção para além do ψεῦδος (pseûdos) no mundo grego. Para tanto, examino o estatuto da ficção e do ficcional a partir de moedas falsas. Na relação do homem grego com sua moeda, falsa ou verdadeira, deparamo-nos com situações em que moedas falsas são autorizadas a integrar a circulação, tornando-se, consequentemente, equivalentes às verdadeiras; há também moedas falsificadas capazes de pôr em xeque as verdadeiras; e ainda as falsas que podem se tornar mais verdadeiras do que as reais. É preciso notar que o contraste vocabular entre ψεῦδος e ἀλήθεια (alétheia) não permite perceber a fluidez da fronteira entre uma ideia e outra. Donde, talvez, a contribuição de observar como essa mesma fronteira se comporta nas práticas do mundo grego pouco familiares às noções de ψεῦδος e ἀλήθεια (como no caso das moedas), mas que, inevitavelmente, participam de sua elaboração e sofisticação. Tais práticas ajudam, assim, a explicar o pacto de ficcionalidade no teatro clássico.
Palavras-chave: falsificação; moedas falsas; moedas verdadeiras; ficção; teatro.

LA CONTREFAÇON ET LE THÉÂTRE GREC: DEUX FACES D'UNE MÊME PIÈCE
Résumé: Dans cette réflexion, je voudrais discuter la fiction au-delà du ψεῦδος (pseûdos) dans le monde grec. J'examine, pour ce faire, le statut de la fiction ou du fictionnel, en particulier dans les fausses pièces. Dans la relation de l'homme grec avec sa monnaie, tant réelle que fausse, on est confronté à des situations où il y a des pièces fausses qui sont autorisées à intégrer la circulation et, par conséquent, sont équivalentes aux vraies; ainsi que pièces contrefaites qui sont capables de mettre en échec la vraie monnaie; et encore des contrefaites qui peuvent devenir plus réelles que les réelles. Il faut noter que le contraste entre ψεῦδος e ἀλήθεια (alétheia) ne permet pas de percevoir la fluidité de la frontière entre une idée et l’autre. D’où, peut-être, la raison d’observer comment cette même frontière se comporte dans les pratiques du monde grec, en principe pratiques peu habituées aux notions de ψεῦδος e ἀλήθεια (comme dans le cas de la monnaie), mais qui, inévitablement, ont participé à leur élaboration et à leur sophistication. Et qui aident (ces pratiques) à expliquer le pacte de fiction au théâtre classique.
Mots-clés: contrefaçon; fausses pièces; varies pièces; fiction; théâtre.

In Agamemnon's gloating recollection of the night Troy fell (Aeschylus, _Agamemnon_ 825-828), he makes a reference  to the Pleiades which calls out for explanation. This paper connects that astronomical reference to others latent in the play to bring out a strain of cosmographic imagery, prefiguring the destinies of the principal figures of the play.

Warum erzählt Hugo von Hofmannsthal um 1900 Geschichten noch einmal, die die Welt seit über 2500 Jahren kennt? Diese Frage führt ins Herz dieser Untersuchung, die einen neuen Zugriff auf Hofmannsthals Poetologie anhand seiner irritierend archaischen und ästhetisch so beweglichen Mythosvariationen der Jahrhundertwende vorschlägt. Die hier in den Blick genommenen Dramen suchen in einem ersten Schritt den Dialog mit ihren stets hochkarätigen Intertexten (Sophokles, Euripides, Aischylos, Nietzsche, Bachofen, Freud). Darüber hinaus aber generieren Hofmannsthals Stücke in der Friktion von theatralem und skripturalem Raum, Ritualität und Intertextualität zunächst den Aufbau (Figuration), fi nal jedoch den notwendigen Zerfall (Defi guration) der entworfenen Form (s)einer Mythosvariation. Das im Titel aufgenommene Zerstörende Zitieren beschreibt darum zum einen Hofmannsthals ebenso philologische wie poetische Technik im Umgang mit antiken Quellen, kulturphilosophischen Vordenkern und wissenschaftlichen Diskursen. Zum anderen zielt der Begriff auf die spezifi sche Darstellungsbewegung: In seinen Dramen führt Hofmanns-thal anhand des Scheiterns bestimmter repräsentationaler Formen den Einbruch von Präsenz in den Raum der Repräsentation vor. Die Abfolge von textgenerierender Figuration (Repräsentation) und einbrechender Defi guration (Numinoses, Präsenz) evoziert ein iteratives und darin genuin mythisches Erzählen. ANTONIA EDER, Studium der Neueren deutschen Literatur, Philosophie, Politologie und Psychologie an der Sorbonne IV, Paris und FU Berlin, Promotion 2010 mit vorliegender Arbeit an der Universität Tübingen.

Jézabel est comme une silhouette vide sur laquelle s'incrustent presque toutes les images du féminin négatif : séductrice, prostituée, avide du sang des prophètes, faussaire, sorcière empoisonneuse, maîtresse des festins idolâtres. Elle est donc maudite, cause de la ruine de ses fils, écrasée par les chevaux du vainqueur, dévorée par les chiens, répandue comme du fumier, privée d'une sépulture qui porte son nom. Mais son histoire n'est pas très différente de celles d'autres femmes de l'antiquité méditerranéenne. Hypostases de la Fortune qui fait et défait les rois, ces femmes appartiennent à des dynasties qui ont perdu leur pouvoir. Elles ont vu assassiner leurs enfants, ou les ont tués elles-mêmes. Leur sang a, pour ainsi dire, accéléré la maladie mortelle de la race qui les avait accueillies. Elles ont souvent eu affaire à la vigne…

The Trojan Women is the tragedy of change. Troy has fallen, and women wait to be taken to Greece as slaves. The Trojan women have to adapt to this new situation and exhibit their resilience to their sudden change of status. In her words, Hecuba has to peacefully endure her change of fortune (line 101). The Trojan queen is the only character who literally remains in her place throughout the play, while others come and go. She remains still on stage, although she is being struck by blow after blow.
Hecuba, in the face of distress, chooses to adapt and accept her faith. The heroine often emphasizes her difficulty to move which coincides with her inability to dance (lines 98-99, 112-119, 138-139, 149-152, 191-192, 466-468, 506-509). She has only a brief change of heart at the end of the play when she makes a series of sudden movements and attempts to enter the pyre that burns Troy (lines 1271-1283). Hecuba’s resistance to change is considered a sign of temporary madness (line 1284). Her restraint -that goes hand in hand with her limited movements- is further emphasized when contrasted with Cassandra’s frantic choreia that expresses her emotional state (lines 308-340).
It is not a coincidence that in the descriptions of the choral activity of the resilient Hecuba, the kinetic element of her choreia is almost absent. As other scholars have noticed, the kinetic element of choreia that has great potential to express excessive emotions, to excite, and emotionally involve the audience.  In this paper, I suggest that Hecuba is represented in the Trojan Women as a person who tries to successfully adapt to change.  I examine how and to what extent her ‘immobility’ is an expression of her inner world and a manifestation of her successful struggle to face a series of unwanted changes.

In a brief description, the chorus in Greek tragedy was a group of singers and
dancers who entered the stage soon after the play's prologue and stayed there until the
end of the performance, to sing the odes that separated the parts of the tragedy. A deeper
look into this tragic device reveals, however, a living, dynamic and complex organism,
whose functions go far beyond the merely technical aspects of the play. In this article we
revise the modus operandi and the functions of the chorus in Greek tragedy, making use of
excerpts from tragic texts to clarify them. We conclude that the roles of the chorus are
varied and subtle, ranging from amplifying the sensorial appeal of the play through
rhythm, music and dance, commenting the plot, facilitating understanding, encouraging
catharsis, perpetuating moral and traditions, and even working as a meta-referential
element, or a mediator between the public and the actors, among other functions.

Suggests that the household is the key unit of Shakespeare's tragedy--and that it possesses a double-sense of itself, a double-sense shared by its members (including the Prince), looking on the one hand towards the Oikos of Greek Tragedy and on the other towards the bourgeois household of Ibsen.

Abstract
In 1981, the Spanish playwright Luis Riaza published the play Medea es un buen chico (Medea is a Good Boy). In it, two male actors perform the main roles of Medea and the Nurse, who comment, with references to other fictional love stories, on the relationship between Medea and Jason. When Jason fails to arrive, the fiction is dismantled, revealing Medea’s identity as Jason’s rejected homosexual lover. Medea es un buen chico mixes elements of performativity, meta-theatricality, and myth in order to explore the limits of gender, sexuality, and the perceived social roles and norms they entail. This article explores how Riaza theatrically reflects on the social performativity of gender through the tragic character and story of Medea, her performance and subversion of her own gendered self, and her eventual rejection and social displacement.

PROMETEO INCATENATO
di Eschilo | traduzione di Monica Centanni.

Con Sebastiano lo Monaco, Gianluigi Fogacci, Melania Giglio, Massimiliano Vado, Claudio Mazzenga, Mirko Rizzotto.
E con Silvia Giuliano, Angela Rafanelli, Giada Prandi, Diana Manea, Alessandra Guazzini e Maria Teresa Pintus.

scene: Piero Guicciardini
costumi: Giuseppe Avallone
musiche: Dario Arcidiacono
luci: Lucilla Baroni
regia: Roberto Guicciardini

This essay argues that the methodological advantages and disadvantages that Hegel’s Natural Law essay (1802-03)  generated for the development of critical social theory become clearest in carefully reconstructing its analyses of the “tragedy of the ethical” and Aeschylus’s The Eumenides. The essay maintains that Hegel’s use of both is ambivalent. On the one hand, immediately preceding the introduction of The Eumenides, Hegel’s analysis prioritizes historical method: it develops an account of the potentially destructive processes at the core of modern European social life between the dictates of law, morality, and “absolute ethical life” by proceeding historically. On the other hand, the analysis’ introduction of “the absolute” and The Eumenides as “instruments of reconciliation” undermines its methodological commitment to developing these contradictory tensions and their resolution historically. Hegel’s methodological breakthrough insists on the priority of historical development but capitulates in the final analysis proposing resolution in terms of metaphor, knowledge, the perspective of “the absolute.” Tragedy and The Eumenides, consequently, offer us a precise sense of what is most valuable and problematic in the Natural Law essay, revealing the utmost limits of what this exploratory essay offered in the advancement of critical social analysis. Despite this setback, in concluding, the essay outlines a lasting advantage that follows from Hegel’s innovative methodology. It argues that The Natural Law essay remains significant for the history of critical social theory insofar as it remains open to the possibility of real overcoming. While its appeal to tragedy and the Eumenides might fail the very appeal itself indicates a commitment to the principle of overcoming. This commitment has potential insofar as it is pursued in terms of historical actuality: bypassing problematic structural instabilities at the core of the modern European nation state.

Resumo
No primeiro livro de Histórias, três episódios da vida de Creso ilustram as principais
características do gênero trágico presentes na narrativa herodotiana. O primeiro trata do
encontro de Sólon com Creso (I, 30-33), depois o de Creso com Adrasto, o futuro assassino
de seu filho (35-45) e, por fim, do encontro de Creso com Ciro (85-90). A nosso ver, tais
episódios podem ser interpretados como uma versão reduzida, em prosa, de uma trilogia
trágica. Portanto, neste artigo, demonstramos como Heródoto delineou sua interpretação
da vida de Creso a partir de elementos estruturais da tragédia.
Palavras-chave: Heródoto; Creso; Sólon; Adrasto; Ciro; tragédia grega
Abstract
In the first book of Histories, three episodes of the life of Croesus evidence the main
characteristics of the tragic genre present in the Herodotean narrative. The first deals with
the meeting between Solon and Croesus (I, 30-33), then Croesus with Adrastus, the future
murderer of his son (35-45), and, finally, the meeting of Croesus with Cyrus (85-90). In our
view, such episodes can be interpreted as a reduced prose version of a tragic trilogy. The
aim of this paper is to examine how Herodotus drew his interpretation of Croesus' life from
the structural elements of tragedy.
Keywords: Herodotus; Croesus; Solon; Cyrus; Greek tragedy

The Collaborative Research Centre 1136 'Bildung und Religion' is pleased to
invite you to attend the conference 'Religion and Education in the Ancient
Greek World', organised by Tanja Scheer and Irene Salvo, to be held on
Wednesday the 25th and Thursday the 26th of October 2017 in the Historical Building of the Goettingen State and University Library (Paulinerkirche).

Further information here:
http://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/571664.html.

Participation is free, but if you would like to attend please send an
e-mail by Friday the 20th of October to Irene Salvo, isalvo@uni-goettingen.de.

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

Der SFB 1136 „Bildung und Religion“ lädt herzlich Sie zur internationalen Tagung „Religion and Education in the Ancient Greek World“ ein, die vom 25. bis 26. Oktober 2017 in Göttingen stattfindet.

Weitere Informationen finden Sie hier: http://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/571664.html.

Wenn Sie an der Tagung teilnehmen möchten, bitten wir Sie um eine kurze Rückmeldung bis Freitag, den 20.10.2017 (isalvo@uni-goettingen.de), um entsprechend planen zu können.