Ancient Greek Tragedy

One of the most powerful ways to remedy the forgetfulness that obscures ancient fragmentary drama, in other words to “establish remedies for forgetfulness” as Palamedes claims to have done for the Greeks in the fr. 578 from the homonymous but lost tragedy by Euripides, is to expose the ancient material to the circumstances of contemporary performance. The surviving fragments of ancient Greek dramas are pieces of text which by definition are out of context since they are dislocated parts of a traumatised ancient play: the connection between text and Trauma is considered to be both literal and metaphorical. Yet, there are elements of theatricality inherent to these fragments and this is why they have been used in contemporary performances in various ways and approaches. Theodoros Terzopoulos has used fragments of lost tragedies by Aeschylus to create the performance Epigonoi in 2003 which was first presented in Germany and then toured internationally. From a chorus of five men the suffering bodies of Achilles, Actaeon, Ajax, Heracles and Philoctetes stand out and expose the tragic fate of those who collide with the divine, while the female character of Europe watches the consequences of war, herself a victim of it. In this paper the use of ancient tragic fragments for the creation of contemporary performances will be discussed and evaluated whether it is an appropriate pathway to follow against letting ancient fragmentary drama be forgotten. After presenting and analysing Terzopoulos' Epigonoi, the performativity of fragments will be argued along with their suitability as theatrical material for contemporary dramaturgy that explores the issue of fragmentation in life and in the narrative and also the issue of Trauma itself.

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.

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  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.

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  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.

Partindo de uma anedota relatada por Plutarco, na Vida de Sólon, na qual o legislador ateniense é mencionado num pretenso encontro com Téspis, o “inventor” do gênero trágico, pretendo fazer considerações sobre o estatuto da representação poética no âmbito da poética arcaica (séc. VI a.C.). Para isso, recorrerei aos principais testemunhos do período, servindo-me também de bibliografia secundária sobre o assunto (Pickard-Cambridge, Gerald Else e Jacyntho Lins Brandão, por exemplo), a fim de indicar novas direções para estudos futuros de Poética Clássica.

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.

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 paper makes an initial attempt to redescribe the failure of racial equality in America by making use of the idea of tragedy. I offer a reading of Antigone to stabilize the appropriateness of three ideas in support of reading the history of race in America as tragic: the problem of one thought too many, pollution, and the question, "was it worth it?" I argue, following James Baldwin, that the tragedy of race in America is initiated by the idea of white people who think they are white and that this conviction, initializes the impact of the above three ideas resulting in a society of people lacking in, as defined by Bernard Williams, agent-regret, and, thus, lacking shame.

Honours Research Thesis, supervised by Babette Puetz. / In Antigone and Electra, relationships between sisters are fraught with conflict and aggression. Ismene and Chrysothemis exemplify traits that are conventional of the ideal ancient Greek woman. In doing so, they are criticised for their silence. Meanwhile their sisters, Antigone and Electra, choose to speak out in a way conventional of male characters. However, they must also suffer the consequences of their actions. In the end, the bond between sister and brother seems to be the key relationship rather than the bond between sisters. Nevertheless, it seems that the choices for these sisters are limited, as they attempt to survive in worlds of misrule.

Ancient Greek tragedy addresses a myriad of themes, from questions of identity to socio-political changes and issues. The Bacchae is a perfect example of these themes, especially regarding the question of gender (self) and the differences between women and men (other). Dionysus, returning to his mother’s birthplace, wants to come “home” and be recognized and worshiped as a god. Yet, he finds resistance and denial by Pentheus, his cousin, who is also the king of Thebes. It seems that only through utter acceptance of his deity, Dionysus can actually become a God – doubt or denial remove his god-like supremacy. Thus, transforming his wrath into action, he does not only want to take revenge upon Pentheus and punish him for his disbelief, but the whole city must suffer obliteration. Disguised – or better, masked - as a mortal, he changes his identity into what he does not want to be assimilated with in order to strategically take out his enemy.

Paris, son of Troy’s king Priam, has a crucial role in the legend of Trojan War, since everything started from him. However, his presence in the works concerning the Trojan War is rather limited. In Homer’s epic poems he is scarcely referred, and not always in an appreciative way. In the present paper I examine the appearances of Paris and the references to him in ancient greek tragedy.

Cfr. collegamento https://amzn.to/39KqePH
Il presente documento contiene un saggio della parafrasi e del commento del testo euripideo delle Supplici, che comparirà nel volume di prossima pubblicazione :
  LE TRAGEDIE TEBANE – Volume II
  Sofocle. Antigone - Euripide. Supplici
Già pubblicato il volume :
  LE TRAGEDIE TEBANE – Volume I
  Euripide. Fenicie – Eschilo. Sette contro Tebe
Il mio personale progetto è la pubblicazione in tre volumi delle parafrasi - con commento ed introduzione - alle tragedie tebane.

Translation of Sophocles' Oedipus the Tyrant, Antigone, Oedipus at Colonus, with notes and commentary by Jamey Hecht. From the Introduction: "Greek tragedy is a kind ofscripture that teaches us by showing, not telling, what we need to know. I call it a scripture because it is a religious discourse about human beings and their relationships to the divine realm ofabundance and to the material world ofscarcity. But it is also drama, a scripted matrix of interpersonal words and actions, as human and social as any conversation in the audience. Like all drama, tragedy is about individuals, but it also speaks to public life — Thebes and Athens and Corinth are not just crowded places but living societies with their own crises, wounds, and needs. Oedipus himself is a gifted man, endowed with an intellectual power that exposes him to special dangers. But he is also the Everyman that Freud made him. Though most people are spared the crimes of patricide and incest, and though psychoanalysis may have been wrong to posit a repressed yearning for them in every heart, it remains permanently true that nobody is in complete control of his own destiny. Just as we, the audience, can read the very script which the characters must live out, so the gods can read the fates which we must live out. Tragedy puts us (for once!) in the
divine position of the invulnerable spectator, free to experience a safe terror as we identify with the endangered hero; free to feel a guarded pity for him insofar as we enjoy our blessed distance from his ruin. Austere as it is, the art of Sophocles comes closer to life than any treatise on ethics could. It is free ofprecepts and instruction; within it, only experience teaches."

Courtney J. P. Friesen explores shifting boundaries of ancient religions by way of the reception of a popular tragedy, Euripides’ Bacchae . As a play staging political crises provoked by the arrival of the “foreign” god Dionysus and his ecstatic cult, audiences and readers found resonances with their own cultural moments. This dramatic deity became emblematic of exuberant and liberating spirituality and, at the same time, a symbol of imperial conquest. Thus, readings of the Bacchae frequently foreground conflicts between religious autonomy and political authority, and between ethnic diversity and social cohesion. This cross-disciplinary study traces appropriations and evocations of this drama ranging from the fifth century BCE through Byzantium not only among “pagans” but also Jews and Christians. Writers variously articulated their religious visions over against Dionysus, often while paradoxically adopting the god’s language and symbols. Consequently, imitation and emulation are at times indistinguishable from polemics and subversion.

The text of the Athenian tragedies, preserved to our times, originates from the edition drawn up at the turn of the 3rd and 2nd century BC. for the famous Alexandria Library by Aristophanes of Byzantium. His aim was to recreate the author's version of the dramas and to unify the versions in circulation against spoils threatening the text during its transmission.

The Aristophanes’s edition was not the first undertaking to preserve and compose the works of three great Athenian tragedians. The Alexandrian works on the corpus of tragedies, from which the Aristophanes project grew, was a continuation of the research on the tragedy undertaken in Athens in the second half of the 4th century BC.

This book attempts to reconstruct the fate of the legacy of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides in the first two centuries since the creation of the works.

The author argues that the earliest studies on the tragedy contributed to the formation of philology as a scientific discipline no less than the study of the text of Homer's poems.

Rappresentazione teatrale | dal 31 luglio al 28 agosto 2021 Valle dei Templi - Agrigento | 18 agosto 2020 Valle dei Templi - Agrigento | 20 luglio 2019 Segesta | 5 gennaio 2019, Teatro Massimo Comunale - Siracusa | 1 agosto 2018, Teatro romano - Ascoli Piceno | 14-15 luglio 2018, Valle dei Templi - Agrigento | 25-26 agosto 2017, Valle dei Templi - Agrigento | 9 agosto 2017, Fano |  | 30 luglio 2017, Sarsina, Arena Plautina | 21 febbraio 2008, Teatro Goldoni - Venezia  | 27 agosto 2005 Gipsoteca canoviana, Possagno

Con Sebastiano Lo Monaco.
Testo di Monica Centanni.
Da Omero, Eschilo, Lucrezio, Virgilio.

Un nuovo rapsodo ci racconta, ci ricorda, la guerra di Troia. La voce del cantore riannoda e ricompone i fili della narrazione omerica e la storia della spedizione achea contro la rocca di Priamo viene narrata così dall’inizio alla fine: dagli amori di Elena e Paride, fino all’inganno del cavallo, la conquista e l’incendio della città.

Storie di eroi – Achille Ettore Aiace Ulisse Diomede – che nell’impresa mettono alla prova il limite e la qualità del loro singolare valore e intanto, insieme, disegnano la variegata costellazione dei valori su cui si fonda, nel bene e nel male, la nostra civiltà occidentale: amicizia, coraggio, lealtà, carattere, astuzia, passione, ragione.
Storie di dei – Atena Poseidone Ares Afrodite – che si schierano in battaglia al fianco degli uomini per dar prova non solo del loro potere, ma della loro stessa esistenza.

L’attore si presenta nelle vesti di un moderno cantore che cuce in una nuova rapsodia i brani degli antichi racconti; ma presta anche corpo e voce agli attori del mito, dei ed eroi. Il testo è composto incastonando nel racconto epico dell’Iliade anche brani tratti dall’Odissea, dall’Agamennone di Eschilo, dal De rerum natura di Lucrezio, dall’Eneide di Virgilio, e dai poemi epici minori sulla conquista di Troia.

Recent research demonstrates that the modern category of trauma, and
especially that of war trauma, can contribute to a re-examination of postwar
psychological and social dynamics in antiquity as well as shed new
light on the traumatic consequences of war for veterans and civilians.
In this paper I detect traces of what I propose to call a “collective war trauma” in the
representation of Persian Wars-related events on the Athenian stage in the
immediate aftermath of the war, thus referring to tragedy as a means of
“cultural catharsis”. The story connected with the Athenians’ desperate
reaction in front of Phrynichus’ Sack of Miletus illuminates the mechanisms,
functions and goals of the tragic representations as a means for the civic community to cope with the impact of war, especially with the dramatic
destruction of Athens.

Coordinamento: Lorenzo Braccesi con Maddalena Bassani, Marco Molin.

Nell’anno del natale della città lagunare il Centro Studi Torcellani, la Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana e il Centro Studi classicA (Iuav di Venezia) organizzano il loro ottavo ciclo di lezioni sul tema delle antichità lagunari e adriatiche.

Per la pubblicazione relativa alla conferenza seguire i link::
To get the published volume related to the conference follow the links:

https://www.academia.edu/114360819/VENICE_LAGOON_Lezioni_Marciane_2019_2021_Venezia_prima_delle_origini_2023

https://www.lerma.it/libro/9788891331106

Di tutte le tragedie che ho letto, qualcosa - una scena, un gesto, un verso - mi è sempre rimasto impresso, legandosi indissolubilmente nella mia mente a quell’opera. Parlando dell'Antigone, la scena che mi cattura e mi sorprende ogni volta che la leggo è il dialogo fra Antigone ed il coro, nel corso del quarto episodio: si tratta di un dialogo dapprima lirico-epirrematico, poi interamente lirico, nel quale viene potentemente messa in luce tutta la solitudine dell'eroina, condannata a morire per un delitto che lei non ritiene tale, senza nessuno che ne comprenda le motivazioni, o che almeno ne compianga umanamente la sorte. E nessuno l’accompagnerà, se non i suoi carcerieri, quando alla fine dovrà lasciare la luce del sole per essere sepolta viva, ed espiare morendo la sua colpa.
Ed è anche il coro dell’Antigone quello che amo di più di tutta la tragedia classica: un coro che nel corso di tutto il dramma sembra sempre muoversi su un piano diverso rispetto a quello dell’azione drammatica, che non sembra mai davvero comprendere le motivazioni dei personaggi. Ma che alla fine, quando Creonte – probabilmente al centro della scena col cadavere del figlio Emone tra le braccia - chiederà di poter morire, di non dover vivere un giorno in più col peso delle sciagure che lo hanno colpito, risponderà in modo crudele, dimostrando quanto in realtà la sua posizione sia autonoma, e centrale, nell’intera vicenda: se avrà il diritto di morire, questo lo deciderà il futuro; ora deve pensare al presente. Neppure pregare serve: la preghiera non aiuta a sfuggire al proprio destino.

This study examines three fragmentary tragedies, Sophocles’ Eurypylus, Aeschylus’ Niobe, and Euripides’ Ino, focusing on the characterisation of the female protagonists. They are mothers who lose their offspring, either because of circumstances not linked to them, or because they happen to kill (with varying levels of actual responsibility) their own children. Within the plot, they are closely intertwined with another member of their family: a male relative (brother, husband, father, etc.), who partially shares in the action taking place, and in the attention of the audience. At different levels, these characters share with the mother her feelings, grief, and sometimes even guilt for the death of the child or children.
By showing their actions and inner connection with their female relative, the dramatists aim to enhance the portrayal of the motivations, grief and, in some cases, the justifications of the protagonist of these plays: the mother.
The aim of this study is to show how these male characters play the role of sounding boards for the female protagonists’ guilt and sorrow: they magnify the characterisations of the mothers, and, above all, their grieving solitude.

The interpretation of Euripides’ Andromache can be improved by studying the role played by fear at critical points of the plot, as well as the terms employed by the playwright to express it. An atmosphere of fear pervades the play, linked with the weakness of several characters: the female ones who are enslaved (Andromache, the Servant, the women of the Chorus), Hermione and finally the attackers of Neoptolemus (who nevertheless remains untouched by fear): Euripides chooses to shape his characters showing as well their way to react to fear.

This is a comparison of Agathon’s role in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae and Plato’s Symposium. Firstly, I examine the Platonic version, and the unique, idiosyncratic part Plato gives Agathon to play, as a host to all, and a hostage to Socrates. Secondly, I discuss his interaction with Inlaw, the ordinary Athenian, in Aristophanes’ play. Such parallel reading allows us not only to refine our outlook on the dramatic construction both of the “talking party” and of the comic performance, but also to capture how really poikilos, for better or worse, that urban love could be. Finally, I analyze the significance of this juxtaposition, as an intertext. Plato, I argue, produces a proper palinode of Agathon, as an erotikos and a mimetic poet. By taking seriously the face-to-face between Agathon and Agathon, two dissonant and yet compatible variations on one man, our picture of Athenian erotic culture emerges sharper, and in greater detail. 
Key words:
Eros, sensuality, praise, blame, softness, manliness, effeminacy, body, language.

Την Κυριακή, 23 Ιουνίου 2019, συμμετείχα ως προσκεκλημένος στη σειρά εκπομπών που παρουσιάζουν στο ραδιόφωνο του ΣΚΑΪ ο καθηγητής Βάλτερ Πούχνερ και ο Άρης Πορτοσάλτε, με θέμα "Θέατρο και θέαμα από την αρχαιότητα μέχρι σήμερα". Ειδικότερο αντικείμενο αυτής της εκπομπής ήταν η γένεση του θεάτρου (τραγωδίας και κωμωδίας) στον αρχαίο κόσμο.

Η εκπομπή είναι διαθέσιμη για ακρόαση στον ακόλουθο σύνδεσμο:
http://www.skairadio.gr/theatro-kai-theama-apo-tin-arxaiotita-mexri-simera/episode-2019-06-23

Αναρτώ εδώ επίσης τις σημειώσεις μου για τη γένεση του θεάτρου, στις οποίες βασίστηκαν λίγο-πολύ όσα λέγω στην εκπομπή. Είμαι ευγνώμων στον αγαπητό μου καθηγητή Βάλτερ Πούχνερ, που με προσκάλεσε να συζητήσουμε. Θερμές ευχαριστίες στον κ. Άρη Πορτοσάλτε, που διηύθυνε με στιβαρότητα και γνώση τη συζήτηση, καθώς και στο προσωπικό του ΣΚΑΪ για την άψογη φροντίδα και φιλοξενία.

À un moment où les revendications identitaires sont légion, il faut revenir en amont d'une tendance qui galvaude un concept philosophique pour le mobiliser sur le seul terrain idéologique et politique. Qui suis-je ? Aucune discipline scientifique n'oserait à elle seule penser, affronter et circonscrire cette vieille question métaphysique… et enfantine. En mettant en oeuvre une interdisciplinarité effective, les auteurs ont pour ambition d'éclairer l'énigme de l'identité personnelle, mais pas seulement. En effet, l'identité est à la fois le caractère de ce qui est même et de ce qui est unique, qu'importe l'objet. Pensée comme individuelle, elle serait tour à tour personnelle, psychologique, génétique ou narrative ; pensée comme collective, elle serait sociale, ethnique, familiale, genrée, linguistique ou encore nationale. À travers les différents regards exposés ici, le lecteur tracera son propre chemin dans les méandres de cette notion.

Sophocles’ Antigone contains the first recorded instance of the word αuτoνoμoς, the source for our word “autonomous”. I argue that reflection upon the human aspiration toward autonomy is central to that work. I begin by focusing on the difficulty readers of the play have determining whether Antigone’s actions in the play should be considered autonomous and then suggest that recognizing this difficulty is crucial to a proper understanding of the play. The very aspects of Antigone’s character that seem to militate against understanding her actions within the play as autonomous—her rejection of life, her intimacy with death and the way she seems defined by her incestuous heritage— serve to illustrate the inherently problematic character of a moral ideal that we can provisionally call Antigone’s autonomy. I show how the movement of the play can be understood in terms of Antigone’s progress from what Kant would characterize as a heteronomous representation of her irremissible duty to bury her dead brother, to a self-conception defined by a recognition and embrace of her autonomy understood as, in Kant’s words, “a respect for something entirely different from life”. Antigone’s autonomy is exemplified by her choice to be dead, the choice to bear the burden of responsibility to her own. This choice, I argue, must be understood as the choice of herself as defined by her obligation to her own. Sophocles’ Antigone suggests that the moral ideal Antigone represents is unliveable, but that this ideal is nonetheless essential to human moral aspiration.

PREFACE Colour as a universal aesthetic category has dominated the thoughts of a large number of scholars and scientists from the ancient times till nowadays. Colour has been studied and discussed by chemists, physicists and biologists, theologists, philosophers and psychologists, art experts, literary critics and linguists. Colour has a particular function not only in the spheres directly related to it, like fine arts and architecture, but in fiction as well. While discussing the peculiar and "strange" character of colour vision, the most popular points to consider are the thoughts of ancient philosophers on the one hand and fiction on the other. However, scholars are basically concerned with the identification of the meaning and use of colour terms and the degree of their correspondence with the modern perception of colours. But on what concerns particular observations by individual scholars, purely literary or conceptual aspects of colour use are not substantially studied. Therefore, our ideas on the principles and opportunities of colour use are incomplete and insufficient. The aim of the present work is to fill this gap. The book targets on the following objectives: identification of colour function and systemic study of the colour phenomenon in the writings of the ancient tragedians (in complete surviving pieces, and not in fragments). The analysis of chromatism in a particular text poses a whole set of questions connected to colour: what is the colour, who uses it, where, when and why. The present book attempts to answer these very questions. As an outcome, the book intends to determine: what are the colours the tragedians use, which words are used to convey the colour senses, which structural forms prevail-simple or compound, which parts of the dramas have more colour terms-chorus parts or dialogue. These are the commonly applied criteria for the lexicological analysis of drama; however, a similar investigation focusing on colour has not yet been carried out. Aeschylus', Sophocles' and Euripides' writings enjoy ever-increasing interest since the ancient times. Scholars usually study the tragedies in terms of their linguistic and artistic properties, socio-political and religious-mythological aspects, as well as the vision of the playwrights. The style of the tragedians has become the object of profound and important researches; however, the colour phenomenon as represented in the writings has so far escaped close consideration, although colour is to be regarded as an intrinsic 1 The author would like to thank Mrs. Helen Tatishvili and Mr. Yorgos Voudiklaris for the English translation of the summary.

En el marco de una investigación sobre el filicidio en la tragedia griega clásica, el propósito de la presente ponencia consistirá en realizar un estudio que permita comprender los rasgos fundamentales del crimen que se presenta en Erecteo de Eurípides, a partir de un análisis filológico de sus fragmentos. Se considerará, por un lado, el discurso de Praxitea –esposa del que da nombre a la obra y madre de las doncellas que van a morir–, quien realiza una encendida defensa de la necesidad de sacrificar a una de sus hijas para superar la invasión a la que se enfrentaba Atenas y, por otro, los versos finales, pronunciados por la diosa Atenea ex machina.
Se tendrá en cuenta, asimismo, la complejidad de estos textos fragmentarios, transmitido el primero por Licurgo en Contra Leócrates y el segundo a través del Papiro Sorbonne 2328, que afecta de modo incontestable la lectura que se hace de ellos. Asimismo, se pondrán en relación los pasajes seleccionados con el mito de autoctonía ateniense y con el asesinato, en tanto sacrificio, de una hija mujer.