Ajax 1-200 a new start

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Paul Derouda
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Re: Ajax 1-200 a new start

Post by Paul Derouda »

seneca2008 wrote:Thats what we mean by "contesting male dominance".
Whatever. :) I assure you that I'm interested about gender issues in Greek tragedy, as long as we're honestly trying not to read modern sensibilities into the plays. (I'm not interested about Freud's interpretations of Oedipus for similar reasons).

Just a couple of notes:

I think οὗτος often has harsh tone, οὗτός συ "you there!"; while addressing someone (always a third person, I presume?) as ἐκεῖνος is typically respectful.

θάνῃ on line 110: Ajax continues what he began on line 108: πρὶν ἂν δεθεὶς πρὸς κίον᾽ ἑρκείου στέγης. It's the πρὶν ἂν that requires the subjunctive.

If someone only could tell me if there was a common denominator for all these expression with χειρί, χερσί etc.!

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seneca2008
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Re: Ajax 1-200 a new start

Post by seneca2008 »

Thanks for θάνῃ. I misread Finglass on 109 where he dismissed the idea that "ἐργάσει" could be an aorist subjunctive dependent on πρὶν ἂν in 107. But I can see that arguably the situation is different here and that its the only interpretation that makes sense.
s long as we're honestly trying not to read modern sensibilities into the plays
I think this exemplifies the real problem in your understanding of what I am trying to say. I think that we only have "modern sensibilities". We cannot recapture for example a "fifth century Athenian reading" because there is no escaping the fact that it will be our "reconstruction" based on how we think and whatever assumptions or reading practices we bring to the text. You want to reify the text as something discoverable, something absolute (the "text-in-itself"). Each generation however reads a text differently and "inscribes itself" into the text. To think otherwise is simply to privilege whatever reading practise you adopt. As has been said on this forum many times before meaning is contingent.
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

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seneca2008
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Re: Ajax 1-200 a new start

Post by seneca2008 »

Perhaps line 200 was not a natural cut off line for this thread but nevertheless I will stick to it.

I have found Finglass a great help on philological and textual issues. I have no outstanding grammatical problems. There are a few occasions where he departs from the text used by Lloyd Jones. If anyone is interested I will post them. Finglass is not very engaged with interpretative issues. For example in the first 200 hundred lines whilst he quotes many parallel (?) eg Homeric passages he doesnt make very interesting literary points. I feel for example on 134-5 he should have pointed to the first line of Philoctetes or Od 1.50 rather than the more prosaic Il.2.557. He seems to ignore the possibility of reading Ajax as a dialogue with epic. Or perhaps if he does think about it in this way it is too deeply buried for me. Alternatively he could regard the point as too obvious to make, “slices from the great banquet of Homer"?

Segal in "Sophocles' Tragic World" has an interesting chapter which focuses on the plurality of perspectives provided by Athena, Odysseus and Ajax (and indeed Tecmessa but after line 200). Although others will be less convinced I am sympathetic to a metatheatrical interpretation of the opening. Athena stages Ajax's madness and casts Odysseus as an on stage spectator. There are of course references to seeing and not being seen. Athena can be seen (!) by us as master illusionist who is not seen by Odysseus but is apparently visible to Ajax. Segal also makes interesting points about the manipulation of time, which also seem to me to add weight to the idea of a conscious commentary on Tragic theatre.

I continue to be amazed by Finglass' dismissal of a political dimension to the play. I see no problem in thinking of the chorus and Tecmessa as part of Ajax's oikos and the army as standing for a polis. Although I would not want to privilege the original audience it has been observed that a large part of that audience might have seen service on a trireme and may well have identified with the chorus of mariners. The chorus contrasts the role of great and small men and their mutual dependence. (160-1) This for me problematizes the role of dominant men in the polis, surely an issue in late 5th century Athens.
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

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Re: Ajax 1-200 a new start

Post by mwh »

I feel for example on 134-5 he should have pointed to the first line of Philoctetes or Od 1.50 rather than the more prosaic Il.2.557.
I’m guessing he adduces Il.2.557 as establishing Ajax’s association with Salamis already in Homer. Phil.1 or Od.1.50 would be quite irrelevant to that. You might have wished him to adduce those verses as well (and to make something of the fact that unlike Philoctetes or Odysseus Ajax is not trapped on the island, perhaps?), but you can’t seriously think that he should have pointed to those other verses rather than to Il.2.557.
He seems to ignore the possibility of reading Ajax as a dialogue with epic.
I’m sure he does not, though it may well be that he has reservations about the idea of a “dialogue,” on the grounds that epic is not in a position to talk back. That’s to say, he thinks more in terms of literary reception (by Sophocles) than of two-way literary interaction. We might not like that (though I myself think it’s a perfectly tenable position to take) and consider it a deplorably oldfashioned point of view (after all, it was almost a century ago that T.S. Eliot pointed out that the past is altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past), but for the Oxonian Finglass to react against the Cantabrigian Goldhill is something we ought to be able to take in our stride without getting in too much of a tizzy about it.

Politics. I certainly agree there’s a political dimension to the play. How could it be otherwise?, as I think I remarked before. But I think that to view it exclusively or even predominantly in political terms would do less than justice to the play. There are so many other aspects to it. And before positing that the original audience would have identified with the chorus of Salaminian mariners (a surprisingly antiquated and limited approach for you to take) we’d have to factor in contemporary relations between Athens and Salamis (but we don’t even know when the play was written), the social and political status of the poor sods who manned Athenian triremes, the almost worshipful attitude of the Ajax’ sailors to their lord, and much else besides. Quite apart from the fact that the audience members, whether or not they'd ever served on a warship, know they’re watching a Sophoclean tragedy about Ajax. In other words, we should beware of being too simplistic, and of forcing the play into a political straitjacket.

But I guess we're now finally done with the first 200 lines.

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Re: Ajax 1-200 a new start

Post by seneca2008 »

Thanks for your comments.

You make an interesting point about Odysseus and Philoctetes in contrast to Ajax. In a metaphorical sense Ajax is perhaps more isolated and therefore more trapped. He comes from an island and lives as if he is one, pace Donne. I think if I were to make one comment on this line, pointing to an Homeric reference, I would not have chosen Il.2.557 which doesn't really add as much to the interpretation.

You ask on politics how could it be otherwise? As I have already posted Finglass rejects a political interpretation (this is where his opposition to Goldhill surfaces). I think you also construe what I meant by thinking about the original audience rather narrowly. It would have been "a surprisingly antiquated and limited approach" if I had not prefaced my remarks by saying that "I would not want to privilege the original audience". I dont think it is simplistic to imagine the composition of the audience, as one possible approach. I was prompted to mention it because I had read that it was likely that a greater number of Athenians would have had experience of trireme fighting rather than serving as hoplites. Its a small point which I wouldnt want to over emphasise. I didnt mean to invoke anything of the possible, and as you admit unknown, relationship between Athens and Salamis. For me a political interpretation is one which considers the operation of power amongst the characters and places it either against some reconstructed historical setting or dispenses entirely with the attempt at reconstructing historical fictions and substitutes "our" own contemporary political fictions.
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

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