Late Sophocles The Hero's Evolution in Electra, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus / Thomas Van Nortwick.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Van Nortwick, Thomas, 1946- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Literature--History and criticism.

Literature.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (165 pages)

Other Title:

Knowledge Unlatched.

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2015.

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Only a few plays by Sophoclesâ€"one of the great tragic playwrights from Classical Athensâ€"have survived, and each of them dramatizes events from the rich store of myths that framed literature and art. Sophocles' treatment evokes issues that were vividly contemporary for Athenian audiences of the Periclean age: How could the Athenians incorporate older, aristocratic ideas about human excellence into their new democratic society? Could citizens learn to be morally excellent, or were these qualities only inherited? What did it mean to be a creature who knows that he or she must die? Late Sophocles traces the evolution of the Sophoclean hero through the final three plays, Electra, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus. The book's main thesis, that Sophocles reimagined the nature of the tragic hero in his last three works, is developed inductively through readings of the plays.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Local Notes:

KU Select 2017: Backlist Collection

BiblioBoard internal publisher id: 100883

ISBN:

9780472121083