By Mark Ringer
Metatheater, or "theater inside theater," is a severe procedure usually utilized in stories of Shakespearian or glossy drama. Breaking new flooring within the learn of old Greek tragedy, Mark Ringer applies the idea that of metatheatricality to the paintings of Sophocles. His cutting edge research sheds gentle on Sophocles' technical ingenuity and divulges formerly unrecognized features of fifth-century performative irony. Ringer analyzes the layers of theatrical self-awareness in all sevenSophoclean tragedies, giving targeted recognition to Electra, theplaywright's such a lot metatheatrical paintings. He makes a speciality of performs inside plays,characters who seem to be in contention with their playwright in "scripting"their dramas, and many of the roles that characters suppose of their makes an attempt to mislead different characters or perhaps themselves. Ringer additionally examines cases of literal function enjoying, exploring the consequences of the Greek conference of sharing a number of roles between merely 3 actors. Sophocles has lengthy been praised as one of many masters of dramaticirony. expertise of Sophoclean metatheater, Ringer indicates, deepens our appreciation of that irony and divulges the playwright's prepared information of his artwork.
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Extra resources for Electra and the Empty Urn: Metatheater and Role Playing in Sophocles
Example text
G. Herington (1985), Nagy (1990), Currie (2004), Hubbard (2004). OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 27/8/2016, SPi 30 Ewen Bowie Pythian 7 for Megacles might be composed both for initial performance in a symposion and for later reperformance also in symposia, while a longer epinician might be given a public première by a more or less comastic chorus and might then be sung by an individual in a symposion, either in its entirety or in excerpt. ) to last. Hence the initial excitement that a historian of symposia might feel on encountering the passage I have cited from Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists.
585) This is a passage bound to catch the eye of historians of the symposion, since it seems to offer a rare indication bearing upon the matter of timing of sympotic activities, a subject on which we remain depressingly ill-informed. The combined evidence of texts, vase-painting, and the archaeology of private and public buildings has contributed greatly to our understanding of many material aspects of the symposion. But on the question of how long symposia 1 Despite an apparent lacuna in the text, it is clear from Philostratus’ sketch that the waterclock was set for the time needed both for the lines’ recitation and for their interpretation by Herodes.
Thus the sympotic matrix for organizing knowledge is mapped onto the wider Greek world in a manner which inverts the conceit of bringing the Sages into a sympotic gathering as in the various versions of the meeting of the Seven. In Callimachus’ version of the story, which he puts in the mouth of Hipponax in the first Iambos, once this cup has come full circle it is emblazoned with a dedicatory inscription (ll. 76–7). This dedication can be read as an enactment of the Seven Sages’ dedication of their wisdom as an ἀπαρχή in Protagoras 343a–b (though to a different divinity).