This is the second Sophoclean companion to appear within the last two years, after K. Ormand (ed.) A Companion to Sophocles (2011). While one could wonder about such a duplication, I am not about to question the general utility of two companions to Sophocles nor to engage in close comparisons. The list of 32 contributors – well- established scholars in the field of Greek tragedy from all over the world – does justice to twenty-first-century Sophoclean scholarship.
In his introduction, M. undertakes the ambitious challenge of sketching out the history of Sophoclean criticism from the classical period to the present. On the one hand, he undoubtedly succeeds in identifying major turning points of criticism, such as Aristotle's Poetics, Campbell and Jebb's reaction to nineteenth-century editing fashion, the French school of Vernant and Vidal-Naquet, and so on. On the other hand, some reservations arise from his survey. While allotting nineteenth-century German scholars a single paragraph, he spends too many words discussing Oedipus as ‘exemplar of the tragic hero’, i.e. a ‘symbolic condensation of great principles’ (p. 8), as proved in the final heroisation of Oedipus at Colonus. Elsewhere he appears to misrepresent studies on dramatic technique, which have supposedly fallen behind due to the ‘realization that this kind of formalist abstraction disregards the vital principles binding together the parts of the play in a continuous chain of cause and effect and, what is worse, excludes contextual matters in favour of pedantic exaggeration’ (pp. 5–6). What are the ‘vital principles’ in a kind of poetry quintessentially conceived for performance? While everyone should be aware of the shortcomings of Wilamowitz, nobody could forget the vital contributions to the study of Greek tragedy made by scholars of formalistic inclinations, such as Reinhardt, Kranz, Fraenkel and, more recently, Taplin, Matthiessen and Mastronarde (see esp. Mastronarde's The Art of Euripides. Dramatic Technique and Social Context [2010], p. 14, even though I agree that Sophocles has received less attention in these respects than Aeschylus and Euripides). Not surprisingly, therefore, staging and technical problems related to original performance are almost completely absent from the book.
The volume is made up of eight Parts, completed by a bibliography, indexes of subjects and Sophoclean passages. The first Part contains eleven chapters, including individual discussions of extant plays; Parts 2–8 each accommodate between two and four articles and are respectively concerned with intertextuality; music, language and narrative; image and performance; religion, history and politics; status and gender; education, philosophy, irony; ancient and modern reception. One could have desired a more rational grouping, or lament the postponed discussion of crucial topics, such as dating (by Ferrario, mainly on historical grounds), or even criticise the excessive dispersal of chapters referring to characters (Kitzinger on choruses, Mikalson on gods and heroes, Mossmann on women and Zimmermann on minor characters). Internal cross-referencing is inconstant. There is no univocal policy for transliterations or quotations from Greek: translations are often missing (though not in M., Kitzinger, Battezzato, Dunn). Secondary literature is invariably surveyed and abundantly quoted in footnotes by all the contributors. Different viewpoints on single questions are inevitable and not negative: I note the intermittent acceptance of Knox's ‘Sophoclean hero’ and the presence of hero worship in the endings of Aj. and Tr. Repeated discussions on the same passages are not infrequent.
In Part I, essays on individual plays are marked by different approaches: Finglass addresses the vexed question of unity in Ajax (briefly discussed in his 2011 commentary, which he does not cite) by suggesting thematic parallelisms between the two halves of the play. Griffiths reads Electra in the light of recent key issues of Sophoclean scholarship, such as mythical tradition and reception, democracy, language and performance, and finally suggests the implied paradigm of the phoenix myth (of which I am not persuaded). In the wake of Reinhardt, Beer mercifully interprets the dramatic sequence of Oedipus Tyrannus by means of the theatrical choices of Sophocles and the presentation of Oedipus' mask. Carter chooses to study Antigone as a ‘diptych’ and offers a structuralist analysis based on oppositions between the two main heroes' agendas, inside and outside space, death and life. Helden explains Trachiniae through the lens of philosophy, focusing on the use of non-sceptical theories of knowledge by its characters, compares Deianeira's first lines with Herodotus' report on Croesus (Histories 1), discusses the preparation of the pyre for Heracles (and its implied sequel) in comparison with Croesus' rescue in Herodotus and Bacchylides 3 (omitting questions of chronology), and compares Heracles to Polyphemus and Deianeira/Hyllus with Penelope/Telemachus in the Odyssey. Philoctetes is analysed by Kyriakou through the major themes of inherited nature, integrity in words and deeds, favours and solidarity, and the deceptive and harmful power of the word. Hesk's summary of Oedipus at Colonus is illuminating on echoes of contemporary Athens, supplication, the moral judgement of Oedipus, and the play's specific relationship with OT. Individual readings are sound, though at times a little speculative (e.g. Electra, Trachiniae) and in any case are intended as ‘no substitute for reading Sophocles’ (Finglass, p. 59). The order of presentation (that of Lloyd-Jones/Wilson's OCT) may be indicative of declining interest in matters of chronology. The first section is completed by four articles on crucial aspects of Sophocles' work, such as the complicated biographical tradition (Tyrrell), textual transmission (Avezzù), fragmentary plays (Sommerstein) and satyr-plays (Seidensticker): these studies will serve as invaluable starting surveys for both students and scholars.
Parts 2–8 are equally stimulating. The narrow focus on intertextuality is especially welcomed. Dunn's concept of ‘dynamic allusion’ to tragic rivals, explored in terms of arising narrative opportunities, for me is particularly convincing and deserves further investigation. At times, both he and Davidson (on Homer) go too far with parallels, some of which I would downgrade to occasional similarities (e.g. Iliad 1 matched with Ant. and OT, Aeschylus' Persae with Ajax). Perhaps it would have been fruitful to expand the discussion to the Epic Cycle and lyric poetry, but this is personal taste. In investigating the scanty evidence for music, Power rightly questions old assumptions of Sophocles' alleged middle course between conservatism and innovation, and detects possible dramatisation of the motif in the plays (Trachiniae, Ichneutae, Thamyras, etc.). Battezzato surveys Sophoclean language and insightfully elaborates on old and new trends in linguistics (word order, tropes, politeness, sociolinguistics). Worman thoroughly discusses enactment of persuasive modes of discourse by Sophoclean characters, although she tends to stretch too far her argument about the identification of Odysseus (in Ajax) and Oedipus with the paradigm of the clever politician. M. discusses at length the narratological approach of de Jong and restates the point of Ajax's heroisation. On the latter point, he partly misconceives the attitude of the Messenger in Aj. 748–83, who does not alleviate Ajax's responsibilities: for the ending of Ajax, the idea of a moderate ‘rehabilitation’ seems preferable. In a methodologically magisterial discussion, Small warns against the use of artistic representations to improve our knowledge of dramatic performances, while Kitzinger explores issues related to the chorus.
The ‘historical’ half of the book is inaugurated by Rehm with a well-balanced survey of the presence of ritual, and is continued by Mikalson, who gives a complete list of the occurrences of gods and discusses the heroisation of Ajax and Heracles in Ajax and Trachiniae. Ferrario and Raaflaub tackle discussions of history and political thought by concluding that Sophocles' drama certainly interfered with Athenian reality, but only indirectly and unintentionally. Part 6, ‘Sophoclean Anthropology’, comprises Mossman's re-evaluation of the treatment of women's voices, mainly focused on decision-making, and Zimmermann's systematic classification of minor characters. The title of the penultimate section, ‘Instructing the Polis’, may appear misleading: Gregory's essay on education treats the topic as a dramatic motif, not as a supposed aim of the dramatist-Sophocles; Wilson explores Sophocles' possible philosophical background, but concentrates solely (and unconvincingly) on Electra; Lloyd elaborates old theories about irony and tests it on the triad. Part 8 on reception contains well-informed essays by Wright on ancient reception (from Aristophanes to Dio of Prusa); Anderson on the influence of Sophocles on a range of twentieth-century authors, such as Stravinsky, Cocteau, Anouilh, T.S. Eliot, Scorsese, etc.; Walton on translations; and McDonald on modern re-performances.
Minor inconsistencies in structure and focus, and occasional disagreement cannot detract from substantial appreciation of this volume, which will quickly become – alongside Ormand's – a useful starting-point for the study of Sophocles.
