Inaug.-diss.--Munich. / Vita. "This work in somewhat enlarged form is published under the title 'The attitude of the Greek tragedians toward art'."

Thèse--Faculté des lettres de Paris.

The present dissertation deals with the function of memory and forgetfulness within the story of Electra and Orestes, as presented by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. The introductory chapter represents a brief account of the philological and theoretical tools of our research. Chapter One proves that words of active memory as well as expressions of forgetfulness are recurrent in the texts. Chapters Two and Three show how different public roles influence the apparatus of memory for various agents. Memory and forgetfulness operate at three levels: private recollection, public function, and divine agent. We analyze the relationship between the heroic ethos and the collective memory in times of crisis. The three authors treat differently the Electra’s memory and her relationship with the logos of her city, especially because of her liminal tendencies. In Euripideas, we further emphasize a particular aspect of memory: a genos-related aspect of Mnēmosynē that affects both the male and the female functions. Chapter Four further analyzes the feminine liminal potential and the ability to access a transcendental form of memory, ability which at times proves morbid and dangerous. The solution to this burden is either divine intervention, or return to private memory through acts of initiatory forgetfulness. Chapter Five deals with the presence of divine memory and the fissures between the Olympians and the chthonian divinities at the level of mnemonic discourse. The three authors have different ways in recording it. However, there is a general tendency to move from grudging memory to healing amnesty. This effort is sustained by the Olympian divinities in the detriment of the Furies and their pre-cultural form of memory in Aeschylus. The picture is further complicated in Euripides by Helen and her physical presence as a memorial of the war, as well as her ultimate disappearance into thin air. In Sophocles, we witness a similar movement from the "logocentric" memory to the visual and symbolic aspect of social Mnēmosynē. Electra depicts the ambiguities and the failure of monumental memory and the ritualistic return to private memory. Chapter Six analyzes the mnemonic filter in theatrical experience. The dramatic performance is a way to share the social burden of memory: with each show, Orestes' murder is re-tried and collectively re-solved. Beside the memory of the author, the theatrical experience involves the perspective of the public and its function as a “social framework” for the memory of the myths. / text

Not available / text

This thesis investigates the significance of ritual movements in theatre and society of fifth-century Athens. The focus falls on processional movement, the definitive characteristics of which are drawn from the ancient Greek concept of pompe, i.e. a movement towards a defined destination, involving the conveyance of a ritual symbol (or an object or a person) between specific points of departure and arrival. The social contexts of divine and heroic cult, funerals and weddings prove to be the main occasions for the performance of such processional movements. In the world outside the theatre, processions are shown to be crucial in defining transitions, shaping social relations, and manifesting the action and inviting the attention of the divine. The socio-religious significance of processions is fully appropriated and explored by tragedy. Processional action, recurrently evoked in the tragic plays, proves to be crucial for the articulation of the tragic δρώμενα. This is argued in the collection and analysis of a number of scenes from extant fifth-century tragedy in which processional resonances permeate the action. The interpretation of the scenes in the light of the ritual background which shapes them considerably enhances the understanding and appreciation of the plays as theatrical experience - experience which explores the potential of spatial configurations and visual symbolism, in a context of symbolic communication which is largely defined by participation in the rituals of the community. The thesis argues that the importance of processions in the theatre is inextricably connected with their power - as manifested in the ritual life of the polis - to gather the community and to initiate the process of θεάσασθαι, implicating both active participants and θεαταί in the performed action. Greek tragic theatre builds upon this basic function of processions and activates their power. Thus it also combines their potential to define transitions with the significance of tragic μετάβασις; and with the importance of demarcation of space and transformation of time in the theatre. Ritual experience is activated, reshaped and enlarged, enabling the re-creation and transformation of the experience of the audience. Processions can illuminate the nature of tragedy itself.

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

Αντικείμενο αυτής της μελέτης είναι οι Τραχίνιες του Σοφοκλή και ο τρόπος με τον οποίο ο τραγικός ποιητής επενέργησε τόσο σ΄ επίπεδο μύθου όσο και σ΄ επίπεδο γλωσσικού ύφους επάνω στο υλικό μυθολογικό και λογοτεχνικό, που παρέλαβε και γνώριζε πολύ καλά, προκειμένου να οργανώσει τον ολότελα δικό του ποιητικό λόγο και να πλάσει τον ολότελα δικό του τραγικό κόσμο. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, στο πρώτο κεφάλαιο επιχειρείται μία διακειμενική προσέγγιση του τέλους που επέλεξε για τον Ηρακλή ο Σοφοκλής στις Τραχίνιες του σε σχέση με τον θάνατο και την αποθέωση του μεγάλου ήρωα, όπως παρουσιάζονται στα Ομηρικά Έπη και στον Γυναικῶν Κατάλογο του Ησιόδου. Ο Σοφοκλής ξεπερνά τους προκατόχους του επικούς ποιητές και καινοτομεί καθώς ο θάνατος και η αποθέωση του Ηρακλή δεν είναι μία κατάσταση συντελεσμένη, όπως στον Όμηρο και τον Ησίοδο, αλλά μία ενέργεια σε εξέλιξη: παρακολουθούμε επί σκηνής έναν νέο θεό εν τη γενέσει του. Βλέπουμε τον μεγάλο εκπολιτιστή ήρωα περνώντας μέσα από τον έσχατο πόνο ένα ακριβώς βήμα πριν γίνει ένας νέος θεός δίπλα στους παραδοσιακούς θεούς του Ολύμπου. Τι συμβαίνει όμως στις Τραχίνιες με την ανθρώπινη πλευρά του μεγάλου Ηρακλή; Το δεύτερο κεφάλαιο αυτής της εργασίας επικεντρώνεται στο νόστο του ανθρώπου – Ηρακλή. Ο Σοφοκλής χτίζει αυτόν το νόστο επάνω σε δύο άλλους διάσημους νόστους προκατόχων του ποιητών, τον ομηρικό νόστο του Οδυσσέα και τον αισχύλειο νόστο του Αγαμέμνονα. Ο σοφόκλειος Ηρακλής επιστρέφει ως πολύπαθος Οδυσσέας για να μεταμορφωθεί και να εξοντωθεί λίγο αργότερα ως αισχύλειος Αγαμέμνονας. Όταν στις Τραχίνιες ο νόστος του Ηρακλή ολοκληρωθεί, ο μεγάλος Πανελλήνιος ήρωας δεν θα είναι πια ούτε Οδυσσέας ούτε Αγαμέμνων αλλά ένας νέος ήρωας, ένας ήρωας τραγικός. Λίγο πριν ο Ηρακλής χαθεί μέσα στις φλόγες και γίνει ένας νέος θεός, είναι υποχρεωμένος να φέρει εις πέρας έναν τελευταίο άθλο: είναι υποχρεωμένος να πραγματοποιήσει μία δύσκολη και απαραίτητη μετάβαση από έναν αρχαϊκό ηρωισμό λαγνείας, φυσικής δύναμης και αιματοχυσίας, τον ηρωισμό του παλιού επικού κόσμου, σ’ έναν ηρωισμό πραγματικά τραγικό. Ο Ηρακλής των Τραχινίων αποδεικνύεται ένας νέος τύπος ανθρώπου - ήρωα ο οποίος νικά τον πιο άγριο εχθρό, τα τέρατα που κρύβονται μέσα στην ίδια την ανθρώπινη φύση του. Αυτός είναι ο ηρωισμός ο οποίος ίσως βρει μία τιμημένη θέση μέσα στην πόλη. / The subject of this work is Sophocles’ Trachiniae and how the tragic poet elaborated his mythological and literary sources as far as the plot and the language of his play are concerned, in order to create his own poetic language and his own tragic world. To be more exact, the aim of the first chapter is an intertextual approach of the ending that Sophocles chose for Heracles in his Trachiniae in relation to the death and apotheosis of the great hero, as they are presented in Homer’s epics and Hesiod’s Women’s Catalogue. Sophocles surpassed his preceding epic poets and managed to innovate because Heracles’ death and apotheosis are not a complete state, as in Homer and Hesiod, but an action in progress: in Trachiniae we watch a new god being born on stage. We watch the great civilizing hero suffering the greatest pain of all and at the same time being about to take his place among the old gods of Olympus. But what happens with Heracles’ human side in Trachiniae? The second chapter focus on Heracles’ return home, the great hero’s nostos. Sophocles organizes this nostos based on two other famous heroes coming back home and the description of their journey by two older poets: the Homeric Odysseus and the Aeschylean Agamemnon. Sophoclean Hercules is coming back as a storm – tossed Odysseus in order to be transformed and later murdered as an Aeschylean Agamemnon. When Heracles’ nostos is completed in the Trachiniae, the great Panhellenic hero will not be Odysseus or Agamemnon but a new hero, a tragic hero. Before Heracles disappears into the flames and becomes a new god, he must carry out one last labour: he must enact a painful transition from an archaic heroism of lust, physical strength and bloodshed, the heroism of the old epic world, to a heroism that is truly tragic. In the Trachiniae Heracles is proved to be a new kind of man – hero who beats the worst enemy, the monsters which hide into the human nature itself. This is a heroism which might find a place of honor within the polis.

No description available.

In this dissertation, I develop a theory of rhetorical catharsis and apply this theory primarily to George W. Bush's rhetoric of the War on Terror in Iraq. Contrary to the standard Aristotelian perspective of catharsis as the "purging of pity and fear" that brings relief and resolution to an audience, I turn to Kenneth Burke's claim that catharsis is tied to the scapegoating process and argue that catharsis is the purging and projection of one's trauma to a victim who serves as the sacrificial vessel for one's pain. I thus redefine catharsis as the purging of trauma that plays a key role in catharsis and leads to the victimage and scapegoating of the Other in language and public life.To explore how rhetorical catharsis functions in language use, I analyze the concept of a rhetorical catharsis through literature, presidential rhetoric, and print media and show how catharsis operates in the rhetoric of war, particularly that of President Bush's war on terror in Iraq. In addition to Kenneth Burke, I draw on scholars such as Rene Girard, Deborah Willis, Terry Eagleton, Robert Ivie, Allen Carter, Robert McChesney, and Bartholomew Sparrow, among many others. I argue that communities experiencing tragedy use language to name people and entire nations as the scapegoat for their ills.By understanding how language makes possible the victimage and scapegoating of vasts groups of people and even entire nations in times of national trauma, I offer ways of speaking about trauma that may help redirect the violent impulse of catharsis.

William Shakespeare’s influence on the genre of tragedy is both powerful and undeniable, while contemporary notions about tragedy have shifted into a modern light through the influence of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. This study concentrates specifically on Hamlet and A Doll’s House in order to indicate the ways in which ideas of tragedy have evolved. By investigating the effect of religion in Hamlet and the absence of it in A Doll’s House, I will argue that the main shift in tragedy is the loss of God. This thesis examines the transformation of the two heroes throughout the course of their respective plays and, in doing so, identifies the formal features which mark their claims to tragedy. While their processes differ greatly—Hamlet’s transformation is through a super-textual and self-analytic process while Nora’s process is one that emphasizes action over thought—both of their journeys are tied to the crucial and utterly tragic truth that they must face: the breakdown of their family.