This thesis examines the place, influence, and deployment of archaic Greek thought in Sophocles’ extant tragedies, paying close attention to the ethical and theological content of the plays as well as to their dramatic and literary fabric. I use archaic thought as an umbrella term for a constellation of ideas on the human condition and the gods which is first attested, in Greece, in Homeric epic, but has a long and variegated existence in other contexts and after the archaic period. The thesis consists of six chapters, divided in two parts. The first part provides a general conceptual framework, which is then applied in the detailed readings of Sophocles constituting the second part. The first chapter examines some of the main texts of archaic Greek thought, and offers an interpretation of it as a coherent nexus of ideas gravitating around the core notions of human vulnerability, short-sightedness, and the principle of alternation. Using the examples of Homer’s Iliad and Solon’s Elegy to the Muses, I argue that the narrative structure of archaic poetry can be used to formulate and “perform” archaic ideas. The second chapter formulates the principal argument of the thesis: that archaic thought is central to the ethical and religious content of tragedy as well as to its dramatic and literary fabric, that is, to the form of tragedy as a complex artefact designed to be performed on stage. I explore possible models for the interaction between archaic thought and literature and tragedy, from Aristotle’s Poetics to recent interpretations of tragedy as a hybrid of other literary and intellectual forms. I then examine the ways in which archaic ideas are deployed and performed in tragedy, both in passages that are explicitly archaic in content and diction, and in the complex interactions of dramatic form and intellectual content. This general discussion is illustrated with preliminary readings of four Sophoclean plays: Ajax, Oedipus Tyrannus, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus. The third chapter contextualises the approach adopted in the thesis as a whole by exploring two interpretations of Sophocles in German Idealist thought: Solger’s reading of Ajax and Hölderlin’s reading of Oedipus Tyrannus. It argues that these analyses, albeit under anachronistic conceptual categories such as “the tragic”, seize on some of the fundamental questions of archaic and tragic ethics and theology: the relationship between the human and divine spheres, and the limits of language and human understanding. In Chapters 4, 5, and 6, I offer detailed readings of Trachiniae, Antigone, and Electra, three plays chosen to reflect the diversity of contexts in which archaic ideas exist in Sophocles. I argue that archaic thought is central to the intellectual and dramatic fabric of all three plays, even though the deployment and emphasis of archaic patterns and ideas differs from one tragedy to the next.

Orientador: Fernando Brandão dos Santos / Banca: Edvanda Bonavina da Rosa / Banca: Henrique Fortuna Cairus / Resumo: Quando a rainha Atossa inicia sua explanação sobre um presságio concebido em sonho, o público helênico sentia o alívio de não ser ele a passar por aqueles momentos de angústia, mas também, através das palavras de Ésquilo, se impressionou com o relato e desespero que davam o mote inicial à única tragédia baseada em fatos históricos a chegar até nós: Os Persas (472 a.C.). A mais antiga tragédia grega de que se tem notícia é, também, o relato de um momento único e crucial na história do povo grego, que garantia a continuidade de sua tão valorosa liberdade e o início de uma nova forma de pensar e agir. Na tragédia Os Persas, ao introduzir alguns dos valores de sua época, Ésquilo demonstra os motivos pelos quais os gregos merecem a vitória e quais são as falhas cometidas pelos persas. Sendo assim, a noção de hybris (a soberbia), um desvio na conduta do homem em relação ao seu equilíbrio com as divindades, é tida como justificativa para os atos de Xerxes que, segundo o tragediógrafo, tornavam-se cada vez mais envoltos nas redes que a Áte (a divindade Erronia) cria aos propensos à ruína. Dessa forma, a dissertação se propõe a analisar a tragédia Os Persas verificando os aspectos que justificam a presença da hybris em Xerxes e, por consequência, a derrota nas Guerras Médicas / Abstract: When Queen Atossa begins her explanation of an omen conceived in a dream, hellenistic audience felt relief of not it is going through those moments of anguish, but also through the words of Aeschylus, was impressed with the report and despair that gave the tone to the original single tragedy based on historical facts reach us: Persians (472 BC). The earliest of Greek tragedy that notice is also the story of a unique and crucial moment in history of the Greek people, which guarantee the continuity of your so valuable freedom and the beginning of a new way of thinking and acting. In Persians, by introducing some of the values of his era, Aeschylus demonstrates the reasons why the Greeks deserve to win and which are the faults committed by the Persians. Thus, the notion of hybris, (the arrogance) a shift in the man's conduct in relation to their balance with the gods, is taken as justification for acts of Xerxes, according to the tragedian, became increasingly enveloped networks that Áte (the divinity Erroneous) to create likely to ruin. Thus, the work aims to analyze the tragedy Persians checking the features that justify the presence of hybris in Xerxes and therefore, losing the Persian Wars / Mestre

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:25:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-03-04Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:53:04Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 rodrigues_ma_me_arafcl.pdf: 571739 bytes, checksum: 5eaf122d53bb9df3d22f6140a3da35a3 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / Quando a rainha Atossa inicia sua explanação sobre um presságio concebido em sonho, o público helênico sentia o alívio de não ser ele a passar por aqueles momentos de angústia, mas também, através das palavras de Ésquilo, se impressionou com o relato e desespero que davam o mote inicial à única tragédia baseada em fatos históricos a chegar até nós: Os Persas (472 a.C.). A mais antiga tragédia grega de que se tem notícia é, também, o relato de um momento único e crucial na história do povo grego, que garantia a continuidade de sua tão valorosa liberdade e o início de uma nova forma de pensar e agir. Na tragédia Os Persas, ao introduzir alguns dos valores de sua época, Ésquilo demonstra os motivos pelos quais os gregos merecem a vitória e quais são as falhas cometidas pelos persas. Sendo assim, a noção de hybris (a soberbia), um desvio na conduta do homem em relação ao seu equilíbrio com as divindades, é tida como justificativa para os atos de Xerxes que, segundo o tragediógrafo, tornavam-se cada vez mais envoltos nas redes que a Áte (a divindade Erronia) cria aos propensos à ruína. Dessa forma, a dissertação se propõe a analisar a tragédia Os Persas verificando os aspectos que justificam a presença da hybris em Xerxes e, por consequência, a derrota nas Guerras Médicas / When Queen Atossa begins her explanation of an omen conceived in a dream, hellenistic audience felt relief of not it is going through those moments of anguish, but also through the words of Aeschylus, was impressed with the report and despair that gave the tone to the original single tragedy based on historical facts reach us: Persians (472 BC). The earliest of Greek tragedy that notice is also the story of a unique and crucial moment in history of the Greek people, which guarantee the continuity of your so valuable freedom and the beginning of a new way of thinking and acting. In Persians, by introducing some of the values of his era, Aeschylus demonstrates the reasons why the Greeks deserve to win and which are the faults committed by the Persians. Thus, the notion of hybris, (the arrogance) a shift in the man's conduct in relation to their balance with the gods, is taken as justification for acts of Xerxes, according to the tragedian, became increasingly enveloped networks that Áte (the divinity Erroneous) to create likely to ruin. Thus, the work aims to analyze the tragedy Persians checking the features that justify the presence of hybris in Xerxes and therefore, losing the Persian Wars