Each entry should be a minimum of 250 words but no more than 300 maximum.
How does this work? It is a very straightforward process designed to get you thinking about the content of tutorials. Across the semester you will carry out the following process four (4) times:
1. Choose a modern scholarly reading (article, book chapter) from the ‘READINGS’ section of a tutorial page of your choice;
2. Read it carefully and take notes
3. Write up a short review of its argument and content as you understand it;
4. Focus on questions such as (but not only):
– what point is the article making?
– what evidence is being discussed?
– what larger debates is the article contributing to?
do you find the argument persuasive?
– was there one thing that you found particularly enlightening?
[Topic of this week:]
Tutorial 7 (week 9): Women on stage in Athenian Tragic Drama: how should historians dramatic evidence?
At first glance the subject matter of Greek tragedy is counter-intuitive: in a city where women were carefully controlled, barely visible and possessed no political and economic agency two-thirds of all surviving tragic dramasalmost 20 playsare about women. Some of these women are very famous: Medea, Electra, Clytaemnestra, Helen… Why, at the heart of a male-dominated misogynist democracy, are these subversive women suddenly propelled onto the public stage of the most important democratic festival to take centre stage in these performances?
Greek tragedyor more accurately, Athenian tragedy (because it was an institution of Athenian democracy)is something of a paradox for historians. On the one hand, the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides (and only these because nothing complete survives from other playwrights) are extraordinarily rich texts which lie at the heart of the period we want to study. On the other hand, they all belong to a genre that deliberately sets out to play with, subvert and problematise its own culture and society. This is why these texts are still so important and often performed today. But as historians we have to think hard about how, why and what we use them for when we refer to them as evidence of something.
To think about a possible answer we will focus on one of the most famous dramas: the Antigone of Sophocles, performed at the Great Dionysia (Athens’ chief festival for Dionysus) probably in 441/0 BCE. Sophocles (c.495-405 BCE) was perhaps the greatest dramatist of his age, friend and contemporary of Pericles, as well as being a prominent public figure and military commander who lived to be 90. Along with his Oedipus Tyrannos (produced in 425 BCE), the Antigone was one of the most famous pieces of classical Greek literature. Antigone (pronounced An-tig-ony) is one of two daughters of the ill-fated Oedipus, king of Thebes (the other daughter is Ismene). In this play Antigone breaks the law of the city by burying her traitorous brother and gets caught in the act. Her uncle Creon, the new leader of Thebes, demands her execution, but Antigone says there is a higher law. The dilemma will tear the city apart.
The German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel said (around 1800) that the Antigone was one of the most sublime and in every respect most excellent works of art of all time.
Why would he say that?
Do you think he’s right?
Consider the video below (6min, 56sec): it is helpful in general, but what isn’t it telling us?
Does our interpretation of tragedy need an understanding of historical context or can it do without it?
What is the role of historical knowledge in shaping the meaning of texts?
Why are women such a nervous focus of Athenian attention in these texts?
Do you think theatre is necessary to a democratic society?
