Allegory and the Tragic Chorus in Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus

by: Travis, R.

Price: 55,00 EURO

1 copy in stock

In this book, Roger Travis brings together poetics and psychology to study the tragic chorus in Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus. Beginning from Quintilian's definition of allegory as extended metaphor, Travis argues that in Oedipus at Colonus the chorus of old men forms an allegorical relationship with the aged Oedipus, which depends in turn upon the chorus's own likeness to the Athenian audience. The play relates Oedipus allegorically to the audience through the tragic chorus and transforms Oedipus' relation to the body of his mother Jocasta into a new relation to the land of Attica. Corresponding readings of Aeschylus' Suppliants and Euripides' Bacchea further explore the chorus's role in expressing the relation of the individual to the maternal body. Employing a flexible combination of Lacanian and object-relations psychoanalytic theory, Travis investigates the tragic text's conception of the problems of human existence. The introduction provides a useful survey of the advantages and disadvantages of various psychological approaches to tragedy, making this an important volume for students and scholars alike.

Roger Travis is assistant professor of Classics at the University of Connecticut.

List of Abbreviations
viii
Acknowledgments x
Foreword xii
Gregory Nagy
Methodological Introduction
1 (36)
From End to Beginning: The Choral Allegory of Oedipus at Colonus
37 (50)
Suppliant Drama, Suppliant Space: Oedipus at Colonus and Aeschylus's Suppliants
87 (49)
Spectacular Religion: Oedipus at Colonus and Euripides' Bacchae
136 (55)
From Beginning to End: Choral Allegory in Oedipus at Colonus
191 (34)
Works Cited 225 (14)
General Index 239 (2)
Index Locorum 241 (2)
About the Author 243
 

Allegory and the Tragic Chorus in Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus

by: Travis, R.

• ISBN-13: 9780847696093 / 978-0-8476-9609-3
• ISBN-03: 084769609X / 0-8476-9609-X
• Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland, 1999

Price: 55,00 EURO

1 copy in stock