When Heroes Sing: Sophocles and the Shifting Soundscape of Tragedy

by Sarah Nooter

Sophoclean heroes engage in lyric song far more than other heroes of tragedy and this has profound implications for both the hero himself and tragedy as a genre. This lyrical voice grounds the heroes in a world of poetic identity and power, demonstrating how tragedy was influenced by other kinds of poetry in fifth-century Athens. Yet, at the same time, the heroes' lyrical voices set them apart from their communities and lend them the authority and abilities of poets. Through close readings, this book demonstrates how the voice of each hero is inflected by song and other markers of lyric poetry, in order to discuss the purpose of their lyric passages and the wider issue of defining the nature and function of the poetic voice. This study offers new insight into the ways that Sophoclean tragedy inherits and refracts the traditions of other poetic genres.

Genres: Classics

208 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 31, 2012

Reviews

[Taylor Swift Scholar · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this was more in the weeds than I needed to go as a non-academic, this has fundamentally changed my perspective on the Greek tragedies. It is not terribly apparent in English translation (or at least the ones that I have read,) but the heroes of Greek tragedy deploy lyric song and poetry far more often than the other characters. Now I shall imagine each play as a musical where only one person is singing.