Helping friends and harming enemies : a study in Sophocles and Greek ethics

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Helping friends and harming enemies : a study in Sophocles and Greek ethics

Mary Whitlock Blundell

Cambridge University Press, 1989

Available at  / 19 libraries

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Note

Revision of thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California at Berkeley, 1984

Bibliography: p. 274-290

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This book is a detailed study of the plays of Sophocles through examination of a single ethical principle. Sophocles has traditionally been considered the least philosophical of the three great Greek tragedians, but Professor Whitlock Blundell offers an important new examination of the ethical content of the plays by focusing primarily on the traditional Greek popular moral code of 'helping friends and harming enemies'. Five of the extant plays are discussed in detail both from a dramatic and an ethical standpoint, and the author concludes that ethical themes are not only integral to each drama, but are subjected to an implicit critique through the tragical consequences to which they give rise. Greek scholars and students of Greek drama and Greek thought will welcome this book, which is presented in such a way as to be accessible to specialists and non-specialists alike. No knowledge of Greek is required.

Table of Contents

  • Preface
  • Glossary of Greek words
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Helping friends and harming enemies
  • 3. Ajax
  • 4. Antigone
  • 5. Electra
  • 6. Philoctetes
  • 7. Oedipus at Colonus
  • 8. Conclusion
  • Bibliography
  • Index.

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