What Happens in Sophocles' ‘Philoctetes’?
Great disagreement over the plot of Sophocles' Philoctetes makes the terrain of critical discussion very slippery. Some critics argue that Odysseus knows from the beginning that both Philoctetes and his bow are the object of the voyage to Lemnos, while Neoptolemus realizes this fact only later;...
| Published in: | Traditio |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
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| Published: |
Cambridge University Press
1981
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| In: |
Traditio
Year: 1981, Volume: 37, Pages: 1-30 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Great disagreement over the plot of Sophocles' Philoctetes makes the terrain of critical discussion very slippery. Some critics argue that Odysseus knows from the beginning that both Philoctetes and his bow are the object of the voyage to Lemnos, while Neoptolemus realizes this fact only later; others, however, believe that Odysseus never realizes the need for Philoctetes himself but that Neoptolemus eventually does. A few argue that the audience understands clearly, from the beginning and throughout the play, that Odysseus and Neoptolemus are both aware of the need for Philoctetes as well as his bow. Different perceptions of the plot may lead to very different interpretations of the play. For instance, the critics who believe that Neoptolemus at first thinks he must bring only the bow to Troy often concentrate on Neoptolemus' alleged realization that Philoctetes is necessary, too, while those who believe that Neoptolemus is aware all along of the need for Philoctetes obviously center their analyses elsewhere. Some critics even try to make a virtue out of the confusion over the plot, though in different ways: believing that we cannot determine until late in the play what Neoptolemus and Odysseus perceive their mission to be, a few argue that the question must be irrelevant to understanding Sophocles' purposes; another finds the moral lesson of the play in the fact that a muddle exists. |
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| ISSN: | 2166-5508 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Traditio
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0362152900006644 |