Monthly Archives: September 2015

C.S. Lewis was mentioned in the lecture today, which reminded me, of all things, of a song from a 90s teen movie. The movie is She’s All That (Pygmalion in high school, not stellar), and the song is ‘Kiss Me’. It’s a silly love song (…and what’s wrong with that?…), but I like it and find it touching. Anyway, the band responsible for this ditty is Sixpence None the Richer, and they are named after a passage from Mere Christianity, a book that set the man we know and love as the creator of Narnia in the role of lay theologian. The passage, in this case, is a metaphor. A boy asks his father to give him sixpence, so he can buy a present…for his father. The father is happy to receive the gift despite gaining no corporeal benefit by it. Lewis’s analogy is that man should serve God humbly, because He is the source of their ability to do so in the first place (giving us the resources to serve just as the father gives his boy the sixpence). Which brings me to lines 1105-1159 (pg. 62-63), where the Chorus waxes contemplative about the gods.

Now, I read this passage as the Chorus coming to a painful realization about fate, divinity and life itself (I’ll try to refer to it/them in the singular from here on in, as they’re more of a construct representing the older, male, established citizens of Athens that defined the culture). The Chorus starts by invoking the laws made in heaven, not earth, controlling and limiting their actions, laws made not by men, but deathless gods. Think about this for a second: the laws that govern the lion’s share of expectations and standards, to which dozens of rituals and sacrifices are made, and to which the penalties include both human damage (exile, death) and the looming fear of divine retribution (lightning strikes, plagues), are being made by immortal dilettantes who rarely if ever are in a position to feel any of their consequences.

If you think this sounds like tyranny, it seems like the Chorus agrees with you, as in the next set of lines they describe the arrogance of these dictators and hope for their fall, and quickly back up to ask for solace as honest men. The supplication to Apollo (the god of medicine and plague, who would be theologically responsible for the illness ravaging the city) seems more sarcastic at this point, as these (presumably) honest men get riled up about how evil men can escape retribution, while they’re living in terror.

Then, the chorus has its Batman moment. The realization where they look at the situation and go ‘hey, I can do something’, specifically just refuse to waste their time on the gods that are jerking them around. They even go so far as to question the authority of Zeus, which is miles past stupid and verging into suicidal in a world where divinely-empowered lightning strikes are a justified fear. The ending line is the ultimate challenge: ‘nothing of the gods stays’. If immortals aren’t capable of making their actions last, what does that say about their competency, or their existence?

The Chorus’ impression of faith, then, seems like the reverse of Lewis’. They pay their tributes, sacrifice their animals, give their time to rituals of devotion, all to continue going about their lives, constantly praying for boons from entities to whom they may as well be overgrown mayflies. They give and they give, and the gods may not even care, because what can humans do? I read this as the kind of life-shattering revelation that comes with questions like “Have I ever really loved my wife?” “Have I wasted my life on this job I hate?” “Have I failed as a father/husband/brother/son?” The Chorus has paid their tribute, and from this passage, it seems that they want their money back.

Last class, we discussed the origins of Greek tragedy from the very phallic-heavy fertility ritual of the diathyramb into an entirely new form of storytelling that used new techniques such using actors to show events taking place rather than solely relying on a choir through the course of two centuries (from 7th century BCE to 5th century BCE) by dramatists and playwrights such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. This has made me rather curious to find out a bit more about how the other two ancient Greek theatrical genres, the satyr play and comedy, developed. After doing some research into this subject, which I found rather interesting, I thought I would share some of my findings with you.

The satyr play was an early form of burlesque/tragicomedy which was often performed after serious tragedies to lighten the mood. It was developed by Pratinas of Philus around 500 BCE after he combined the newly developed form of tragedy with the earlier diathyramb out of which tragedy originally developed by retaining the religious connection to Dionysus. The City Dionysia festival, which was held in the honour of Dionysus, required each entrant to the dramatic competition to submit one satyr play along with three tragedies. These plays featured a chorus of bawdy satyrs singing rowdy and sexual songs and dance wildly around the stage waving about phallic props all the while the heroes of the story (e.g., mythic heroes like Odysseus and the gods) carried themselves in a dignified manner befitting a tragedy. Very few examples of these plays have survived, the only complete example being The Cyclops by Euripides and this genre of theatre more or less died out with the end of the Classical Greek civilization.

Greek comedy is often divided into three general eras, Old Comedy (archaia), Middle Comedy (mese) and New Comedy (nea) for academic purposes, although in many cases the distinctions are completely arbitrary, especially concerning Old and Middle Comdey. Old comedy, with Aristophanes being its best representative, was primarily focused on political satire and the lampooning of public figures (such as Socrates in The Clouds) in addition to the use of innuendos related to bodily functions and sex. s. Middle Comedy is largely lost, with only a few fragments of texts remaining. Unlike Old Comedy, they did not mock public figures or politics but instead used a wide variety of stock comic characters, such as courtesans, philosophers, lazy vagrants, arrogant soldiers, and conceited cooks. They are more involved with the affairs of the common people than Old Comedy rather than celebrities and politicians. New Comedy emerged after the death of Alexander the Great, during the reign of Macedonian kings in Greece before the Roman takeover. Plays from this era tended to focus on people’s everyday problems with relationships, family life, and social interactions rather than politics and public life or tales involving gods and the supernatural. Put another way, Old Comedy is like Saturday Night Live or the British radio/TV impressions show Dead Ringers, Middle Comedy is a bit like comedia dell’arte, while New Comedy is like Friends or All in the Family.

My impression of the story of Oedipus, at least at this point, is that the man starts the play in a situation of immense pressure, and that makes his demise is circumstantially inevitable. As a benevolent king, he cares about his people, and takes it upon himself to solve their problems. It would make some sense, then, that at least one of the issues that would surface down the road would be the death of his predecessor on the throne. After that, it’s all downhill…

In many ways, he’s a victim of the expectations he’s set for himself. When your debut involves sending a riddle-loving monster to Hades without lifting a finger, people are going to put stock in what you say even without the office of absolute monarch. I’m not sure whether to argue for fate here; Greek drama favors influences beyond the sphere of human influence (either through all-powerful fate or godly intervention), but I personally don’t, and the text is deeply rooted in the ambiguity of fate and free will. Oedipus is offered at least three solid outs: first by Kreon asking if he would like to discuss the oracle’s prediction in private, then Teiresias’ obstinacy, and finally Jocasta’s attempt to cool him off after she puts things together just ahead of him. I wouldn’t count the shepherd, because Oedipus is monomaniacally committed enough at that point to use violence to find the answer he’s looking for; still, both Teiresias and Jocasta know what situation they’re objecting to, and so does the audience. Oedipus has a few reasonable points on the side of letting things be, but he doesn’t (well, really can’t) take them. Fate or not, his position dooms him.

In Professor Crawford’s lecture earlier today, he brought up the point that there is a negative side to enlightenment, which Oedipus personally experiences at the catharsis. He experiences this because he finds the truth. He finds the truth, more or less, because he’s got a fair bit of brainpower and an at least equivalent amount of arrogance, essentially situational tunnel vision. Thebes seems to have a bad run with stupid monarchs (Pentheus from The Bacchae has his head so far in the sand he hears the ocean in surround sound), but Oedipus counterbalances his foolishness with the drive and intellect to actually follow through on proposals, which are made as if to a god. Assuming the oracle is an accurate source of information, some ill of Thebes, plague or not, would be blamed on Laios’ death and the apparent stain that left on the city’s fate, and the limping king would have to play detective. Refuse, and fail as a monarch (although it’s doubtful that his pride would even allow the option); follow through, and lose everything. Oedipus dug his own grave well before the start of the play, and by the end, he’s ready to jump in.

The idiom “Black Sheep” is used to represent a member of the family or group who is the least reputable. In other words, the traits or behavior of this individual may not be that of which meet the group’s ideal standards and are therefore considered to be disgraceful.In the case of Oedipus’s twisted relationship with his family, he is the black sheep.

A prophecy stated to his parents that he would be the cause of both tragedy and turmoil:  a son murdering his own father and breeding with his beloved mother. This immediately led to the conclusion of disposing Oedipus as an infant, in order to prevent such possibility from occurring and  disrupting the kingdom and family’s opportunity to thrive.  Despite all efforts, the prophecy remained and gradually unraveled as Oedipus grew up to be the king of Thebes. Apollo realized Oedipus would have a negative influence on Thebes to some extent when he described the plague as a “disease that wastes all of you”(p.27).  Simply meaning, Thebes would continue to be riddled with plague and lack the ability to recover so long as Oedipus remained as its ruler.

When the truth of Oedipus’s origin is revealed, the ridiculousness of the prophecy presented before him causes him to pierce his own eyes and become blind. Sophocles describes Oedipus’s blood as a “black storm” (p.82) as if his bloodline is to be represented as a curse which muddies the host and all those around him. Furthermore, Teiresias calls Oedipus a “murderer” (p.40) which illustrates he is guilty for his lack of knowledge when he first committed incest and fulfilled the prophecy at last. It is also ironic and quite tragic how Oedipus desired “justice and vengeance” (p.291) for all of his people, and yet the truth revealed about his origin was much darker and unfair for his children than his own blindness. While Oedipus carries the burden of realizing he is the cause of his own misfortune,  it is his offspring who are forced to confront the reality of where their bloodline truly originates from. Even after his banishment and the plague vanishes, his children must carry the reputation of being disgraceful products of incest for a lifetime.