RITUALS IN SOPHOCLES - (A.) Brook Tragic Rites. Narrative and Ritual in Sophoclean Drama. Pp. xii + 237. Madison, WI and London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2018. Cased, US$99.95. ISBN: 978-0-299-31380-7.

Abstract

The argument seems more problematic in Electra: the spectators' 'identification process towards' the politides of Mycenae/Argos (p. 174) is accompanied by the 'blurring of the distinction between chorus and principals' (p. 176), both eventually conspiring to kill the oppressive rulers (p. 231). However, Sophoclean ironies cannot be ruled out. The collective viewpoint defined by the attitudes of a tragic chorususually as subjective and changing as those of other non-conventional human characterscould affect, but not necessarily represent any parts of the audience or their responses throughout a performance (as early nineteenth-century German philosophers thought). Chapter 3, 'Other Non-elite Characters', following the dating of the plays, describes mythical or anonymous free or slave women and men, such as messengers, from various social groups; it traces their important or auxiliary roles, their directly or indirectly defined, or unspecified, social status, and their typical or unconventional characteristics. Among the assumptions about the specific response that each personage could elicit from spectators of analogous status, I found it hardly plausible that the revengeful Paedagogue (allegedly not a slave) could appeal to middling and lower-status spectators of Electra as a model of authoritative stance (pp. 225-32); the Guard in Antigone as a source of encouragement for non-elite citizens (pp. 215-20) is an attractive suggestion. P. attempts to offer throughout a concrete picture of what we call spectator's identification (pp. 203-4 on A. Ubersfeld; in contrast, Aristotle, Poetics 1453a1-12). Yet comparable social status is only one out of various reasons that could make a spectator identify with a fictional figure during a scene. Moreover, Sophocles' tragediesand their ironiesdo not often seem to invite any spectator or group of spectators to identify with specific figures, but rather with attitudes and emotionsoften of contrasting characters. The book (with very few misprints, but repetitions in concluding sections) contains a brief general index and bibliography. Despite the historically and dramaturgically problematic focus on members of a middling group, it offers an original contribution to research on the 'imaginary' of non-elite Athenians as reflected in Sophocles' tragedies ('General Conclusion', pp. 247-51), by approaching from a socio-political perspective the attitudes of non-elite personages and choruses and their relations with others (though not relations between sexes, generations, humans and gods) in the dialogues and the plot. The volume is part of the discussion on varying forms and limits of 'realism' in the surviving Sophoclean texts, with respect to the socio-historical context, the characterisation of personages and related formal elements of the performance.