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Topic: Ajax (Sophocles)


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In the News (Fri 10 Jul 09)

  
  Sophocles
SOPHOCLES was born in the autumn of 497 [B.C.], twenty-eight years after Aeschylus.
Sophocles was married to a wife named Nicostrata, by whom he became the father of Iophon.
Two portraits of Sophocles are known to have existed in ancient times -- the painting in the Stoa, in which he was represented as playing the harp, and which was probably the work of the fifth century; and the bronze statue erected in the theatre towards the close of the fourth.
www.theatredatabase.com /ancient/sophocles_001.html   (2686 words)

  
 Ajax (Sophocles) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
He pretends that he is moved by her speech, and says that he is going out to purify himself and bury the sword given to him by Hector.
Sophocles lets us hear the speech Ajax gives immediately before his suicide, in which he calls for vengeance against the whole Greek army.
Ajax's half brother Teucer intends on burying him despite the demands of Menelaus and Agamemnon that the corpse is not to be buried.
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Ajax_(Sophocles)   (380 words)

  
 Sophocles and His Tragedies   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-11)
Sophocles, with his just perception of the beautiful in art, effected an outward realization of the conceptions of the great master, exhibiting in perfect form before the eyes of Athens what the other had hewn out in rude masses from the mines of thought.
In the Antigone heroism is exhibited in a purely feminine character; in the Ajax, the manly sense of honor in all its strength.
In the Trachiniæ, or Women of Trachis, are described the sufferings of Hercules and the levity of Dëianeira, atoned for by her death; the Electra is distinguished by energy and pathos, and in the Oedipus at Colonus are a mildness and gracefulness suggestive of the character of the author.
www.theatrehistory.com /ancient/sophocles001.html   (1239 words)

  
 Ajax - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ajax (mythology), also known as Telamonian Ajax or Ajax the Great, a Greek hero and legendary king of Salamis who plays an important role in Homer's Iliad
Ajax (Sophocles), a tragedy by the Greek playwright Sophocles, whose main character is Telamonian Ajax
Ajax Records (Chicago), a Chicago-based record label active in the late 20th century
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Ajax   (318 words)

  
 Island of Freedom - Sophocles
Sophocles was born in Colonus Hippius (now part of Athens), the son of Sophillus, reportedly a wealthy armor-maker.
Sophocles' great dramatic achievement was to reinterpret the ancient myths through a fuller development of individual character and to endow surface detail with deeper symbolic significance.
Sophocles is considered by many modern scholars the greatest of the Greek tragedians and the perfect mean between the titanic symbolism of Aeschylus and the rhetorical realism of Euripides.
www.island-of-freedom.com /SOPHOCLE.HTM   (946 words)

  
 Ajax 1, Greek Mythology Link.
Ajax 1 was one of the SUITORS OF HELEN, and prominent among the ACHAEAN LEADERS.
Ajax 1 was part of the embassy, the others being Phoenix 2 and Odysseus, who went to see Achilles in order to convince him to rejoin the fighting.
Ajax 1 killed the Lycian Glaucus 3, and gave Achilles' arms to be taken to the ships, while he, under a shower of darts, carried the body, while being covered by Odysseus, who fought his assailants.
homepage.mac.com /cparada/GML/Ajax1.html   (899 words)

  
 Untitled   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-11)
Sophocles was a contemporary of both Aeschylus and Euripides, and the three lived during the "Golden Age" of Greece-the fifth century, B. Sophocles was born in 496 B. and died in 406, B. Of the three poets, he appears to have been the most successful during his lifetime.
Sophocles lived in a time of change, and characters in his plays struggle with issues of conflict within a moral order that is not always understandable.
Sophocles does not condemn the gods for the apparent injustice to Oedipus; rather, he presents a man who suffers in a world that is often unjust.
www.mc.maricopa.edu /~burke/ENH250/Class/assign/Sophocles.htm   (2068 words)

  
 DIDASKALIA: Ancient Theater Today
Ajax was the better warrior, but Odysseus was the better negotiator, and in a way, awarding the arms to Odysseus was a vote for the arts of peace.
Ajax committed suicide from the shame of losing the arms, and further shame because Athena made him temporarily mad to stop him from killing the Greek leaders who had deprived him of his prize (Achilles' arms).
Ajax's death was reminiscent of the suicide of Japanese heroes who committed Hara-kiri: Ajax knelt as he prepared for death, and when he fell on his sword, we had no doubt a hero was dying.
www.didaskalia.net /issues/vol3no1/mcdonald.html   (709 words)

  
 Ajax Summary & Essays - Sophocles
The hero of the play, Ajax, illustrates the uncompromising nature of the noble warrior; yet at the same time, he also represents the failings of excess pride, or hubris.
Ajax believes that he deserves the armor of Achilles, and he is unable to accept that another warrior has been chosen as more worthy.
Ajax is a great hero, but he is rigidly defined as the old-fashioned hero—uncompromising and unable to recognize his own weaknesses.
www.enotes.com /ajax   (299 words)

  
 Malaspina Great Books - Sophocles (c. 495 BCE)
The date assigned for the poet's birth is in accordance with the tale that young Sophocles, then a pupil of the musician Lamprus, was chosen to lead the chorus of boys in the celebration of the victory of Salamis (480 n.e.).
As Sophocles has been accused of narrowing the range of tragic' sympathy from Hellas to Athens, it deserves mention here that, of some hundred subjects of plays attributed to him, fifteen only are connected with Attica, while exactly the same number belong to the tale of Argos, twelve are Argonautic, and thirty Trojan.
The proportion of the lyrics to the level dialogue is considerably less on the average in Sophocles than in Aeschylus, as might be expected from the development of the purely dramatic element, and the consequent subordination of the chorus to the protagonist.
www.malaspina.org /home.asp?topic=./search/details&lastpage=./search/results&ID=84   (6967 words)

  
 [No title]
In Ajax, while the title character is the subject of most of the dialogue and thematic material, Odysseus in the story is in my opinion the main protagonist, for several reasons.
Sophocles is using a familiar medium such as drama combined with familiar characters as a basis for this relatively new method of dispute resolution.
Sophocles could very well have not intended for such themes and analysis to be found in his play, however I would submit that these themes and intentions are nevertheless very possible and at least deserve consideration as possible motivations.
www.unc.edu /~dcummins/odysseus.doc   (1910 words)

  
 Postgraduate Conference Ancient Classics, Proceedings: Fitzpatrick
As the goddess leads Ajax on with her questions, the deluded hero reveals his belief that he has killed the Atreidae for their failure to honour him properly declaring; 'Let them deprive me of my arms, now that they are dead' (100).
It is important that Ajax only associates the goddess with his madness and failed attack, and that there is no mention of any previous example of her animosity or intervention such as judging or influencing the Contest.
It is significant that Sophocles is announcing a reason and duration for Athena's anger at this point in the play and it must go beyond her attitude in the prologue - he wanted explicitly to remove any further involvement of Athena in the fate of Ajax.
www.ucc.ie /acad/classics/pg_conferences/1999/fitzpatrick_pap.html   (4208 words)

  
 Ajax   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-11)
Ajax may be the earliest surviving play from Sophocles, perhaps from the 440s b.c.e.
Ajax's valor is recalled, as when he dismissed Athena from helping him in fighting.
Ajax appears near the seashore and has the sword Hector gave him as "a token of guest friendship" (38).
www.wsu.edu /~delahoyd/ajax.html   (428 words)

  
 Biography of Sophocles   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-11)
The career of Sophocles, c.497-406 BC, one of the three great tragic dramatists of ancient Greece, spanned the period of greatest political and cultural achievement in Athens.
Born of a wealthy family, Sophocles enjoyed the friendship of such leading political and intellectual figures as Pericles and Herodotus.
Ajax (c.465-450?), Sophocles' earliest extant play, dramatizes the uncompromising nobility, but also the rigidity, of the old heroic ideal.
www.honors.montana.edu /~oelks/TC/SophoclesBio.html   (860 words)

  
 CAMWS 2003: Rebecca Futo Kennedy
The trouble has come primarily from the fact that Ajax, dies mid-way through the play; his body lying on the middle of the stage to be wrangled over for 700 lines raises a few staging and dramatic challenges.
For Ajax is both and ally (according to Sophocles) and the embodiment of the heroic Marathonmaxoi and the sailors at Salamis in one.
Athena is vindictive and cruel and, though most scholars attribute her wanton desire to taunt Ajax to the Homeric ethic of “helping one’s friends and harming one’s enemies,” this does not, in fact work.
www.camws.org /meeting/2003/abstracts2003/kennedy.html   (427 words)

  
 Peter Sellar   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-11)
The entire plot of Ajax (Greek Aias mastigophoros) is constructed around Ajax, the mighty hero of the Trojan War whose pride drives him to treachery and finally to his own ruin and suicide some two-thirds of the way through
Ajax thereupon attempts to assassinate Odysseus and the contest's judges, the Greek commanders Agamemnon and Menelaus, but is frustrated by the intervention of the goddess Athena.
Something I found very interesting was that the character of Ajax is supposedly deaf, and that Sellars chose, for its initial 1986 run at least, a deaf actor to play the role (McDonald, p 86).
www.ripon.edu /Academics/Theatre/THE231/ClevelandJ/Greek/peter_sellar.htm   (500 words)

  
 Ajax   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-11)
Tecmessa, his wife, begs Ajax not to leave her unprotected: "With my little son I should be made serve, and must bear the bitter taunt that I--once consort of the bravest--should fall so low.
Ajax asks for his son, whom, he says, his uncle, Teucer, with his comrades in arms, shall lead back home, to comfort his father and mother in their declining years.
It is not the fatal culmination of melancholy, as is often the case in modern times; nor is it the mere disgust of life, grounded on the conviction of its worthlessness, which induced many of the Romans to shorten their days.
www.theatrehistory.com /ancient/bates023.html   (1947 words)

  
 Scholia Reviews ns 14   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-11)
The deal is stated to be that 'Each volume discusses the main themes of a play and the central developments in modern criticism, while also addressing the play's historical context and the history of its performance and adaptation'.
On page 12, for example, in connection with Sophocles' life, we're given the party line that 'it is very hard to disentangle truth from falsehood in the biographies and anecdotes about the three Attic tragedians which proliferated from the third century BC onwards.
He offers an overall picture of the Sophoclean Ajax figure which is, I believe, well-balanced, in that it doesn't overlook the problems of attitude and behaviour associated with him (Hesk cautiously allows, for example, for a degree of out-and-out hubris in the hero [pp.
www.classics.und.ac.za /reviews/05-24hes.htm   (1325 words)

  
 Ajax synopsis   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-11)
The tale begins while Odysseus is searching for Ajax, whom he believes has killed a herd of cattle over the night.
She calls Ajax from his tent, and reveals that he truly is possessed.
In the next episode, Ajax is seen alone with Hector's sword in front of him.
www.bc.edu /bc_org/avp/cas/ashp/NEWhp252/newrones/asynopsis.html   (232 words)

  
 Ajax (Sophocles)
It chronicles the fate of the warrior Ajax the Greatt after the events of the Iliad and the Trojan War.
After his folly is finally revealed, Ajax leaves home disgraced and plans to kill himself.
Ajax buries the sword given to him by Hector with the blade sticking out of the ground and falls on it.
www.mlahanas.de /Greeks/LX/AjaxSophocles.html   (451 words)

  
 Amazon.fr :  Aias(Ajax): Ajax : Livres en anglais   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-11)
I have always thought of the character of Ajax from the Trojan War to be the prototype of the "dumb jock" stereotype.
For Odysseus, and for Sophocles, it is clear that such a man deserves to be considered a hero and demands an appropriate burial.
"Ajax" is a minor play by Sophocles, relative to what little has survived of his work, but it does speak to one of the playwright central themes, which is to find that which is heroic in a tragic situation.
www.amazon.fr /exec/obidos/ASIN/0195128192   (1201 words)

  
 Amazon.com: Ajax [DOWNLOAD: ADOBE READER]: e-Books & Docs   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-11)
Ajax's inability to accept that Odysseus could be awarded the armor of Achilles instead of him, Ajax's rationalization that Odysseus could only achieve such an award by scheming against him, and Ajax's unwillingness to admit his mistakes to his superiors, all seem like things that only someone totally foolish would do.
Ajax is the perfect example of what happens to a man when he does not take God into consideration before an endevour.
Ajax is the classical Greek tragedy about the downfall of a man who is sinned against and has a tragic flaw; in this case, insolence and pride.
www.amazon.com /exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0002W60SW?v=glance   (1728 words)

  
 ajax | English | Dictionary & Translation by Babylon
Ajax was a huge man, head and shoulders larger than the other Greeks, enormously strong but somewhat slow of speech.
When Achilles had withdrawn from the fighting at Troy, it was Ajax who went forth to meet Hector in single combat; by the time darkness fell the fight was still a stalemate, but Ajax had wounded Hector without sustaining injury himself After Achilles' death, Ajax competed with Odysseus for the ownership of Achilles' armor.
ajax to French ajax to Italian ajax to Spanish ajax to Dutch ajax to Portuguese ajax to German ajax to Russian ajax to Japanese ajax to Hebrew ajax to Additional
www.babylon.com /definition/ajax   (433 words)

  
 Riley Collection: Greeks: Sophocles
The seven that have survived (Ajax, Antigone, Electra, Oedipus Tyrannus, Oedipus at Colonus, The Women of Trachis, Philoctetes) are an amazing legacy which still possesses vitality and relevance almost 2500 years after their creation.
This would have been painted while Sophocles was alive, but it is not clear that he actually sat for Polygnotus.
Type I Sophocles wears a fillet about his head and appears older than Type II; there are also differences in the treatment of the eyebrows, beard and hair.
www.vroma.org /~riley/sophocles/portrait_cc.html   (610 words)

  
 Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2004.05.10
The next part of the chapter deals with the relationship between Ajax and the epic tradition, where the majority of the attention is, unsurprisingly, on the intertextual relationship with the Homeric epics (pp.27-34).
The concentration on the deception speech and, to a lesser extent, the suicide is at the expense of the intervening scene in which a Messenger arrives and reports Calchas' explanation of Ajax's madness and Athena's one-day anger.
Even if Sophocles were "for a while as important as a cabinet minister in the United Kingdom" (p.13), he does not appear to have been held in as little esteem as a British cabinet minister.
ccat.sas.upenn.edu /bmcr/2004/2004-05-10.html   (2555 words)

  
 outline13.html
Ajax saved his cousin Achilles' body on the battlefield when Apollo and Paris killed him, and believed he should have the famous armor.
Ajax went mad and killed a herd of cattle in the belief he was killing all the Achaean leaders, then in shame killed himself.
This play is a "prequel"; Sohocles had earlier written a wildly successful "Teucer in Salamis," in which the audience cheered for and wept over the maligned half brother sent into exile by his merciless father on his return.
ccwf.cc.utexas.edu /~davida/cc303/outline13.html   (983 words)

  
 Jeff Smith's Theater Review | www.sdreader.com
Ajax plummets from zenith to nadir, then falls on his sword.
Famous for writing about people not as they are but "should be," Sophocles looks past Ajax's foibles, which may have been Athena-inspired, and stresses his nobler achievements.
Sophocles wrote that Fortune's Wheel could ruin a life in an instant.
www.sdreader.com /php/smith_show.php?id=20060119   (1022 words)

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