Helping Friends and Harming Enemies
A Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics

This book is a detailed study of five plays of Sophocles that examines a key ethical principle.

Mary Whitlock Blundell (Author)

9780521423908, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 26 July 1991

312 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.46 kg

'… this book will … have its well-deserved place among the important studies on the poet.' Mnemosyne

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.

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.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]