Study Questions

file in progress - perennially

The study questions in this file will be updated through the course of the semester. Keep watching this space!

Monday 11 March

• Compare and contrast Aristotle's perspective on the Athenian tragedies he discusses in the Poetics to what fifth-century Athenian poets and their audiences seem to have thought were important about them. What can Aristotle show us about fifth-century tragedy, and what is he likely to neglect?
  • When did he live and think about tragedy?
  • What was Aristotle's personal background, and how did it shape his general orientation towards intellectual activity?
• What specific problem inspired Aristotle to study Poetics?
  • Who posed the challenge?
  • What position on how literature works and why it matters did he take? How does this position relate to broader philosophical concerns?
• Trace how Aristotle sets up his problem in the Poetics, so that he can both address the challenge to which he is responding, and leave room for a more positive interpretation of what literature (tragedy in particular) does.

• What does Aristotle define as the best type of plot for a tragedy? What is it about these characteristics that make him prefer this type of plot: what goal is Aristotle trying to achieve? It will be helpful to think both about the positive suggestions Aristotle makes, and about the reasons why he identifies certain types of plot-element as "errors": why are they problematical for him?
• What does Aristotle define as the best type of character for a tragedy? What is it about these qualities that make him prefer this type of character: what goal is Aristotle trying to achieve?
• What does Aristotle mean by "diction" in tragedy? Why is it important?
• How does Aristotle compare epic to tragedy? What functions and goals do the two literary forms share?

Wednesday 13 March

• What does Aristotle means by catharsis (literally, "purification") when he applies that term to the effect of tragedy on the audience? Be able to justify your definition by explaining how the model of catharsis you understand fits in with Aristotle's larger strategies of understanding literature and humanity.
• How does tragedy, on Aristotle's view, achieve catharsis? (Think both about what Aristotle says, and about how you can apply his model to specific tragedies we have read.) How does the goal of catharsis influence Aristotle's prescriptions for what makes a tragedy "good" at achieving what he understands to be its essential goals?
• What pattern of events, and what pattern of moral choice producing those events, does Aristotle assume to produce plots that will best excite pity and terror? How does the concept of "reversal", peripeteia, fit in: what does Aristotle mean by this concept, and why is it a particularly affecting device of plot? Think of examples in the plays we have read, as a basis on which to critique Aristotle's assumptions.
• How does the concept of "error", hamartia, contribute to what Aristotle regards as the effective operation of plot? What does Aristotle mean by this concept, and why would it help make plots more emotionally affecting? Think of examples in the plays we have read, as a basis on which to critique Aristotle's assumptions.

• Who is Philoctetes? Why is he on Lemnos? Why does Neoptolemus need to bring him to Troy?
• How does Odysseus analyze Philoctetes' situation and likely emotions? How does Odysseus propose to deal with what he foresees?
• How does Sophocles portray Neoptolemus? What are his goals?
• What indications does the play give about the history and status of Philoctetes' bow and arrows?

Friday 15 March

• What central conflict drives the plot of Philoctetes? How does the prospect of returning Philoctetes to the Greek army threaten the integrity of Neoptolemus's relationship with Philoctetes? What relationships and integrities are threatened by the prospect of his not returning? How do these threats generate the emotional engagement of this play (in Aristotle's terms, how do they provoke pity and terror)?
• What serves as the hamartia within this play, on Aristotle's model of analysis? Explain how it connects to the generation of pity and terror.
• What are the religious and social consequences of Philoctetes' wound? How has it affected his capacity to realize his own fate?

• Trace the path of Neoptolemus's decisions what to do. What considerations motivate him initially? What conception of himself does he hold, on what principles is it based, and how does it affect his motivation to choose one course of action or another?
• What good does Odysseus seek by acting as he does: how does he justify his conduct? Apart from the fact that Philoctetes and Neoptolemus don't like Odysseus's choices, does the action of the play show that they are in any way self-defeating?
• Why does Neoptolemus's final attempt to persuade Philoctetes fail? Why does Philoctetes' persuasion of Neoptolemus succeed?
• How is the conflict resolved?

Monday 18 March

• Working from self-interest as a commonsense basis and adding in the principle of reciprocity, ancient Greek popular morality normally considered "help your friends, harm your enemies," a serviceable principle to be going on with. Analyze how Odysseus, Neoptolemus, and Philoctetes each use this principle to choose their actions and reactions towards one another. Does this principle adequately explain each of their motivations, throughout the play? Where does it break down? Where does Philoctetes show the consequences of "help your friends, harm your enemies" as running into contradictions?
• How does the action of Philoctetes show the principle, "help your friends, harm your enemies," as contradicting with self-interest? How is the impasse resolved? What ethical operations are involved in the resolution: what makes the ending of Philoctetes integrally related to the play as a whole, not just an add-on (think about considerations besides the ethical problem, too)?
• How does Sophocles work your sympathies over the course of Philoctetes? How does your emotional response correlate with the ethical problems of the play?

• What principles does Antigone claim to be upholding, in acting as she does? What criteria does she use to determine whether or not she will consider someone as friendly towards her, so that she will defend their relationship in return?
• What principles does Creon claim to be upholding, in acting as he does? What criteria does he use to determine whether or not he will consider someone as friendly towards him, so that he will defend their relationship in return?
• On what basis does Ismene choose to act as she does? Compare and contrast her motivations to Antigone's.
• On what basis does the Sentry choose to act as he does? How do his motivations relate to Creon's?

Wednesday 20 March

• What important parallels can you identify between the way Sophocles handles his mythology and dramaturgy in Antigone and other plays we have read? Think about how the plot is set up, think about how characters are deployed, think about what themes are emphasized and how. What aspects of the treatment are starting to appear as distinctively Sophoclean? What aspects are important to Athenian tragedy generally? What are broad cultural concerns?
• How solid does Antigone's commitment to her family appear to be? What does she do or say that makes you judge her this way? What broad cultural concerns does she invoke, and what specific acts trigger her reactions?
• What ideals does Creon claim to uphold? How well do his behavior, and the reactions to him other characters show, bear out his claims?
• How does the Chorus react to Creon's decree? What issue appears to concern them most?

• Review our readings and your class notes in light of the study questions from individual days (this file, above, and Study Questions from before midterm break) and the general Study Guide for this exam: what are some of the most important issues in Aeschylus's, Sophocles', and Euripides' tragedies, and in Aristotle's analysis of tragedy in general? What do the plays, and the treatise, tell us about these issues? Do you still agree with the conclusions we drew in class meetings? Why or why not? What evidence supports your interpretations now?
• Be prepared to cite specific, concrete details from the individual plays and treatise in order to support the conclusions you now draw.
• Be prepared to explain specifically and logically how this evidence supports your arguments.
• Bring a couple of clear-writing pens or pencils, so you will have backup. I will supply blue books.
• Good luck!

Friday 22 March

• CONGRATULATIONS! You have completed the second examination.
• Keep thinking about the exam questions: in an even-more-perfect world, what more could you say about these topics? You will have other opportunities to tie in these themes again.

• What does Creon expect from Haemon? Why?
• What does Haemon expect from Creon? What does Creon's dispute with Antigone do to the relationship between father and son?
• What does Eurydice expect from Creon? What does Creon's dispute with Antigone do to the relationship between husband and wife?
• What does the Chorus expect from Creon? What does Creon's dispute with Antigone do to the relationship between ruler and people?

Monday 25 March

• What qualities does the action of Antigone show Antigone and Creon both display? In what ways are they corresponding opposites? In relationship to what larger communities do they each define their own positions?
• How do the outcomes of Antigone's and Creon's choices and actions suggest criticisms of the positions they each take? How well, in the event, do they each support the relationships they each conceive of themselves as defending? In what respects do they fall short?
• What is wrong with failing to bury a corpse? How are family members, citizens of the community, and the supernatural order each concerned in the proper disposition of the living and the dead?
• Antigone chooses the path of death knowingly. The audience knows it from the first moment she reports Creon's decree. In what ways does her choice suit the peculiar nature of her family? What possibilities does Antigone leave open for Ismene?

• How did Apollo form his relationship with Admetus? Trace the whole history of his dispute with Zeus: what cosmic rules of human existence were violated, and how does divine authority respond to that violation? What has Admetus done for Apollo, nevertheless: what cosmic rules of human existence has he upheld?
• How does Alcestis understand her relationship with Admetus? What does she do for him, and on what basis? What does she expect him to do for her, in return? How does the household assess in the way she has chosen to fulfil her relationship?
• How does Admetus describe the situation of his household to Heracles? How far are his words technically accurate? How much does he conceal? What is his purpose in (to this extent) misrepresenting what is really happening in his household?

Wednesday 27 March

• What was a satyr-play? How did it fit in with the festival competition of tragedies in Athens? Think both about the technical definition of satyr-plays and about what plot-material and themes seem to have been typical. What is meant by the term "prosatyric"?
• What does Alcestis's choice of death mean to her, and how does the play Alcestis show what it means? What pragmatic and emotional reasons motivate her choice? What does Alcestis's choice mean to Apollo? to Death? to Admetus? to the other members of Admetus's household?
• How has Admetus's exemplary respect for the rules governing human existence come to place him in such an agonizingly conflicted position? What rules are still being observed, and how far are they being bent? How does he benefit? How is he hurt?
• What brings Heracles into connection with the events of Admetus's household in Alcestis? What rules governing mortal life, vulnerability, and atonement are at work? How does Admetus treat Heracles?

• What accusations does Pheres make against Admetus? How fair are they? Look at how Pheres is mentioned before this scene: is he set up as a credible or honorable figure?
• How does Heracles learn who really died? How does he react to his knowledge?
• How does Heracles get Admetus to accept his "prize"?

Wednesday 3 April

• Trace the parallels between Admetus's dialogue with Pheres and Apollo's dialogue with Death: how do the two scenes measure Alcestis's sacrifice? In what ways do they make present in the performance of Alcestis ideas that would also operate in Heracles' encounter with Death?
• How is Heracles incorporated into the Alcestis's plot-line? Trace structural and thematic parallels as well as direct interactions. In what ways can Alcestis be understood as centering on Heracles' achievement?
• How does Admetus feel towards his own house, on returning from Alcestis's funeral? What does that show about him and his devotion to her? Trace parallels in Admetus's response to Heracles' "prize": why does he take on something he feels so painfully?
• How does Euripides create suspense and a sense of moral vindication in his drama?

• What do Poseidon and Athene want? How do they establish the starting-point for the Trojan Women? What else do they establish as context for the play?
• What will happen to Cassandra? How does Hecuba assess the decision? How does Cassandra react?
• What will happen to Andromache? How does she assess the decision? How does she reflect on marriage? What does Hecuba tell her about hope, and why?

Friday 5 April

• What associations with Troy do the figures of Poseidon and Athene bring to their conversation in the prologue of the Trojan Women? What associations with Athens do they bear? In what ways could Athens' recent and current activities resonate with the setting and action of the play?
• How does Hecuba identify herself with the city of Troy in its desolation? To what effects - in the way the audience is led to feel about Hecuba and in the way the audience is led to feel about Troy?
• How is Talthybius portrayed? How does his attitude to what he has to do reflect on the Greeks corporately?
• How does Cassandra combine imagery of marriage and death, celebration and mourning? How does she reinterpret her fate, differently from how the other characters interpret it? How convincing (to the audience, who does not suffer the other characters' impediment of not being able to believe Cassandra's prophecies) are the view that Cassandra expresses, in terms of the information the play presents overall? Why or why not?

• What will happen to Astyanax, Hector's and Andromache's son? Why? How does Andromache react?
• What is at stake in the argument that Helen and Hecuba present before Menelaus? What concepts of right and wrong does each woman rely on as she makes her case? How does it affect the way you perceive the scene playing, to know (as a mythologically-literate Athenian audience would know) that Menelaus and Helen do ultimately reconcile?
• What is left for Hecuba, at the end of the play? What has she lost? What does she retain?

Monday 8 April

• What decisions about policy does the Trojan Women associate with Odysseus? Compare and contrast to how Odysseus is represented in other tragedies we have read (note the dates and real-life context of these plays): to what extent is his character being used to represent a specific type of political decision-making? How does tragedy use mythological figures and stories to suggest a response to contemporary political concerns? Think of specific examples.
• Compare and contrast the way Helen presents her own involvement in the war and responsibility for it with what other characters say about her. How much is a matter of fact, and how much of interpretation? What judgments does rational consideration of fact suggest are fair? What judgments does the play suggest are made, fair or not?
• How does Euripides make use of the audience's knowledge of mythological events beyond the limits of what the Trojan Women actually presents as happening, to frame and color interpretation of events within the play?

• The Persians is unusual within the corpus of Athenian tragedies in taking a historical, rather than a mythological, story for its basis: reaction in the kingdom of Persia to the defeat of its invasion of Greece at Salamis in 480 BC. How does the play reflect its real-life setting? What mythological settings we have seen justify comparison with the Persians, and how do they compare?
• How does the exodos set up the context of events?
• What does Atossa anticipate? Why?
• What events does the Messenger report?

Wednesday 10 April

• Historical background to the Persians: briefly, who were Darius? Xerxes? Themistocles? What was important about the battles of Marathon? Salamis? Plataea?
• What use does Aeschylus make, in his play, of these figures and events? How does he focus the way he presents things that actually happened to bring out tragic qualities that could arrest his Athenian audience?
• How does Aeschylus use his catalogues of exotic Persian names? Note where concentrated passages use blocks of exotic names extensively. What effects do they have?

• What does the Ghost of Darius focus on as important facts in the destruction of Persian hopes against Greece? How does he counsel Atossa to treat Xerxes?
• What information does Xerxes contribute? What emotional reaction do he and the Chorus share?

Friday 12 April

• What factors does Aeschylus, in the Persians, suggest really caused Xerxes' defeat at Salamis? Make a list. How does he make the suggestions? What broader significance -for individuals and groups, Persian and Greek- does he imply through the idea that these factors were important?
• Who does Aeschylus put at the emotional focus of Persians? How? Why would an Athenian audience care sympathetically?
• How does the limitation of principal characters to a maximum of two individual actors at a time affect the dynamics of Persians? Compare and contrast to other tragedies we have read.

• Who is Hippolytus, by birth and by character? What problem in his behavior does Aphrodite identify? What does she propose to do about it?
• How closely does Hippolytus, in action, correspond to what Aphrodite says about him in the prologue?
• Who is Phaedra, by family and by individual character? How is she affected by her passion? What does she want to do about it? How does the Nurse trap her? What does the Nurse propose to do about Phaedra's condition? How does Phaedra react when she has done it?

Monday 15 April

• It seems to have been in his earlier, now lost, play of the myth of Hippolytus that Euripides shocked Athenians with his image of women's sexuality as such; what does he set up as the central thematic issue of this Hippolytus?
  • How does Euripides use the structures of his dramatic form to call the audience's attention to this theme?
  • Compare and contrast other examples of this type of conflict in the other tragedies we have read: how do our playwrights generate tragic engagement out of religious conflict? conflict of different sets of "rules for conduct"? What aspects of the conflicts do they seem especially to have expected audiences to be interested in?
• How does Euripides incorporate references to the mythological background of Hippolytus's and Phaedra's ancestry? Note that this background tends to "breed" the elements of the conflict into Hippolytus and Phaedra individually - as distinct from Euripides' approach in this play. What use does Euripides make of this background?
• How does Euripides portray the world of Hippolytus's life and preferred worship? Compare and contrast to the worlds of men's concerns we have seen in other plays.
• How does Euripides portray the world of women in Hippolytus? What assumptions about women's lives and concerns does the Chorus bring to its guesses about what Phaedra is suffering? Compare and contrast to the women's lives we have seen portrayed in other tragedies.

• Into what crisis does Theseus walk when he returns to Athens? What facts and what allegations does he confront immediately? What inferences does he draw?
• How does Hippolytus defend himself? Does he honor the vow he made to the Nurse, about which he famously (in the view of Athenians, later) said, "My tongue swore, but my mind was still unpledged"?
• To what extent does Artemis resolve the crisis? What remains unsolved?

Wednesday 17 April

• What ideas about the gods are held by the various characters in Hippolytus? How well are their beliefs supported by the action of the play? What positions on religious belief does Euripides seem to be supporting? Compare and contrast to other plays we have read.
• How does the theology of Hippolytus connect to the emotional engagement of the tragedy?
• Taking Hippolytus as a first example, but then also comparing and contrasting other plays we have read, what support can you find for characterizing Euripides as a tragedian of "realism"? In what aspects of his plays does Euripides use mundane, "realistic" images and attitudes? In what aspects does Euripides use non-"realistic" techniques?

• What objectives motivate Dionysus's trip to the Underworld?
• What figures do Dionysus and Heracles look to as they assess the prospects for tragedy at Athens following the deaths of Sophocles and Euripides? What observations do they make? What do they each think of the bits of "tragic" language they quote to one another?
• Compare and contrast the way Aristophanes presents the characters of Dionysus and Heracles to what we have seen of Dionysus and Heracles as characters in the tragedies we have read. Besides direct criticism (previous question), in what ways does Aristophanes use parody of tragedy as a comic device in the Frogs?

Friday 19 April

• How does the way comedy was written and performed at Athens in the fifth century compare to the way tragedy was written and performed? How do the two types of play compare in their use of characters, plots, and devices within the plays? How do they compare in their use of imagery and diction?
• Why should tragedy be of concern to an audience of comedy, as far as Aristophanes seems to have assumed? What aspects of tragedy does the Frogs treat as interesting or important?
• What reputations, does Aristophanes suggest in the Frogs, did Euripides and Sophocles enjoy among fifth-century Athenians? How much did their reputations have to do with their playwriting, and how much with their other interests and qualities?

• What contest does Dionysus have to judge? Who competes? Why is it they who compete?
• On what, exactly, are the competitors judged?
• What attitudes to one another do the competitors display?
• Who wins? Why does he win? What does he win?

Monday 22 April

• How does the fifth-century Athenian popular image of Euripides, on which Aristophanes is picking up, react to references in his tragedies to Sophistic thinking? Why were these ideas controversial? If you look closely at Euripides' tragedies, how does he make use of Sophistic ideas: does he advocate them, criticize them, or something more complex? Explain, identifying specific examples.
• What contrasts between Aeschylus's playwrighting and Euripides' does the Frogs focus on?
  • How accurate are the observations in this comic critique of both tragic playwrights: do the tragedies we have read bear out the tendencies Aristophanes' characters identify?
  • What effects are generated in Aeschylus's and Euripides' tragedies by the ways they each respectively use language (including precision of diction, meter, and imagery), argumentation, idealism, and the levels of empowerment and goals of their characters?
  • How does your experience of reading and thinking about the tragedies suggest that an ancient Athenian audience might have responded to them? How closely does the comic critique in the Frogs line up with what you supposed ancient reactions might have been: are the differences merely jokes Aristophanes is making to be funny, is Aristophanes showing up flaws in contemporary responses, or does Aristophanes reveal considerations about a fifth-century Athenian audience that your reading needs to take into account in order to capture their response better?
• Ultimately, on what does Dionysus rest his decision between Aeschylus and Euripides? How much does it have to do with their playwrighting per se? How much does it have to do with other considerations, and what are the most important of these considerations?

• What does Oedipus at Colonus suggest that Oedipus's experience has been since he discovered that he had killed his father and slept with his mother? Note that although Sophocles is returning to the same myth-cycle as he treated in Antigone and Oedipus the King, he doesn't necessarily harmonize all the details of his plots or background events as if specific historical truths were at stake.
• To what territory generally and to what specific place has Oedipus come? How does he learn this? What has he known about the place previously?
• What concerns for Oedipus's movements are felt back in Thebes? By whom? Why?

Wednesday 24 April

• What do Oedipus's history, and who and what that makes him, mean to the Chorus, when they first encounter him? What considerations are involved? What about to Oedipus? to Theseus? Compare and contrast how Oedipus's history and its significance are established in Oedipus at Colonus to how they are evaluated in Oedipus the King.
• How is Oedipus's relationship with his daughters portrayed in Oedipus at Colonus? What is shown about them? What is shown about him?
• How is Creon portrayed in Oedipus at Colonus? How is he contrasted with Oedipus? with Theseus? (This question will continue in the second half of the play, too.)
• What powers and qualities are associated with the Eumenides' grove at Colonus? Compare and contrast to Aeschylus's Eumenides, which serves (in part) as a charter myth for this real-life center of sanctity.

• How is Theseus portrayed in Oedipus as Colonus? On what ideologies and considerations does he base his decisions? How well do they work out: who benefits, at whose cost, and what sort(s) of cost(s)?
• How is Polyneices portrayed? What does he want? What will he do to get it? Compare and contrast Oedipus's and Antigone's reactions.
• How does Oedipus's life end?

Friday 26 April

• In what ways, does Oedipus at Colonus suggest, will Oedipus be transformed by his death? What type of power will he have? How does it relate to who he has been in life? Explain how Sophocles makes the connections, and what they imply about the relationship between human life and cosmic forces.
• What community will Oedipus's posthumous power benefit? Why, according to what Oedipus at Colonus shows? Explain the logic of the benefaction, in terms of ancient Greek ideas about social power and reciprocity, and the specific evidence of the play.
• How does Oedipus at Colonus show that Oedipus retains the integrity of his own will, despite the abject dependency he suffers in pollution, debility, and homelessness? Think especially about Oedipus's interactions with Theseus, Creon, and Polyneices. Why does Oedipus reject Polyneices: despite his exile, why is he still defending Thebes?

• Review our readings and your class notes in light of the study questions from individual days (this file, above, and Study Questions file 1), and the general Study Guide for the final exam: what are some of the most important concerns of classical Athenian tragedy? What do the individual plays we have read tell us about these concerns? Do you still agree with the conclusions we drew in class meetings? Why or why not? What evidence supports your current interpretations?
• Be prepared to cite specific, concrete details from the individual plays in order to support the conclusions you now draw.
• Be prepared to explain logically and specifically how this evidence supports your arguments.
• Bring a couple of clear-writing pens, so you will have backup. I will supply blue books.
• Good luck!

This file last updated 26 April 2002 by jlong1@orion.it.luc.edu.
http://www.luc.edu/depts/classics/