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Prophecy and persuasion: Tiresias in...

MacInnes, Deborah,

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Prophecy and persuasion: Tiresias in Greek tragedy /

Record Type:	Electronic resources : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Prophecy and persuasion: Tiresias in Greek tragedy // Deborah MacInnes.
Author:	MacInnes, Deborah,
Description:	1 electronic resource (303 pages)
Notes:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 57-09, Section: A.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International57-09A.
Subject:	Classical studies. -
Online resource:	https://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=9612468
ISBN:	9798208878644

Prophecy and persuasion: Tiresias in Greek tragedy /
MacInnes, Deborah,

Prophecy and persuasion: Tiresias in Greek tragedy /Deborah MacInnes. - 1 electronic resource (303 pages)

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 57-09, Section: A.

Tiresias appears in Sophocles' Antigone and Oedipus Tyrannus and in Euripides' Phoenician Women and Bacchants. The old, blind mantis always tells the truth, yet is always disbelieved. Because these attributes are consistent in each play, critics treat him as a stock character. But surely the advantage of a character with fixed attributes is the effect of alteration. This dissertation examines how the tragedians use the attributes to shape Tiresias' ethos, how their individual portraits illuminate themes and comment on the efficacy of prophecy, and how their manipulation of his attributes fulfill or deny the audience's expectations. Chapter one discusses the differences between literary and historical prophecy. Chapter two focuses on the liminal Tiresias in pre-tragic literature, after examining the attributes of other Homeric prophets. Chapter three discusses Aeschylus' Cassandra. In Antigone (chapter four), Tiresias plays a dual role; at first he is a warner-prophet come to offer advice. Insulted and defied, he becomes the inspired prophet, whose liminality qualifies him to condemn Creon's transgression. In the Oedipus (chapter five), Tiresias surprises the audience by being vindictive. His utterance of the truth does not enlighten Oedipus; rather it becomes a weapon in the struggle between the liminal prophet and the liminal king. A more accomplished rhetorician than prophet, Tiresias in the Phoenician Women (chapter six) has new props, which suggest that he does not speak the will of the gods, but rather his own when he argues for the sacrifice of Menoeceus. Since the sacrifice was Euripides' innovation, the audience has no way of knowing whether Tiresias tells the truth. For the first time, it is invited to disbelieve the prophet. The Tiresias of the Bacchants (chapter seven) at first seems patterned on that of Antigone. Yet he never becomes the inspired prophet. Liminal in appearance only, he can no longer prophesy; he has sacrificed his gift to rhetoric. The conclusion argues that Sophocles uses Tiresias to convey the idea that man's truth is a facade of false assumptions fabricated out of his ignorance and pride. Euripides uses him to illustrate that truth is unknowable.

English

ISBN: 9798208878644Subjects--Topical Terms:

2122826
Classical studies.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Aeschylus

Prophecy and persuasion: Tiresias in Greek tragedy /
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520 $a Tiresias appears in Sophocles' Antigone and Oedipus Tyrannus and in Euripides' Phoenician Women and Bacchants. The old, blind mantis always tells the truth, yet is always disbelieved. Because these attributes are consistent in each play, critics treat him as a stock character. But surely the advantage of a character with fixed attributes is the effect of alteration. This dissertation examines how the tragedians use the attributes to shape Tiresias' ethos, how their individual portraits illuminate themes and comment on the efficacy of prophecy, and how their manipulation of his attributes fulfill or deny the audience's expectations. Chapter one discusses the differences between literary and historical prophecy. Chapter two focuses on the liminal Tiresias in pre-tragic literature, after examining the attributes of other Homeric prophets. Chapter three discusses Aeschylus' Cassandra. In Antigone (chapter four), Tiresias plays a dual role; at first he is a warner-prophet come to offer advice. Insulted and defied, he becomes the inspired prophet, whose liminality qualifies him to condemn Creon's transgression. In the Oedipus (chapter five), Tiresias surprises the audience by being vindictive. His utterance of the truth does not enlighten Oedipus; rather it becomes a weapon in the struggle between the liminal prophet and the liminal king. A more accomplished rhetorician than prophet, Tiresias in the Phoenician Women (chapter six) has new props, which suggest that he does not speak the will of the gods, but rather his own when he argues for the sacrifice of Menoeceus. Since the sacrifice was Euripides' innovation, the audience has no way of knowing whether Tiresias tells the truth. For the first time, it is invited to disbelieve the prophet. The Tiresias of the Bacchants (chapter seven) at first seems patterned on that of Antigone. Yet he never becomes the inspired prophet. Liminal in appearance only, he can no longer prophesy; he has sacrificed his gift to rhetoric. The conclusion argues that Sophocles uses Tiresias to convey the idea that man's truth is a facade of false assumptions fabricated out of his ignorance and pride. Euripides uses him to illustrate that truth is unknowable.
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