Helping Friends and Harming Enemies: A Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics (Cambridge Classical Classics) - Hardcover

Blondell, Ruby

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1009465848 ISBN 13: 9781009465847

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2024

Synopsis

Sophocles is often considered the least philosophical of the three great Greek tragedians. However, Ruby Blondell offers a vital examination of the ethical content of the plays by focusing on the pervasive Greek popular moral code of 'helping friends and harming enemies'. Five of the extant plays are discussed in detail from both 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 tragic 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. This revised edition includes a contextualising new Foreword which engages with critical and scholarly developments in Greek drama since the original publication.

About this title

About the Author

Ruby Blondell (formerly known as Mary Whitlock Blundell) is Professor of Classics, and Adjunct Professor in Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies Emeritx at the University of Washington. They have published widely on Greek literature and philosophy, and on the reception of myth in popular culture. Their other books include The Play of Character in Plato's Dialogues (Cambridge, 2002), Helen of Troy: Beauty, Myth, Devastation (Oxford, 2013) and Helen of Troy in Hollywood (Princeton, 2023).

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1009465848
• ISBN 13: 9781009465847
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 316