Two Plays of Sophocles

I just came across these super short summaries I wrote for Oedipus the King and Antigone. I might as well post them. Hopefully they will be useful the next time I/we read them:

Oedipus The King

Through investigation Oedipus is able to come to the realization that he himself is the cause of the plague that is afflicting Thebes.

Antigone

Creon is forced to come to grips with his own pride.

Aristotle's Ethics

It has been quite a while since I have posted to this blog. This was due to the fact that our group had not been meeting. Thankfully, we have recommenced.

On April 29th we discussed the first chapter of Aristotle's Ethics. Because of the length and complexity of the selection we used W.D. Ross's table of contents from his translation. This greatly aided our discussion .

The first book sets out to establish what the good for man is. Aristotle identifies this good with happiness and ultimately defines happiness either as 'life of the rational element' (1098^a 5). Life lived in line with a rational principle means that all one's actions are governed by this rational principle. The name for such a governing principle is virtue and so Aristotle says (1098^a 17):

...human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete.

Because happiness rests on the virtues most of the other books of the Ethics are a discussion of those virtues.

Answer to Second and Third Question

A continuation of this and this post.

2) Why not just start with Glaucon and Adeimantus's question?

The first book of The Republic is mostly a debate: Cephalus's "argument" is quickly dismissed, Polemarchus' "theory" is demolished, and Thrasymachus is debated at length (with little result). In the second book the debate is over - Glaucon and Adeimantus do not wish to engage in debate, rather, they seek the truth. In order to begin the search they try to make the best case possible for living an unjust life. Their goal is not to win an argument, but, to honestly investigate the question of whether living a just life is preferable to living an unjust life. However, as good as their method is it is only good for someone who believes their question is worth investigating. If you believe you already know what justice is you will not be interested in their question or at least you will not recognize the need for their question. This is why The Republic could not start with the question(s) of Glaucon and Adeimantus.

3) What is the significance of starting with Cephalus?

Cephalus is an old man. He believes living a just life is better than living an unjust life. However, he does not seem to know what justice is. At this point the reader should ask himself: do I want, or better can I want, to live a just life if I do not know what justice is? And, if I do not know what justice is can I say with certainty that living a just life is better than living an unjust life?

In other words, the discussion with Cephalus is meant to put the reader into a certain frame of mind - to begin reflecting on what is the best way of life. It is not until the end of one's life that one can truly judge whether he lived a good life or not. It is often hard for the young to think about ethical questions. By putting ourselves in Cephalus' shoes we hopefully can gain some of his perspective.

Adler Rex of Reading

This is some nice stuff Matt sent me. Enjoy!

A Few Tips on How to Read Imaginative Literature
- from Chapters 14 and 15 of Mortimer J. Adler's and Charles Van Doren's How to Read a Book

1) Don't try to resist the effect that a work of imaginative literature has on you.

While the goal of expository works is to communicate knowledge, the goal of imaginative literature is to communicate experience. Van Doren writes, "We learn from experience - the experiences that we have in the course of our daily lives. So, too, we can learn from the vicarious, or artistically created, experiences that fiction produces in our imagination." In order to gain from a work of imaginative literature, one must feel at home in the world created by the writer.

2) "Ideally, a story should be read at one sitting,"

Van Doren writes. If this is not feasible, "the ideal should be approximated by compressing the reading of a good story into as short a time as feasible. Otherwise you will forget what happened, the unity of the plot will escape you, and you will be lost . . . Read quickly, we suggest, and with total immersion."

3) Read out loud.

I can tell you from personal experience that this can be quite fun, especially with books in the style of Oedipus. Imagine the actors on stage and read it (in thought, if not in voice) as you imagine they would do it. Trust me, it helps.

4) A word about the Chorus:

(I'll just quote the whole paragraph): "One thing we do know about the staging of Greek plays is that the tragic actors wore buskins on their feet that elevated them several inches above the ground. (They also wore masks.) But the members of the chorus did not wear buskins, though they sometimes wore masks. The comparison between the size of the tragic protagonists, on the one hand, and the members of the chorus, on the other hand, was thus highly significant. Therefore, you should always imagine, when you read the words of the chorus, that the words are spoken by persons of your own stature; while the words spoken by the protagonists proceed from the mouths of giants, from personages who did not only seem, but actually were, larger than life."

Answer to First Question

This is a continuation of this post.

1) Why begin with Cephalus, Polemarchus and Thrasymachus?

Justice is a topic that most people think they understand. Most people would recoil at the suggestion that justice (or righteousness) requires definition. Rarely does one find a need to define justice to know how to live from day to day. One knows it is not just to steal, or injure one's friend, or lie. The elderly Cephalus believes he has lived his life justly so why should he define justice? The young Polemarchus does not feel any strong motivation to carefully analyze the meaning of justice and he is satisfied by quoting the beautiful though shallow saying of Simonides. The sophist Thrasymachus is motivated only to win the argument not to find the truth. Socrates demonstrates that each of these interlocutors' opinions do not stand up once forced to contend with real cases. Should one return something to a friend when it might cause him harm? Should one harm one's enemies even though it is wrong to harm anyone? Does might truly make right? What these three individuals have in common is that they believe they know what justice is. They need Socrates to demonstrate to them (and to us, as the readers) that they indeed do not know. By beginning The Republic with the arguments of these three individuals Plato demonstrates the need to carefully examine justice and also enables the reader to come to the realization that he himself does not know what justice is.

Next Reading

Matt sent me the following e-mail:

Each play is about 12-15 pages long, but - at least, for me - each page shall take a harder tyme to reade for it was wrot' in an olde form of Aenglish. Furthermore, although I agree that reading more is better in some ways, I'd also like the opportunity to read through each selection two or three times before the discussion, and I don't think I'll have the time to do so if we read both of these plays. Lastly, according to The Great Ideas Program, "It is unfair to Antigone to read it in conjunction with Oedipus the King. It is almost certain to be compared with the other tragedy; and what should be considered as a superb tragedy in its own right will probably always suffer by comparison with Oedipus the King." In other words, it seems these two plays were only juxtaposed because they are in the same genre, but there doesn't seem to be a common idea which unifies their plots.

For these reasons, I think it would be best to split up the readings.

I think everyone would agree. So, we will officially limit the reading to Oedipus the King.