Tragedy and Homer

Tragedy and Homer

Having read Homer, what should you look for as you read tragedy.

Always remember that Homer is the most important elephant in the room when you are dealing with Greek literature.

Thus any similarities or material shared between a tragedy and Homer is certainly not accidental: the tragedian was inspired by or is reacting to Homer.

Some things to note about Homer, which you probably already know:

There is a lot of dialogue in Homer: he is very much drama - tic.
Homer focuses on fewer characters as a through-line: he has a plot with episodes and development and resolution.

other epics (epic cycle) were more chronologies without plot

Homer has very little magic

other epics had more

Basically Homer was a lot more like a stage play than the other epics.

Another thing, that you probably already know:

No single version of a legend or myth was 'authoritative': even Homer was not 'the truth' as opposed to others.
Others can be, but need not be, like fan-fiction of Homer.
Also, even in the time of Homer, we know that there were other versions: we know that from local traditions that show up later, from art, etc.

Tragedians took their cues about technique and narrative from Homer, but they took a lot of material (characters, events, etc.) from the epic cycle poems.
Thus when a tragedian changes the plot-line, it is not necessarily correcting or criticizing: it may be, but it need not be. It is in dialogue with/reaction to Homer, but in no way 'wrong.'

So, an interesting instance: when Aeschylus writes Myrmidons, which we have only very little information about, he makes Patroclus older than Achilles, he makes them lovers, and he makes Achilles that erastes (active) and Patroclus the eromenos (passive).
The basic outlines remain similar, and the outcome usually remains the same, but all details can be changed.
Tragedians are very much more interested in exploring the motivations of characters more explicitly than Homer was. The characters and the chorus very often reflect on motivations. Also, they were interested in conflicting motivations.

For instance, Iphigenia:

Homer barely grazes on mentioning her
Aeschylus in Agamemnon explores Agamemnon's anguish and motivation

also, Aeschylus ignores the story in the epic cycle that Agamemnon had boasted after a hunt that he excelled Artemis, and so Artemis held back the fleet.
He also ignores that Artemis supposedly rescued Iphigenia: the chorus describes the prep for sacrifice but says they did not see the deed: we don't really know from Aeschylus whether she died or not

Sophocles Electra has Clytemnestra justify killing Agamemnon because he killed Iphigenia and says that a child of Menelaus should have been offered instead: Electra in answer talks about Agamemnon's deer hunt and insult to Artemis.
Euripides writes two plays titled Iphigenia:

Iphigenia at Aulus: she is 'desperate and resourceful' and Artemis rescues her and makes her a priestess far away
Iphigenia at Tauris: She is innocent and scared and naive, an in the end a "resolute victim"

Another instance of obvious Homeric relevance, Sophocles' Ajax:

when Ajax says goodbye tohis son and hopes that he will be like his father, the scene is obviously reminiscent of the Homeric (Iliad 6) scene of Hector and Andromache and Astyanax in Troy: where Ajax' wife Tecmessa wants Ajax not to commit suicide but to protect her, it is similar to when Andromache wants hector not to go outside the walls but to protect her. In all, we will see that motivations are explored much more in Sophocles than they are in this Homeric scene.

A big difference between Homer and tragedy is that Homer is a pan-Hellenic phenomenon, whereas tragedy is Athenian, from Athens, from just one city state among hundreds.

Take the Oresteia, which starts with Agamemnon in Argos, on the Peloponnese, but ends with the Eumenides (aka The Furies) in Athens with the establishment of a distinctly Athenian court of justice, the Areopagus.

Another big difference is the ethical code and the governmental systems

We know that Homer has a mafia-like big-chief, no-laws-just-chiefs system dominated by honor and wealth
Athens had has a monarchy int he very distant past, and had tyrants in the more recent past relative to the Oresteia, and was at the time of the Oresteia a democracy
Another way they differ: in Homer, the women, as oppressed as they are, are less oppressed than it seems Athenian women were.
And yet, it seems that to the Greeks, those differences were not paramount: they saw continuity and often ignored possibly extreme other-ness of the Homeric world: they had a vested interest in seeing continuity and applicability (think of people who believe the same thing about the Bible today, albeit the Bible itself contains many different worlds, all of which are possibly extremely other than today's worlds.

Tragedy goes there when Homer does not

Tragedy is interested in the erotic and cruel: overall, Homer is far less interested
familial violence is the bread and butter of tragedy: in Homer it is toned down and not dwelt upon

In spite of the obvious inspiration tragedians drew from Homer, few of them challenged Homer on Homer's own ground: they did not tell the central stories of the plot of Iliad or Odyssey. They filled in.

But a few did: we don't have any of those today.
Aeschylus had Iliad and Odyssey, both done in trilogies.
Euripides apparently never went there.
Of the plays we will read, for instance, Sophocles' Philoctetes and Ajax both draw their plots from events in Aethiopis, part of the epic cycle.

Causality: divine, human, etc.

in odyssey, it seems that Athena and the gods will it that Odysseus return and slaughter the suitors, but Penelop sets it all up for him (the bow, the contest) and no god is in sight. So there's a question about who is responsible.
In Iliad, Zeus' will is to agree with Thetis to let the Trojans prevail, but the will of Zeus is really fulfilled and happens with consequences Achilles and Thetis did not intend (Patroclus), which provoked the killing of Hector, and also Sarpedon: that is all said to be 'fated' but it would not have happened if Achilles had not grown angry and Thetis had not asked Zeus for a favor: so is it the will of Zeus or fate? It's at least problematic
Tragedy LOVES to do this kind of thing: to tangle up causalities and blame and chance and responsibility: different characters give different accounts.

Prophecies

In the epics, prophecies do not drive the plot as much as in tragedy (but think of Calchas' prophecy and Chryseis and Briseis: also, Homer's version suggests that Calchas' prophecy was involved in Iphigenia's sacrifice)
In tragedy, prophecies are much more involved

Think of Cassandra in Agamemnon
Think also of the tale of the eagle and the hare early on about the sacrifice of Iphigenia: it is taken as an indication of Zeus divine assent to the Trojan War and also of Artemis' anger.

Recognition scenes: anagnorisis

Two types: immediate, who someone is is revealed.
Slow burn: personal realization

Achilles recognizes his folly when Patroclus is killed
Hector has realizations when he is about to die (that he has been tricked by a god, and earlier, that he should not have stayed outside the walls)

Tragedy likes to make the recognitions extremely dramatic:

Aeschylus' Clytaemnestra recognizes Orested when the chorsus says the dead slay the living
Sophocles' Electra mourns the supposed ashes of Orestes right before the recognition scene where she recognizes Orestes

in Euripides' Helen, there is a recognition that the real Helen sat out the war in Egypt

This requires a total revision of the understanding of the past.

Sudden change of fortune: peripeteia

in epic, the time frame is much larger

but the Odyssey, for instance, starts right at the time when Odysseus' fortunes turn

tragedy, on the other hand, mostly takes place within the space of a day or maybe even within a space of time that is only just a bit longer than the play itself.

Homer and tragedy: mostly high decorum

gods frequently intervene
monsters are on the margins
horses over donkeys/mules
blood, sweat, tears, very little poop, no farting or peeing
Eumaeus' pigs seem not to stink, but seals do: so some everyday reality instead of high decorum
Aeschylus' Agamemnon does talk about lice and mildew
trivial things not told about: no one forgets to tie their shoes or loses a helmet
drunkenness and insults appear once in a while, not often
tragedy has some colloquial speech (everyday, not elevated), such as when Clytemnestra calls Cassandra a histotribes.
set in remote past

humans bigger, stronger, better
elevated language