A New Companion to Greek Tragedy (Routledge Revivals) by Andrew Brown

Author:Andrew Brown [Brown, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Ancient, General, Literary Collections, Ancient & Classical, Literary Criticism, Drama, Performing Arts, Theater, History & Criticism
ISBN: 9781317808190
Google: EYw9BAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-08-07T01:24:09+00:00

I

Iacchus [ia′kus] A god worshipped at Eleusis with an annual torch-bearing procession, and often identified with Dionysus. The name suggests a word for ‘shout’, and may be connected with the ritual cries addressed to him.

iambics See verse.

Ida [i′da] A mountain, or mountain range, to the south-east of Troy, noted for its pine-forests. It was here that the Judgement of Paris took place. ‘Idaean’ [idē′an] can be used to mean ‘Trojan’. See also Beacon Speech.

Ilium [i′lium] See Troy.

imagery The kinds of figurative language that are used in Greek tragedy vary considerably from one dramatist to another, and also from one type of verse to another. In dialogue Sophocles and Euripides (to a much smaller extent Aeschylus) tend to avoid effects that are selfconsciously ‘poetic’ and might risk distracting attention from the large-scale movement of the drama. Sophocles shows great skill in the use of thoughtful but unobtrusive imagery that gently heightens and enriches the style of his dialogue; Euripides is more prepared to risk flatness and poetic cliché; while Aeschylus is less restrained, and admits into his dialogue the kind of bold and difficult imagery which the other tragedians confine to songs.

In lyrics Aeschylus and Sophocles (to a smaller extent Euripides) exploit a wide range of possibilities, ranging from strikingly metaphorical uses of single words to (occasionally) elaborate conceits sustained for several lines; for memorable examples of the latter see Aesch. Sept. 854-60 (lamentation as the propulsion of the ship of the dead), Ag. 431-44 (Ares as a ‘gold-changer’), Soph. OT 873-9 (personification of hybris), OC 1239-48 (Oedipus as a storm-beaten headland). Euripides to some extent compensates for the relative scarcity and conventionality of his similes and metaphors by skilful use of language that is sensuous and evocative without being figurative, especially in songs describing far-off places or the remote past (See chorus).

Patterns of imagery sustained through whole plays have been found in the work of all three tragedians, but in Sophocles and Euripides they are fairly inconspicuous. They are striking and important, however, in Aesch. Sept., where the different themes of the play are linked by the use of imagery taken from the sea and seafaring, and above all in the Oresteia, where such recurrent images as the net or robe, the hunt, the light in darkness, and the stain of blood, must be taken into account in any interpretation of the trilogy. The figurative and the literal can become difficult to separate in the Oresteia, as image and reality shed light on one another and physical objects – the House, the ‘carpet’, the robe – acquire symbolic significance.

imitation See mīmēsis.

Inachus [ī′nakus] The main river of Argos; personified as a king of Argos, son of Oceanus and father of Io.

India To the Greeks this was a land on the borders of the known world, and believed to be rich in gold.

Ino [ī′nō] Daughter of Cadmus; sister of Semele and others (Fig. 3). She nursed her nephew Dionysus in his infancy, and was therefore driven mad by the jealous Hera; she leapt into the sea and became a sea-goddess, having first, according to the version followed at Eur.

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