These hours of backward clearness come to all men and women, once at least, when they read the past in the light of the present, with the reasons of things, like unobserved finger-posts, protruding where they never saw them before. The journey behind them is mapped out, and figured with its false steps, its wrong observations, all its infatuated, deluded geography.Henry James,The Bostonians, ch. xxxixThis paper is intended to contribute to the study of both Homer and Greek tragedy, and more (...) particularly to the study of the influence of the epic upon the later poets. The current revival of interest among English scholars in the poetic qualities of the Homeric poems must be welcomed by all who care for the continuing survival and propagation of classical literature. The renewed emphasis on the validity of literary criticism as applied to presumably oral texts may encourage a more positive appreciation of the subtlety of Homeric narrative techniques, and of the coherent plan which unifies each poem. The aim of this paper is to focus attention on a number of elements in Greek tragedy which are already present in Homer, and especially on the way in which these poets exploit the theme of knowledge—knowledge of one's future, knowledge of one's circumstances, knowledge of oneself. Recent scholarship on tragedy has paid much more attention to literary criticism in general and to poetic irony in particular: these insights can also illuminate the epic. Conversely, the renewed interest in Homer's structural and thematic complexity should also enrich the study of the tragedians, his true heirs. (shrink)

This article looks at the complexity of the thought processes that lead Seneca's Oedipus to choose the mors longa of blindness as punishment for his crime. It offers an analysis of the consolation of this existence on the threshold between life and death, notably with reference to the end of the Oedipus, but also of the sorrow of this liminal existence. The latter is described in Seneca's Phoenissae, which suggests an escape, by death stricto sensu, from the threshold represented by (...) blindness, by which Oedipus now feels trapped.By examining these three topics, the article shows how the threshold between life and death which Oedipus chooses at the end of Seneca's Oedipus and experiences in the Phoenissae mirrors the ambivalence and the errors of his life before he blinded himself. Ultimately, it also illustrates Oedipus’ continuing failure to achieve self-knowledge. (shrink)

Lykaon est changé en loup pour avoir sacrifié un enfant nouveau-né à Zeus Lykaios; après lui, chaque année un homme serait transformé en loup sur le Lycée. Ces traditions ont d’abord été mises en rapport avec un dieu loup honoré par une confrérie de loups-garous. Puis l’interprétation « initiatique»s’est imposée : les lycanthropes, dont Lykaon fournirait le parangon, seraient une classe d’âge soumise à une initiation tribale. Maintenant, l’intérêt se porte sur Lykaon, pour son ambivalence « civilisé/sauvage » : sa (...) « transgression » des règles de la civilisation est punie d’une « régression » à l’état de bête. Kallisto, séduite par Zeus et mère d’Arkas, est métamorphosée en ourse. Elle a d’abord été considérée comme l’hypostase d’une déesse ourse Artémis, puis comme un modèle mythique pour l’initiation des adolescentes. Actuellement, on insiste sur sa « transgression » de la loi d’Artémis, qui provoque sa « régression » à l’état sauvage. Pour Lykaon et Kallisto les interprétations ont évolué parallèlement; la diversité des approches successives ne participe-t-elle pas plus ou moins d’une mode? (shrink)