Sofocles’ Ajax and the Longinian sublime
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34624/agora.v0i27.42039Keywords:
Longinus, On the sublime, Sophocles, Ajax, hupsos, agōnAbstract
In On the Sublime, [Longinus] explains that the pursuit of textual excellence depends on an author’s attitude towards his superior peers from the past. This article builds on the examples with Ajax in that treatise to explore how Sophocles deals with the literary tradition, above all Homer, in the construction of the discursive performances of his protagonist in Ajax, a tragedy that is fundamentally agonistic not only because its starting point is the dispute between two heroes over the weapons of a third, but above all because the receiving audience is invited to engage vividly with the literary tradition thanks to the tragedy’s plot and Ajax’s poetic performance.
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