Noble birth in Sophocles’ plays

This dissertation studies the theme of good breeding in five of Sophocles’ extant plays, as well as incorporating a discussion of the relevant fragments. The theme is contextualised against its literary-philosophical as well as political background to better understand Sophocles’ unique stance and h...

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Main Author: Mac Mahon, Seymour Mark
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/78683/
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author Mac Mahon, Seymour Mark
author_facet Mac Mahon, Seymour Mark
author_sort Mac Mahon, Seymour Mark
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description This dissertation studies the theme of good breeding in five of Sophocles’ extant plays, as well as incorporating a discussion of the relevant fragments. The theme is contextualised against its literary-philosophical as well as political background to better understand Sophocles’ unique stance and his motive for engaging so thoroughly with the theme. The thesis is that Sophocles, with certain qualifications, believes that excellence could be transmitted by heredity, and because the Greek conception of excellence always has a strong socio-political element, the implication in the plays is that those of good breeding, who had been marginalised by the democracy but were capable of providing much benefit, need to be reintegrated into Athenian political society.
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spelling nottingham-786832024-12-10T04:40:04Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/78683/ Noble birth in Sophocles’ plays Mac Mahon, Seymour Mark This dissertation studies the theme of good breeding in five of Sophocles’ extant plays, as well as incorporating a discussion of the relevant fragments. The theme is contextualised against its literary-philosophical as well as political background to better understand Sophocles’ unique stance and his motive for engaging so thoroughly with the theme. The thesis is that Sophocles, with certain qualifications, believes that excellence could be transmitted by heredity, and because the Greek conception of excellence always has a strong socio-political element, the implication in the plays is that those of good breeding, who had been marginalised by the democracy but were capable of providing much benefit, need to be reintegrated into Athenian political society. 2024-12-10 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en cc_by https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/78683/1/Mac%20Mahon%2C%20Seymour%2C%2020326040%2C%20corrected%20version.pdf Mac Mahon, Seymour Mark (2024) Noble birth in Sophocles’ plays. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. noble birth sophocles plays literature
spellingShingle noble birth
sophocles
plays
literature
Mac Mahon, Seymour Mark
Noble birth in Sophocles’ plays
title Noble birth in Sophocles’ plays
title_full Noble birth in Sophocles’ plays
title_fullStr Noble birth in Sophocles’ plays
title_full_unstemmed Noble birth in Sophocles’ plays
title_short Noble birth in Sophocles’ plays
title_sort noble birth in sophocles’ plays
topic noble birth
sophocles
plays
literature
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/78683/