Sophocles and the Greek Language: Aspects of Diction, Syntax and Pragmatics

by Irene J.F. de Jong (Editor)

This volume offers an extensive overview of the various ways in which Sophocles use of the Greek language is currently being studied. Greatly admired in antiquity, Sophocles style only became a serious subject of investigation with Campbells Introductory essay On the language of Sophocles (1879).

Fourteen chapters, divided into three sections (diction, syntax, pragmatics), discuss the linguistic register and use of gnomai in Ajax deception speech, Homeric intertextuality, the style of the Sophoclean satyr-plays in relation to tragedy and comedy, the relation between the repetition of words and focalization, the language of blindness, the image of fire, the use of deictic pronouns, the semantics of the middle-passive and of counterfactuals, the historic present and the constitution of the text, the suggestive power of descriptions, speech-acts, and strategies of politeness.

286 pages, Hardcover

First published October 31, 2005