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The Materialities of Greek Tragedy

Weapons as Friends and Foes in Sophocles’ Ajax and Euripides’ Heracles

Publication ,  Chapter
Weiberg, E
August 1, 2018

Sophocles’ Ajax and Euripides’ Heracles stage a warrior’s suicide and rejection of suicide, respectively, as confrontations with weapons as material friends and foes. Drawing connections between recent work on moral injury and the new materialist concept of the assemblage, this essay examines the social, material, and affective forces at play in these warriors’ responses to their traumatic loss of philia (friendship/kinship). Each play locates the warrior’s encounter with loss in re-enactments of past conflict staged by weapons. Through their interactions with these material friends and foes, Ajax and Heracles model two different responses to traumatic loss that parallel Freud’s categories of “acting out” and “working through.” The theatrical performance of these responses carved out a space in fifth-century Athenian life for reflection on the tension between one’s obligations to friends and family and military service for the polis.

Duke Scholars

ISBN

978-1350028791

Publication Date

August 1, 2018

Start / End Page

63 / 78

Publisher

Bloomsbury Academic
 

Citation

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Weiberg, E. (2018). Weapons as Friends and Foes in Sophocles’ Ajax and Euripides’ Heracles. In M. Telò & M. Mueller (Eds.), The Materialities of Greek Tragedy (pp. 63–78). London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Weiberg, Erika. “Weapons as Friends and Foes in Sophocles’ Ajax and Euripides’ Heracles.” In The Materialities of Greek Tragedy, edited by Mario Telò and Melissa Mueller, 63–78. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.
Weiberg E. Weapons as Friends and Foes in Sophocles’ Ajax and Euripides’ Heracles. In: Telò M, Mueller M, editors. The Materialities of Greek Tragedy. London: Bloomsbury Academic; 2018. p. 63–78.
Weiberg, Erika. “Weapons as Friends and Foes in Sophocles’ Ajax and Euripides’ Heracles.” The Materialities of Greek Tragedy, edited by Mario Telò and Melissa Mueller, Bloomsbury Academic, 2018, pp. 63–78.
Weiberg E. Weapons as Friends and Foes in Sophocles’ Ajax and Euripides’ Heracles. In: Telò M, Mueller M, editors. The Materialities of Greek Tragedy. London: Bloomsbury Academic; 2018. p. 63–78.
Journal cover image

ISBN

978-1350028791

Publication Date

August 1, 2018

Start / End Page

63 / 78

Publisher

Bloomsbury Academic