Notes Introduction 1. The words I quote are from Ernesto Laclau, in ‘Ethics, Politics and Radical Democracy: A Response to Simon Critchley’. Cultural Machine, 4 (2002), the Ethico-Political Issue, which in my opinion convey the gist of Critchley’s initial essay, ‘Ethics, Politics and Radical Democracy: The History of a Dis- agreement’ (in the same issue of Cultural Machine). 2. Jacques Derrida, Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), p. 117, transla- tion slightly altered. Derrida refers here to Levinas’s view on the political. 3. Walter Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, trans. John Osborne (London: Verso, 1985), p. 115. 4. Martha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 127. 5. Here I am inspired by Roland Barthes, On Racine, trans. Richard Howard (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992), pp. 44–7 and Paul Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, trans. Emerson Buchanan (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967), pp. 212–20. 6. See Barthes, On Racine, pp. 44–7. 7. See, for example, G. W. F. Hegel’s Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), vol. 2, p. 1215. 8. See description of Chapter 3 above. 9. Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise than Being, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pitts- burgh: Duquesne University Press, 1998), p. 157. Chapter 1 1. Samir Amin, ‘Imperialism and Globalization’, Monthly Review 53.2 (June 2001), pp. 6–24. 2. See Paul Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, trans. Emerson Buchanan (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), pp. 118 and 120–1. 3. Jean-Pierre Vernant, Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece, trans. Janet Lloyd (New York: Zone Books, 1988), pp. 46–7 and 77. 4. Ibid., pp. 26–7. 5. Ibid., p. 89. 6. Ibid., p. 33. See also Benjamin, The Origins of German Tragic Drama, pp. 115–16. 7. Martha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness. Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 126. 8. See Vernant, Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece, p. 89. 9. Ibid., p. 90. 169 170 Notes 10. See ibid., p. 31. 11. Raymond Williams, Modern Tragedy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987), pp. 51–2. 12. Ibid., p. 53. 13. Ibid., pp. 52–3. 14. On the precariousness of will in Greek tragedy and society, see Vernant, pp. 49–84. On the ambiguity of tragic action, see pp. 27 and 83. 15. Speaking about the ‘madness’ of Eteocles as simultaneously inflicted from the outside and originating inside, Vernant writes: ‘The murderous madness that henceforth characterizes his ethos is not simply a human emotion; it is a daemonic power in every way beyond him. It envelops him in the dark cloud of ate, penetrating him as a god takes possession of whomever he has decided to bring low, from within, in a form of mania, a lussa, a delirium that breeds criminal acts of hubris. The madness of Eteocles is present within him, but that does not prevent it also appearing as extraneous and exterior to him. It is identified with the malignant power of defilement that, once engendered by ancient crimes, is transmitted from one generation to the next right down the Labdacid line.’ Ibid., p. 35, my italics. 16. Antigone, in Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays. Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, trans. Robert Fagles (Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1984), p. 77. 17. The opacity of language replicates these ambiguities by expressing both the contradictions in the realm of authority and the hero’s oscillation between self-determination and submission through several, contradictory layers of meaning. See Vernant, Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece, p. 114. 18. On the irony of self-control, see Charles Segal, Interpreting Greek Tragedy (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1986), p. 147. 19. Vernant, in Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece, p. 77. 20. Ibid., p. 27. 21. Ibid., p. 47. 22. ‘Everything one says about Greek religion must always be tempered by the following consideration: there was never one Greek theology, but an over- lapping not only of cults properly so called, but also of diverse religious syntheses attempted by reformers, poets, and religious propagandists, none of which ever succeeded in bringing the others into a single system. There is the authority of Delphi and there is the ‘telestic madness’ of Dionysus; the latter invades the domain of the former; but Apollo restrains Dionysus and embraces him by legislating for his cult and moderating his ecstasy’ (Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, p. 230). See also Williams, Modern Tragedy, pp. 17–18. 23. Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, p. 220. 24. This questioning is not radical, since the cult of Dionysus takes place within the Apollonian institutional framework. 25. For other instances of inconsistencies in the divine world, see Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, p. 220 and Vernant, Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece, pp. 39–40. 26. ‘Here is the dilemma. Whether I let them stay or drive / them off, it is a hard course and will hurt. Then, since / the burden of the case is here, and rests on me, / I shall select judges of manslaughter, and swear / them in, Notes 171 establish a court into all time to come / . They shall swear to make no judgment that is not / just, and make clear where in this action the truth lies.’ The Eumenides in Aeschylus, Oresteia, eds David Greene and Richmond Lattimore, trans. Richmond Lattimore (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1953), p. 152. See also Lattimore’s ‘Introduction’, p. 7. Since I will be referring to two different translations of The Eumenides, I will specify the translator in each citation. 27. Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, pp. 215–16. 28. The Eumenides, trans. Lattimore, p. 152. See Walter Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, trans. John Osborne (London: Verso, 1992), pp. 116–19 and Vernant, Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece, p. 83. 29. Vernant, Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece, p. 38. 30. Ibid., p. 38. 31. Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, p. 115. 32. See Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, p. 230. 33. Louis Althusser, ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses’, in Lenin and Philosophy, trans. Ben Brewster (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), pp. 177–83. See Chapter 3 below. 34. Oedipus at Colonus, in Sophocles, Oedipus the King. Oedipus at Colonus. Antigone, eds David Greene and Richmond Lattimore, trans. David Greene, Robert Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Wyckoff (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954), p. 122. 35. Ibid., p. 125. 36. Ibid., p. 121. 37. Ibid., p. 139. Interestingly, it is current practice with critics writing on Oedipus at Colonus (Ricoeur among them) to refer to Oedipus as a wise old man. It is in this play, however, that Oedipus curses his sons, and appears furious with Polynices and Creon, displaying an anger about which even the Chorus makes a remark. See Chapter 2 below. 38. There are, however, some instances in which the oracles of the gods are considered contingent, at least temporarily. In Oedipus at Colonus Antigone tries to persuade Polynices not to take action and thus not to follow the oracle of Apollo and his father’s curse: ‘Withdraw your troops to Argos as soon as you can. / Do not go to your own death and your city’s!’ (p. 141). Later, when Polynices refuses to renounce his plan of invading Thebes, Antigone adds: ‘But see how you fulfil his [Oedipus’s] prophecies! / Did he not cry that you should kill each other?’ (p. 141). Polynices, however, offers inconsistent reasons as to why he cannot renounce his plan. At first he cannot back off because, although he recognizes that ‘It is shameful to run’ (p. 141), ‘it is also shameful / To be a laughing-stock to a younger brother’ (p. 141). Eventually Polynices disclaims his own agency, attributing it to the gods: ‘All that / Rests with the powers that are over us, – / Whether it must be so or otherwise’ (p. 142). Similarly, in the play Antigone, Tiresias gives Creon the opportunity to revoke his decision: ‘All men may err / but error once committed, he’s no fool / not yet unfortunate, who gives up his stiffness / and cures the trouble he has fallen in. / Stubbornness and stu- pidity are twins. / Yield to the dead. Why goad him where he lies? / What use to kill the dead a second time?’ (Antigone, trans. Elizabeth Wyckoff, p. 193). But when Creon reaffirms his decree in spite of the seer’s warning, 172 Notes Tiresias moves on to announce the almost immediate extinction of Creon’s kin as prophesied by the Oracle (‘You’ll bring me to speak the unspeakable, very soon’, p. 195). Significantly, it is not until Tiresias speaks the prophecy of the gods that the prophecy is fulfilled. When Creon repents upon hearing it, it is already too late. 39. Antigone, trans. Elizabeth Wyckoff, p. 183. 40. A little earlier in the play, the Chorus tells Creon: ‘We think – unless our age is cheating us – / that what you say is sensible and right’ (p. 182). The equation of speaking well and being right also operates in Oedipus at Colonus, where the Chorus tells Oedipus: ‘Old man / This argument of yours compels our wonder. / It was not feebly worded. I am content / that higher authorities should judge this matter’ (p. 92), and then makes a case for Oedipus before Theseus: ‘My lord, our friend is worthy; he has had / Dis- astrous fortune; yet he deserves our comfort’ (p. 125). This same play again confirms the importance given to speech when both Theseus and the Chorus ask Oedipus to grant his estranged son Polynices, at least, the right to speak (pp.