2nd Call

for H.F.R.I. Research Projects to Support

Faculty Members & Researchers

PART B2

COVER PAGE (PART B2.1. FULL PROPOSAL)

TITLE:     A Commentary on Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus

ACRONYM:     C.S.O.C.

Principal Investigator: Andreas Markantonatos

Scientific Area: Humanities and Arts (7)

Scientific Field: Languages and literature (7.2)

Scientific Subfield: Specific Languages (7.2.2)

Project’s Duration: 36 months

Total Budget: 43.000 EURO

Host Institution: University of the Peloponnese

B2.1. Full Proposal

TITLE: A Commentary on Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus

ACRONYM: C.S.O.C.

Principal Investigator: Andreas Markantonatos

Scientific Area: Humanities and Arts (7)

Scientific Field: Languages and literature (7.2)

Scientific Subfield: Specific Languages (7.2.2)

Project’s Duration: 36 months

Total Budget:

Host Institution: University of the Peloponnese

1. Excellence, State-of-the-art and Objectives

           1.1. Proposal objectives and challenges

The project aims to produce a detailed commentary edition of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, which is not only a fundamental work of Attic tragedy, but also an unparalleled masterpiece of world theatre. In particular, this research project will last 36 months. During this time the PI (Professor Andreas G. Markantonatos) intends to prepare a commentary edition of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, which will include an introduction, the ancient text, an English translation and a thorough literary and interpretive commentary. This commentary edition will consist of four (4) parts. The first part will comprise an extensive introduction, which will examine in detail a variety of issues related to chronology, ancient performance, general interpretation, subject matter, literary reception, style and the manuscript tradition of the work. The second part will contain a critical edition of the ancient text, which will be accompanied by the corresponding apparatus criticus in a relatively simplified form, which will be accessible to the general reader. The third part will include an English translation. The final part will consist of individual interpretive notes and detailed comments on specific lines or selected excerpts. It is important to note that this detailed commentary on Oedipus at Colonus will be published with the Aris & Phillips Classical Texts series [Director: Emeritus Professor Alan H. Sommerstein, Liverpool University Press https: / /liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/series/series-12801/ (1980-present)].

           1.2. State-of-the-art & Innovation

The originality of this research lies in the production of a much-needed new annotated edition of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus.  Since Kamerbeek’s commentary edition (1984) there hasn’t been any detailed appraisal and close definition of the play’s remarkable variety of subject, ideas and motifs, as well as a thorough discussion of textual issues and concerns.

           1.3. Scientific and social impact

The scholarly impact of this project will emerge from the original research outputs produced through methodologically innovative approaches. A commentary on a major Sophoclean tragedy will be published in an international peer-reviewed series, with the purpose of providing a substantial scholarly resource on Attic drama. At the same time, it will decisively enhance research on Greek theatre, by adopting a holistic approach to the tragic genre, its trends and vibrant development. The commentary will be published with the internationally renowned series Aris & Phillips Classical Texts under the directorship of Emeritus Professor Alan H. Sommerstein.  

Apart from the printed volume, the progress of this research will be made available online, in the project’s webpage and accessible to the international academic community, thus amplifying its impact. Broader audiences will profit from this interaction, as their knowledge of the tragic genre will be enriched.  The educational and social benefit of this scholarly activity will illuminate the significance of studying the plays of ancient tragic poetry, thus bringing forward its great cultural power.

           1.3. Select References

S. M. Adams, Sophocles the Playwright (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1957).

W. Bernard, Das Ende des Ödipus bei Sophokles: Untersuchung zur Interpretation des Ödipus auf Kolonos (Munich: Beck, 2001).

E. A. Bernidaki-Aldous, Blindness in a Culture of Light: Especially in the Case of Oedipus at Colonus of Sophocles (New York: Peter Lang, 1990).

D. Birge, ‘The Grove of the Eumenides: Refuge and Hero Shrine in Oedipus at Colonus’, Classical Journal 80 (1984), pp. 11-7.

M. W. Blundell, Helping Friends and Harming Enemies: A Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

― Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus.  Translated with Introduction, Notes and Interpretive Essay Focus Information Library (Newburyport MA: Focus Information Group, 1990).

P. Burian, ‘Suppliant and Saviour: Oedipus at Colonus’, Phoenix 28 (1974), pp. 408-29.

― ‘Myth into Mythos: The Shaping of Tragic Plot’, in P. E. Easterling (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 178-210.

― ‘Tragedy Adapted for Stages and Screens: The Renaissance to the Present’, in P. E. Easterling (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 228-83.

W. Burkert, Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical trans. J. Raffan (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985).

― ‘Opferritual bei Sophokles: Pragmatik – Symbolik - Theater’, Der Altsprachlicher Unterricht 28 (1985), pp. 5-20.

L. Burn, The Meidias Painter (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987).

A. Burnett, ‘Jocasta in the West: The Lille Stesichorus’, Classical Antiquity 7 (1988), 107-54.

R. W. B. Burton, The Chorus in Sophocles’ Tragedies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980).

R. G. A. Buxton, ‘Blindness and Limits: Sophokles and the Logic of Myth’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 100 (1980), pp. 22-37.

― Persuasion in Greek Tragedy: A Study of ‘Peitho’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

― Sophocles, Greece & Rome New Surveys in the Classics 16 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).

F. M. Dunn, ‘Introduction: Beginning at Colonus’, Yale Classical Studies 29 (1992), pp. 1-12.

P. E. Easterling, ‘Oedipus and Polyneices’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 193 (1967), pp. 1-13.

― ‘Repetition in Sophocles’, Hermes 101 (1973), pp. 14-34.

― ‘Character in Sophocles’, Greece & Rome 24 (1977), pp. 121-9 [now in E. Segal (ed.), Oxford Readings in Greek Tragedy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 138-45].

― ‘Constructing Character in Greek Tragedy’, in C. Pelling (ed.), Characterization and Individuality in Greek Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 83-99.

― ‘Oedipe à Colone : Personnages et “réception ”’, in A. Machin & L. Pernée (eds), Sophocle: Le texte, les personnages.  Actes du Colloque International d’Aix-en-Provence 10, 11 et 12 janvier 1992 (Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l’Université de Provence, 1993), pp. 191-200.

L. Edmunds, ‘The Cults and the Legend of Oedipus’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 85 (1981), pp. 221-38.

― Theatrical Space and Historical Place in Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996).

V. Ehrenberg, Sophocles and Pericles (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1954).

H. Flashar (ed.), Sophokles, Ödipus auf Kolonos [trans. W. Schadewaldt] (Frankfurt am Main & Leipzig: Insel, 1996).

― Sophokles.  Dichter im demokratischen Athen (Munich: Beck, 2000).

K. Freeman, ‘The Dramatic Technique of the Oedipus Coloneus’, Classical Review 37 (1923), pp. 50-4.

W. Frick, Die mythische Methode (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1998).

C. P. Gardiner, The Sophoclean Chorus: A Study of Character and Function (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1987).

G. Gellie, Sophocles: A Reading (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1972).

S. Goldhill, Reading Greek Tragedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

― ‘Character and Action, Representation and Reading Greek Tragedy and its Critics’, in C. Pelling (ed.), Characterization and Individuality in Greek Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 100-27.

J. Gould, ‘Dramatic Character and ‘Human Intelligibility’ in Greek Tragedy’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 204 (1978), pp. 43-67 [now in J. Gould, Myth, Ritual, Memory, and Exchange: Essays in Greek Literature and Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 78-111].

T. Gould, ‘The Innocence of Oedipus: The Philosophers on Oedipus the King 1’, Arion 4 (1965), pp. 363-86.

― ‘The Innocence of Oedipus: The Philosophers on Oedipus the King 2’, Arion 4 (1965), pp. 582-611.

―  ‘The Innocence of Oedipus: The Philosophers on Oedipus the King 3’, Arion 5 (1966), pp. 478-525.

E. Kearns, The Heroes of Attica, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplement 57 (London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1989).

G. M. Kirkwood, ‘From Melos to Colonos: TINAS CHÔROUS AFIGMETH’…’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 116 (1986), pp. 99-117.

― A Study of Sophoclean Drama (Ithaca, NY & London: Cornell University Press, 2nd ed. 1994).

R. Kitzinger, ‘Introduction’, in E. Grennan & R. Kitzinger, Sophocles:  Oedipus at Colonus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 3-21.

B. M. W. Knox, Oedipus at Thebes: Sophocles’ Tragic Hero and his Time (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1957).

― The Heroic Temper: Studies in Sophoclean Tragedy (Berkeley, Los Angeles & London: University of California Press, 1964).

E. Krummen, ‘Athens and Attica: Polis and Countryside in Tragedy’, in A. H. Sommerstein, S. Halliwell, J. Henderson & B. Zimmermann (eds), Tragedy, Comedy and the Polis.  Papers from the Greek Drama Conference, Nottingham, 18-20 July 1990 (Bari: Levante Editori, 1993), pp. 191-217, esp. 193-203.

L. B. Lawlor, The Dance of the Ancient Greek Theatre (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1964).

M. R. Lefkowitz, The Lives of the Greek Poets (London: Duckworth, 1981).

F. J. H. Letters, The Life and Work of Sophocles (London & New York: Sheed & Ward, 1953).

H. Lloyd-Jones, The Justice of Zeus (Berkeley, Los Angeles & London: University of California Press, 2nd ed. 1983).

― Sophocles.  Ajax, Electra, Oedipus Tyrannus, The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass. & London: Harvard University Press, 1994).

― Sophocles.  Antigone, Women of Trachis, Philoctetes, Oedipus at Colonus, The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass. & London: Harvard University Press, 1994)

H. Lloyd-Jones & N. G. Wilson Sophoclea: Studies in the Text of Sophocles (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990). 

R. Scodel, Sophocles (Boston: Twayne,1984).

― ‘Sophoclean Tragedy’, in J. Gregory, A Companion to Greek Tragedy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2005), pp. 233-50.

W. C. Scott, Musical Design in Sophoclean Theater (Hanover & London: University Press of New England, 1996).

D. Seale, Vision and Stagecraft in Sophocles (London & Canberra: Croom Helm, 1982).

U. Singh Dhuga, ‘Choral Identity in Sophocles’ Oedipus Coloneus’, American Journal of Philology 126 (2005), pp. 333-62.

L. Slatkin, ‘Oedipus at Colonus: Exile and Integration’, in J. P. Euben (ed.) Greek Tragedy and Political Theory (Berkeley & London: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 210-21.

C. H. Whitman, Sophocles: A Study of Heroic Humanism (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1951).

U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, ‘Oedipus auf Kolonos’, in T. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Die dramatische Technik des Sophokles (Berlin: Weidmann, 4th ed. 1996 with preface by W. M. Calder III & A. Bierl, orig. 1917), pp. 313-76.

― Der Glaube der Hellenen 2 vols. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1931-1932).

B. W. Willink, ‘Critical Studies in the Cantica of Sophocles: III. Electra, Philoctetes, Oedipus at Colonus’, Classical Quarterly 53.1 (2003), pp. 75-110.

J. P. Wilson, The Hero and the City: An Interpretation of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1997).

2. Methodology and Implementation

           2. 1. Research Methodology

The critical appraisal and interpretative analysis of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus will combine traditional textual criticism with authoritative methodological advances in the field of dramatic research. The Introduction will set the play in its original context and discuss its dramatic and poetic resources, while assessing its meaning and purpose.  The Greek text will be faced on the opposite page by a new English rendition.  The Commentary will pursue the aims of the Introduction in analyzing structure and development, annotating and appreciating poetic style, and explaining the wealth of cardinal ideas and thoughts.  The outcome of the project will be a detailed edition of this challenging play with running commentary keyed wherever possible to the English translation. This meticulous examination of the play will undoubtedly shed revealing light on the poet’s dramatic technique and methods.

           2.2. Work Plan ­– Deliverables – Milestones

Brief Outline of Work Plan

This project aims to produce an annotated edition of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, which will include an introduction, a critical edition of the ancient Greek text, an English translation, and a full-scale commentary section.  

Timeline / Timetable of Work packages and their components (Gantt Chart)

The project will run for 36 months. During this time, the Principal Investigator will produce an annotated edition of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, which will include an introduction, a critical edition of the ancient Greek text, an English translation, and a full-scale commentary section.

MONTHS

Principal Investigator Andreas Markantonatos  

1-12

Introduction

13-24

Ancient Greek Text and English Translation

25-36

Commentary

GANTT CHART OF DELIVERABLES:

Months

1-12

13-24

25-36

Introduction

Ancient Greek Text and English Translation

Commentary

Table 2.1. Work Package Description

Project Management Work Package

Work Packages

WP 1

Introduction

Starting Month: 1/9/2020

Ending Month: 31/8/2021

Person Months (PMs): 12

Objectives

Completion of an Introduction to a commentary on Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus

Description of Work

Investigation of relevant interpretative scholarship, reading of secondary literature, writing an introduction to the play

Tasks

Collecting material, producing a detailed introductory section (including sub-sections on a wide range of relevant topics)

Deliverables

Introduction to an annotated edition of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus

Milestones

Introductory section by 31.8.2021

WP 2

Edition of Greek Text and English Translation

Starting Month: 1/9/2021

Ending Month: 31/8/2022

Person Months (PMs): 12

Objectives

Completion of a critical edition of the Greek Text and an English Translation

Description of Work

Reading of secondary literature, preparing an edition of the Greek text and producing an English translation

Tasks

Collecting material, preparing an edition of the Greek Text and producing an English translation

Deliverables

A critical edition of the Greek Text and an English Translation

Milestones

Edition of the Greek Text and production of English translation by 31.8.2022

WP 3

Commentary

Starting Month: 1/9/2022

Ending Month: 31/8/2023

Person Months (PMs): 12

Objectives

Completion of the commentary section

Description of Work

Investigation of the relevant ancient sources, reading of secondary literature, writing the commentary

Tasks

Collecting material, producing a full-scale commentary

Deliverables

Commentary

Milestones

Commentary on Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus by 31.8.2023

Table 2.2. Deliverables List

Deliverable Number

Deliverable Name

Related WP

Type

Dissemination Level

Due Date

(in months)

1

Introduction

1

R

CO

12

2

Edition of Greek Text and English Translation

2

R

CO

12

3

Commentary

3

R

CO

12

4

Book: commented edition of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus

1, 2, 3

DEC

PU

36

Table 2.3. Milestones List

Milestone Number

Milestone Name

Related WP

Due Date

(in months)

Means of Verification

1

Book:

Annotated edition of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus

1, 2, 3

36

Official contract with international publishing house,

Print-out of commentary edition

Table 2.4. Risks and Contingency Plans (Mitigation Measures)

Not applicable

2.3. Research Team

Webpage designer with PhD expertise in Classics on condition of acceptance of research proposal (see Dissemination below)

3. Budget (including project costs)

Table 3.1. Project Budget and justification

Cost Category

Total in €

Direct Costs

6.1.1 Personnel

Person Months (PMs)

PI

36

28.800

Post-Doc Researcher(s)

PhD Candidate(s)

Postgraduate Student(s)

Scientific Associate(s)

Host Institution Personnel

Technical Associate(s)

6

                          3000

Other (please define)

Total Direct costs for Personnel

31.800

Other Direct Costs

Justification

6.1.2 Consumables

6.1.3 Travel

6.1.4 Dissemination

Webpage/Other Means of Dissemination

2000

6.1.5 Access to equipment etc.

6.1.6 Purchase of Equipment

Computers and printers

6.000

6.1.7 Other Costs

Books

2.000

Total “other direct costs”

10.000

Total Direct Costs

41.800

Indirect Costs

1.200

Total Budget

43.000