| This dissertation examines how and why representations of physical pain are granted a prominent place in three chosen works from archaic and classical Greek poetry: the Homeric Iliad (Book V in particular), Aeschylus' Oresteia (mainly the Agamemnon ), and Sophocles' Philoctetes. My point of departure is not a word study but a shared facet of pain which the poetics of each of these works brings to the fore: the questioning and threatening of the sufferer's identity. My analysis thus centers on depictions of suffering that showcase how, in pushing those it afflicts to their limits, the experience of pain constitutes a valuable poetic tool for bringing to light the shifting boundaries between man and god, male and female, and human and beast in the ancient Greek imaginary, and for foregrounding other related themes central to each of these works.;The first chapter deals with the portrayal of divine pain in the Iliad, with a focus on the wounding of the gods in Book V. I argue that the function of the book's unusual content is to blur the boundary between mortals and immortals, only to better underscore the tragic fate of the mortal hero---one of the main themes of the epic.;The second chapter reexamines the character of Clytemnestra in Aeschylus' Oresteia. I suggest that, rather than representing her strictly as a masculinized perversion of her former female self, the depiction of her visceral, physical response to the loss of Iphigeneia actually brings to light the ambiguity of her persona as both grieving mother and monstrous avenger.;The final chapter turns to the representation of pain in Sophocles' Philoctetes and analyzes how the poetics of the play artfully confers meaning onto the sufferer's cries, thus mirroring on the formal level the ambivalence of Philoctetes' pain, which serves both as a threat and as a catalyst to the humanity and civilization of the sufferer and his witnesses.;My study thus reveals the extent to which the depiction of physical pain fulfills a central role in these works, as motor of the plot, instrumental mode of characterization, and link to overarching themes. |
