From jmpfund@bgnet.bgsu.edu Sun May 6 00:04:24 2001 Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.04) with ESMTP id f4674N059956 for ; Sun, 6 May 2001 00:04:23 -0700 Received: from smtp02.bgsu.edu (smtp02.bgsu.edu [129.1.5.18]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.04) with ESMTP id f4674Ms31861 for ; Sun, 6 May 2001 00:04:23 -0700 Received: from [129.1.190.246] (tc1-246.dialup.bgsu.edu [129.1.190.246]) by smtp02.bgsu.edu (Switch-2.1.0/Switch-2.1.0) with ESMTP id f4674Lo23644 for ; Sun, 6 May 2001 03:04:21 -0400 (EDT) Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: jmpfund@mailstore.bgsu.edu (Unverified) Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: Date: Sun, 6 May 2001 03:04:31 -0400 To: classics@u.washington.edu From: "James M. Pfundstein" Subject: Re: Knox in Box (not so long) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" At 3:59 PM -0700 5/5/01, David Lupher wrote: >Of course, one is under no obligation (pace JMP re. BMWK) to >square one's interpretation of a Greek tragedy with the views >of Aristotle. Actually I think that Knox _is_ under under some obligation to account for Aristotle's view of Oedipus. If Sophocles were signalling the kind of things that Knox insists, you would expect Aristotle (close to Sophocles in time, culture and residence) to pick up on it. God knows I would not claim Aristotle is infallible, but he's an intelligent and accurate observer, and his Oedipus is utterly inconsonant with Knox's broadly drawn one. If Knox is right and Aristotle is wrong, Knox has some burden to show the latter before he can expect us to believe the former. I'm certainly against the reductive simplicity DL rightly opposes. It is precisely because Knox robs Oedipus' character of its real moral complexity that his interpretation bugs me. JMP("Postscriptor") .