Description
This book applies many of the categories in Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, Poetics and Rhetoric to the three main characters in Sophocles play, Philoctetes : Neoptolemus, Odysseus and Philoctetes. All three characters act at extremes in relation to the virtues of courage, anger, truthfulness and shame. Their relationships to each other are also flawed in various ways, and each character commits injustices as they abuse the power they have over each other. They all have good reasons for their actions but still make the wrong decisions. Their happiness is determined by their actions and choices not by their opinions. Aristotles list of the prominent character-traits in young people, middle-aged people and the old in the Rhetoric are applied in this book to Neoptolemus, the youth, Odysseus, the middle-aged ruler, and Philoctetes, an old man. Aristotles criteria for tragedy in the Poetics are applied to Sophocles play as a whole. Both Aristotle and Sophocles believe there exists universal standards for a well-lived life and universal patterns in the ways people fail to live well. Both Aristotle and Sophocles believe that the purpose of tragedy is to educate audience members, with the ultimate goal of this kind of education being practical wisdom ( phronesis ).
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