A Forgotten Soldier: Entry of the Nonheroic in Sophocles’s Philoctetes

Abstract

“How does the entrance of a character on the tragic stage affect their visibility and presence? “This question is at the heart of Juliane Vogel’s latest book, Making an Entrance: Appearing on the Stage from Racine to Nietzsche (2022), which analyzes the precarious act of stepping forward and, at the same time, develops a new theory of dramatic form. Taking Vogel’s approach as a starting point, this essay examines the specific mode of entering the stage in Sophocles’s nostos play Philoctetes. It argues that plot-based interpretation is insufficient to account for the structure of the play and the specific type of entrance that Philoctetes embodies. This kind of entrance differs strongly from the so-called ruler’s entrance, which prominently exhibits a vertical posture. In Philoctetes, by contrast, as in the Woman of Trachis, the horizontal axis is dominant. In both plays, relinquishing the vertical axis entails shifting the focus from war and military heroism to victims, who were either killed on the battlefield or, as Philoctetes, abandoned on a deserted island.