Greek tragedy in modern times: Cacoyannis, Pasolini—and Enoch Powell

Abstract

The conviction with which Aristotelian (and Aristophanic) judgements of Attic tragedy are promoted over reconstruction of “the tragic” through study of extant dramatic texts is attested by critics' evaluation of films based on ancient tragedy. Thanks to faith in an Aristotelian version of tragedy, which the British politician and scholar Enoch Powell espouses, Cacoyannis may be credited with “fidelity”: to the spirit of ancient drama, while Pasolini may be downgraded for the liberties that he is accused of taking with it. This article questions the grounds for this comparative evaluation, and goes so far as to argue that the sense of dislocation that Pasolini'sEdipo Re produces in the modern spectator may be closer to the fifth-century experience of tragedy than is, say, Cacoyannis'sIphigenia.