[Usyd_Classics_Events] USYD Classics Research Seminar March 30: Grace Gunning on Sophocles

[Tamara Neal]

Dear Friends of Classics and Ancient History,

We are delighted to invite you to the 3rd presentation of Semester 1, 2026 in our Classics and Ancient History research seminar series.

March 30th (Monday, 12.15pm UTC+11)

V. Gordon Childe Boardroom, Madsen Building Level 2.

Chair: Prof. Peter Wilson

Zoom link https://uni-sydney.zoom.us/j/89574510422

Grace Gunning (Cambridge University)
Rethinking Choruses and Community in Sophocles

In this paper, I propose that relationships between actors and chorus in tragedy are grounded in chorality. Many readers of tragedy see actors as individuals set against the political collective represented by the chorus. I argue for a nuancing of this perspective, understanding the chorus not just as a political collective but, more fundamentally, as a choral collective shaped by a choral culture. Instead of understanding the actor as situated outside and against the choral collective, I argue that the chorus/actor relationship mirrors the relationship between a chorus and its chorus leader, and that this dynamic is a component of tragic plotting. I will use the Antigone as a case study, reading it alongside Euripides’ Bacchae.

At the end of the parodos of the Antigone, the chorus invites Dionysos to come and ‘rule’ the city ‘with all-night choruses’; they then turn to Creon and refer to him as the ‘new king’. These references to two authorities within five lines of each other set two areas of civic life which should be harmonious, the ritual and the political, against each other. In placing these two planes in conflict, the chorus also stages the man and the god as rivals in a metatheatrical conflict that will develop through the rest of the drama. Crucially, Dionysos’ rule is described as functioning through the ordering of choruses.

I will use the Bacchae, which literalizes a similar conflict by placing Dionysus onstage, to draw out this element of the Antigone. In both cases, the ritual and political collide as the myth of Dionysus’ arrival at, repulsion from, and eventual acceptance in a city is conflated with a political struggle between members of Thebes’ royal house. This is made possible by the ability of tragic choruses to simultaneously embody Dionysian performers and political factions.


Grace Gunning is a fourth year PhD student at Cambridge University. Her thesis is on narrative and chorality in Sophocles.


We look forward to seeing you there,
Tamara

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DR TAMARA NEAL FHEA | Senior Lecturer in Ancient Greek (Education Focused) | FASS Academic Advisor | Accredited University-wide Peer Reviewer of Teaching<https://canvas.sydney.edu.au/courses/16284/pages/12-dot-1-peer-review-of-teaching-module-overview>
President Classical Association of NSW<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/i4t8CVARKgC52KMzWcGfpSEPh4j?domain=classics.org.au>
Classics & Ancient History | School of Humanities│Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
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