Word: neoptolemus
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...self-serving. Edel refers to the Greek myth of Philoctetes, a great archer who was banished because a septic injury offended the noses of his countrymen. Wilson himself read this as an allegory of the artist as outcast. As embellished by Edel, Wilson the critic is like Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, who endured the stench and nursed the archer. Wound-dresser is a limited and benign definition of a critic who laid open many a reputation with one stroke...
Like many Greek tragedies, Philoctetes draws upon the Homeric epos for characters and situations. At the outset, the great Greek archer, Philoctetes, is languishing in a cave on Lemnos, abandoned by his army because of an infected foot. Odysseus and Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, come to Lemnos to persuade Philoctetes to give them the bow of Heracles. Without it, says the seer Helenus, the Greeks will never capture Troy. After many a stratagem and one deus ex machina, all three embark for Troy with the bow. Sophocles artfully balances these three characters so that at one pole Odysseus represents super...
Dimitri Villard as Neoptolemus brought little insight and meager stage presence to a demanding part. Neoptolemus, an honest, forthright youth, is forced by Odysseus into a double reversal of character. In order to fool. Philoctetes, he must pretend to be naive, that is, he must "play" himself. Villard's vapid interpretation excluded all this complexity. Thus, when the time came for him to break down and tell all to Philoctetes, he had not prepared the audience with any previous dramatic tension. His moment fizzled...
...deserted island, where Philoctetes lived in hardship, a prey alike to paroxysms of intense physical pain from the noisome wound in his foot and to a growing bitterness and hatred against those who had betrayed him. But the supreme stroke of genius was the introduction of the character of Neoptolemus, the youthful son of Achilles. Neoptolemus comes with Odysseus, who had been the cause of the abandonment of Philoctetes, to carry back to Troy the wounded hero and his bow. In the two figures of Neoptolemus and Odysseus are personified not only the antagonism between Aeolian and Ionian, not only...
Only with difficulty does Odysseus persuade Neoptolemus to adopt his plan of tricking Philoctetes with lies, and the trust which the latter shows the son of his old friend Achilles soon arouses the already troubled conscience of the young man. When Philoctetes in a fit of agony intrusts to him the coveted bow and arrows Neoptolemus refuses to be false to his friend or to himself, and tells him the truth. There follows a long struggle between Philoctetes' determination never to go to Troy and Neoptolemus' attempts to persuade him. Odysseus seeks to employ violence, and finally drives Neoptolemus...