When Gods Speak in Riddles: Tragic Oracles and Tragic Misunderstandings

Oracles in Greek literature are famously ambiguous and subject to misunderstanding. Scholars have interpreted this ambiguity as an indication of the fallibility of human knowledge, the cruelty of the gods, or the inefficacy of language. In this talk, Dr. Amy Pistone, University of Michigan, suggests a linguistic approach which offers a different interpretation of ambiguous oracular pronouncements in both Sophocles and Herodotus.

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