ABSTRACT
Tycho Wilamowitz, the son of Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and the grandson of Theodor Mommsen, was killed fighting against the Russians near Ivangorod on the night of 14/15 October 1914. Tycho was the first to apply to the Greek dramatists a particular critical attitude that was highly characteristic of the time at which he wrote. Tycho agreed with Aristotle that the characters are there for the sake of the plot, not the plot for the sake of the characters. George Eliot put her finger on a central truth about Sophocles, which has been better understood since Tycho disabused people of the belief that Sophocles took great trouble about minor psychological complexities. One of Tycho’s best achievements is his explanation of why Sophocles makes Teucer defend his brother’s honour in two successive agones against Menelaus and Agamemnon. Tycho’s concluding remarks about the play’s construction suffer from the defects indicated by the preceding criticisms.
