In the following essay, Brown compares and contrasts the tangential subject matter in the writings of Sophocles and Homer.

Modern critics have proposed a number of interpretations of the nature of the tragedy in Sophocles' Ajax, without perhaps completely exhausting the subject. The present paper is no more than an attempt to add slightly to this material by focusing attention on what seems to be an overlooked element in the drama, that is, the implicit contrast between the title character and the Homeric Hector.

Without attempting to go more fully into the question, I shall say at the outset that in general it seems to me that the Ajax, in its "diptych" structure, is preeminently a study in contrasts, as has been usually recognized, and that the contrast between the enemies Ajax and Odysseus is the most important and striking of these. This contrast is first and...