Peter Shilston: Are not Boris Johnson's travails in 2021 an example, in the finest traditions of classical Greek tragedy, of hubris being inevitably followed by nemesis?
David Gwyn: Yes they are, but he's not Agamemnon and neither is he Oedipus. He's a character from Attic comedy dragging his unfeasibly large phallus with him without being particularly funny; and so far as the tragedy goes, his hamartia is neither a flaw in an otherwise noble character nor a random error, but a course of action undertaken for the wrong reasons and with consequences disastrous for the rest of us. It's as if the city of Thebes was punished AFTER Oedipus's actions are discovered while the motherf*cker in question goes off with the lotus-eaters.
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