Buch, Englisch, 294 Seiten, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 420 g
Reihe: Oxford Classical Monographs
Greek Self-Definition Through Tragedy
Buch, Englisch, 294 Seiten, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 420 g
Reihe: Oxford Classical Monographs
ISBN: 978-0-19-814780-0
Verlag: OUP Oxford
Incest, polygamy, murder, sacrilege, impalement, castration, female power, and despotism: these are some of the images by which the Greek tragedians defined the non-Greek, `barbarian' world. This book explains for the first time the reasons behind their singular fascination with barbarians. It sets the plays against the historical background of the Panhellenic wars against Persia and the establishment of an Athenian empire based on democracy and slavery.
Contemporary anthropology and political philosophy is discussed, revealing how the poets conceptualized the barbarian as the negative embodiment of Athenian civic ideals. By comparing the treatment of foreigners in Homer and tragedy, it shows that the new dimension which the idea of the barbarian had brought
to the tragic theatre radically affected the past, and enriched the tragedians' repertoire of aural and visual effects. The invented barbarian of the tragic stage was a powerful cultural expression of Greek xenophobia and chauvinism, but, paradoxically, produced an outburst of creative energy and literary innovation.
The D.Phil. dissertation out of which this book developed won the Hellenic Foundation's prize for the best doctoral thesis in ancient Greek studies in the UK and Republic of Ireland (1988).
Autoren/Hrsg.
Fachgebiete
- Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie
- Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
- Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
- Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Klassische Literaturwissenschaft
Weitere Infos & Material
Acknowldgements; Preface; Editions and abbreviations; Setting the stage; Inventing Persia; The barbarian enters myth; An Athenian rhetoric; The polarity deconstructed; Bibliography; Index
