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Using both textual and iconographic sources, this richly illustrated book examines the representations of the body in Greek Old and Middle Comedy, how it was staged, perceived, and imagined, particularly in Athens, Magna Graecia, and Sicily. The study also aims to refine knowledge of the various connections between Attic comedy and comic vases from South Italy and Sicily (the so-called 'phlyax vases'). After introducing comic texts and comedy-related vase-paintings in the regional contexts, The Comic Body in Ancient Greek Theatre and Art, 440-320 BCE considers the generic features of the comic body, characterized as it is by a specific ugliness and a constant motion. It also explores how cos...
Through both textual and iconographic sources, this book examines the representations of the body in Greek Old and Middle Comedy, how it was staged, perceived, and imagined, particularly in Athens, Magna Graecia, and Sicily.
Our knowledge of the ancient theatre is limited by the textual and iconographic character of the evidence available to us: we cannot watch or otherwise experience an Athenian tragedy or comedy. These essays, by a distinguished group of international scholars, bridge the gap between the surviving literary and iconographic evidence and the realities of performance on the ancient Greek stage. This ambitious goal is reached by means of a detailed examination of several case-studies: the construction of dramatic space in Sophocles’ Antigone; the significance of the use of deictic pronouns in Sophocles’ Trachiniae; the theatrical and religious dynamics of the appearance of divine figures on st...
This is the second volume of A Social and Economic History of the Theatre to 300 BC and focuses exclusively on theatre culture in Attica (Rural Dionysia) and the rest of the Greek world. It presents and discusses in detail all the documentary and material evidence for theatre culture and dramatic production from the first two centuries of theatre history, namely the period c.500 to c.300 BC. The traditional assumption is laid to rest that theatre was an exclusively or primarily Athenian institution, with the inclusion of all sources of information for theatrical performances in twenty-two deme sites and over one hundred and twenty independent Greek (and some non-Greek) cities. All texts are translated and made accessible to non-specialists and specialists alike. The volume will be a fundamental work of reference for all classicists and theatre historians interested in ancient theatre and its wider historical contexts.
Examines questions raised, in antiquity and now, by mythical narratives about humans transforming into non-human musical beings.
Actors and Icons of the Ancient Theater examines actors andtheir popular reception from the origins of theater in ClassicalGreece to the Roman Empire Presents a highly original viewpoint into several new andcontested fields of study Offers the first systematic survey of evidence for the spreadof theater outside Athens and the impact of the expansion oftheater upon actors and dramatic literature Addresses a study of the privatization of theater and revealshow it was driven by political interests Challenges preconceived notions about theater history
There is no other book in the Bible like the Song of Songs. It is a highly literate collection of love poems, at times intense with erotic desire and at times playful or flirtatious. This commentary draws out the tone of each poem, along with its language and literary qualities, including its metaphors, allusions, and clever use of words. While there are correspondences between the Song and the literatures of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and they are cited in the commentary, the greatest foreign influence on the book comes from Greece. The commentary approaches the Song as a Jewish-Hellenistic work, in the full sense of that hyphenated term. It notes Greek ideas and tropes that appear throughout the book and shows how they have been adjusted and incorporated into Jewish thought and literary forms. The book's Grecisms are dressed in "biblical" idioms and imagery. Going beyond previous studies, this volume emphasizes that the Song's blending together of the Jewish and the Greek is part of its literary virtuosity.
Amidst a culture otherwise obsessed with beauty, the Greek theater provided a unique space for Athenians to play with ugliness—to try these anti-ideals on for size. Such imaginative play was considered dangerous by some, such as Plato, who feared its corrupting influence; others, including Aristotle, saw the theater’s provocation and release of emotions as educational and even therapeutic. Sophocles’ and Euripides’ fifth-century audiences could not help but directly confront the ugliness of their drama, but as cultural memory of embodied productions faded, an abstracted contrast emerged between beautiful tragedy and ugly comedy—a pernicious aesthetic polarization that persists to t...