The Soul of Tragedy: Essays on Athenian DramaVictoria Pedrick, Steven M. Oberhelman University of Chicago Press, 2005 - 323 pages The Soul of Tragedy brings together top scholars to offer a wide range of perspectives on Greek tragedy. The collection pays homage to this ancient, enduring theatrical and literary genre by offering a deep exploration into the oldest form of dramatic expression. It is a reminder that, for all their years, these dramas still have much to teach us. Exemplary of the nature and scope of this book, the essays range from Simon Goldhill's comparative study of music, gender, and culture to Martha Nussbaum's inspection of "the comic soul." Through the critical lenses of psychoanalysis, gender, social history, and philology, this compilation looks at Greek tragedy's peculiar power to illuminate the workings of the human soul. Structures of tragic meaning, the relationship between character desire and spectator experience, and investigations of tragedy's extraordinary preoccupation with gender reveal the form's emotional core and explain its rapid ascent through the hierarchy of cultural practices in classical Greece. The Soul of Tragedy is a celebration and a model of collaboration that will be essential reading for scholars in classics, literature, and drama. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
I THE GEOMETRY OF SUFFERING | 11 |
Aristotle on the Tragic Emotions | 13 |
Divine and Human in Sophocles Philoctetes | 27 |
Euripides Heaven | 49 |
Dionysiac Triangles | 73 |
II A VAST CONTINENT OF SORROWS | 89 |
The Subject of Desire in Sophocles Antigone | 91 |
Women in Groups | 183 |
Redeeming Matricide? | 199 |
Clytemnestras First Marriage | 227 |
IV CAUTIONARY TALES | 249 |
Visuality and Temporality | 251 |
Music Gender and Hellenistic Society | 271 |
The Tyranny of Germany over Greece | 291 |
List of Contributors | 307 |
Beyond Sexual Difference | 137 |
Or This Phallus That Is Not One | 155 |
III THE ORDINARY HORRORS OF THE FEMININE | 181 |
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Common terms and phrases
Aeschylus Agamemnon American ancient Antigone Aristotle Artemis Athenian audience Bacchae become body brother called Cambridge character child chorus classical close Clytemnestra context course critics culture daughter death desire different Dionysus discussion divine drama dream effect epigram especially essay Euripides evidence example experience fact father fear feelings female figure first give gods Greece Greek Tragedy human identification imagined important interest interpretation Iphigenia kind least less male marriage means mother myth nature Oedipus offers Orestes original pain particular passage past Pentheus performance person Philoctetes pity play plot Poetics political possible present question reading reason refers relation represent ritual role sacrifice seems Segal sense sexual sister social Sophocles stage status story suffering suggests symbolic theory things tion traditional tragic turn University visual woman women young Zeus