Cosmology and the polis : the social construction of space and time in the tragedies of Aeschylus / Richard Seaford.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Seaford, Richard.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Aeschylus--Criticism and interpretation.

Aeschylus.

Cosmology in literature.

Space and time in literature.

Social interaction in literature.

Money in literature.

Ritual in literature.

Greek drama (Tragedy)--History and criticism.

Greek drama (Tragedy).

Philosophy, Ancient.

Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

xiii, 366 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Summary:

"This book further develops Professor Seaford's innovative work on the study of ritual and money in the developing Greek polis. It employs the concept of the chronotope, which refers to the phenomenon whereby the spatial and temporal frameworks explicit or implicit in a text have the same structure and uncovers various such chronotopes in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and in particular the tragedies of Aeschylus. Mikhail Bakhtin's pioneering use of the chronotope was in literary analysis. This study by contrast derives the variety of chronotopes manifest in Greek texts from the variety of socially integrative practices in the developing polis - notably reciprocity, collective ritual, and monetised exchange. In particular, the tragedies of Aeschylus embody the reassuring absorption of the new and threatening monetised chronotope into the traditional chronotope that arises from collective ritual with its aetiological myth"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction

Part I. The Social Construction of Space, Time and Cosmology: 1. Homer: the reciprocal chronotope; 2. Demeter Hymn: the aetiological chronotope; 3. From reciprocity to money

Part II. Dionysiac Festivals: 4. Royal household and public festival; 5. Aetiological chronotope and dramatic mimesis; 6. Monetisation and tragedy

Part III. Confrontational and Aetiological Space in Aeschylus: 7. Telos and the unlimitedness of money; 8. Suppliants; 9. Seven against Thebes; 10. Confrontational space in Oresteia; 11. The unlimited in Oresteia; 12. Persians

Part IV. The Unity of Opposites: 13. Form-parallelism and the unity of opposites; 14. Aeschylus and Herakleitos; 15. From the unity of opposites to their differentiation

Part V. Cosmology of the Integrated Polis: 16. Metaphysics and the polis in Pythagoreanism; 17. Pythagoreanism in Aeschylus; 18. Household, cosmos and polis; Appendix: was there a skēnē for all the extant plays of Aeschylus?.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 340-354) and indexes.

ISBN:

9781107009271

1107009278

OCLC:

753630544

Online:

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