Lycurgan Athens and the making of classical tragedy / Johanna Hanink.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hanink, Johanna, 1982- author.

Series:

Cambridge classical studies.

[Cambridge classical studies]

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Lycurgus, approximately 390 B.C.-approximately 324 B.C.

Lycurgus.

Greek drama (Tragedy)--History and criticism.

Greek drama (Tragedy).

Tragedy.

Literature and society--Greece--Athens.

Literature and society.

Athens (Greece)--History.

Athens (Greece).

Greece--Civilization--To 146 B.C.

Greece.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 280 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Other Title:

Lycurgan Athens & the Making of Classical Tragedy

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Through a series of interdisciplinary studies this book argues that the Athenians themselves invented the notion of 'classical' tragedy just a few generations after the city's defeat in the Peloponnesian War. In the third quarter of the fourth century BC, and specifically during the 'Lycurgan Era' (338-322 BC), a number of measures were taken in Athens to affirm to the Greek world that the achievement of tragedy was owed to the unique character of the city. By means of rhetoric, architecture, inscriptions, statues, archives and even legislation, the 'classical' tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides) and their plays came to be presented as both the products and vital embodiments of an idealised Athenian past. This study marks the first account of Athens' invention of its own theatrical heritage and sheds new light upon the interaction between the city's literary and political history.

Contents:

Introduction: through the Lycurgan looking glass

1. Civic poetry in Lycurgus' Against Leocrates

2. Scripts and statues, or a law of Lycurgus' own

Site of change, site of memory: the 'Lycurgan' Theatre of Dionysus

4. Courtroom drama: Aeschines and Demosthenes

5. Classical tragedy and its comic lovers

6. Aristotle and the theatre of Athens

Epilogue: classical tragedy in the age of Macedon.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-139-98627-9

1-139-99089-6

1-316-01148-8

1-316-01372-3

1-316-00248-9

1-316-00698-0

1-316-00472-4

1-316-00922-X

1-107-44958-8