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Performance and identity in the classical world / Anne Duncan.

EBSCOhost Academic eBook Collection (North America) Available online

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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Duncan, Anne, author.
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Acting--History--To 1500.
Acting.
Performing arts--Greece--History--To 1500.
Performing arts.
Classical drama--History and criticism.
Classical drama.
Theater--Greece--History--To 500.
Theater.
Identity (Psychology) in literature.
Theater--History--To 500.
Performing arts--Rome.
Self in literature.
Actors--Greece.
Actors.
Theater--Rome.
Actors--Rome.
Physical Description:
1 online resource (viii, 242 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).
Other Title:
Performance & Identity in the Classical World
Place of Publication:
Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Language Note:
English
Summary:
Performance and Identity in the Classical World traces attitudes towards actors in Greek and Roman culture as a means of understanding ancient conceptions of, and anxieties about, the self. Actors were often viewed as frauds and impostors, capable of deliberately fabricating their identities. Conversely, they were sometimes viewed as possessed by the characters that they played, or as merely playing themselves onstage. Numerous sources reveal an uneasy fascination with actors and acting, from the writings of elite intellectuals (philosophers, orators, biographers, historians) to the abundant theatrical anecdotes that can be read as a body of 'popular performance theory'. This 2005 text examines these sources, along with dramatic texts and addresses the issue of impersonation, from the late fifth century BCE to the early Roman Empire.
Contents:
Drag queens and in-betweens: Agathon and the mimetic body
Demosthenes vs. Aeschines : the rhetoric of sincerity
The fraud and the flatterer : images of actors on the comic stage
Infamous performers : comic actors and female prostitutes in Rome
The actor's freedom : Roscius and the slave actor at rome
Extreme mimesis : spectacle in the empire.
Notes:
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:
1-139-81039-1
1-107-15448-0
1-107-31658-8
1-107-32197-2
1-107-31754-1
1-107-31843-2
1-299-39966-5
1-107-31560-3
0-511-55057-X

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