Tragedy, ritual and money in ancient Greece : selected essays / Richard Seaford, University of Exeter ; edited with a foreword by Robert Bostock, University of New England, Australia.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Seaford, Richard, author.

Contributor:

Bostock, Robert, editor.

Standardized Title:

Essays. Selections

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Greek literature--History and criticism.

Greek literature.

Greek drama (Tragedy)--History and criticism.

Greek drama (Tragedy).

Rites and ceremonies in literature.

Money in literature.

Economics and literature--Greece.

Economics and literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 486 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Summary:

Richard Seaford is one of the most original and provocative classicists of his age. This volume brings together a wide range of papers written with a single focus. Several are pioneering explorations of the tragic evocation and representation of rites of passage: mystic initiation, the wedding, and death ritual. Two papers focus on the shaping power of mystic initiation in two famous passages in the New Testament. The other key factor in the historical context of tragedy is the recent monetisation of Athens. One paper explores the presence of money in Greek tragedy, another the shaping influence of money on Wagner's Ring and on his Aeschylean model. Other papers reveal the influence of ritual and money on representations of the inner self, and on Greek and Indian philosophy. A final piece finds in Greek tragedy horror at the destructive unlimitedness of money that is still central to our postmodern world.

Contents:

Cover

Half-title

Title page

Copyright information

Table of contents

Foreword

Part I Tragedy: General

Chapter 1 Homeric and Tragic Sacrifice

Postscript

Chapter 2 Dionysos as Destroyer of the Household: Homer, Tragedy and the Polis

1. Maenadic Andromakhe in the Iliad

2. Maenadic Andromakhe and Wedding Ritual

3. Maenadic Antigone and Wedding Ritual

4. Maenadism and Marriage Ritual

5. Euadne

6. Iole

7. Kassandra

8. Three Generalisations

9. Dionysos, Household and Polis

10. Tragedy: A Dionysiac Pattern

11. Homeric Exclusions

Chapter 3 Dionysos, Money and Drama

Money and the Dionysiac Thiasos

Tragic Isolation

Chapter 4 Tragic Money

1. Introduction

2. Does Money Have Limits?

3. Aeschylus: Agamemnon

4. Sophocles: Antigone

5. Euripides: Electra

Chapter 5 Tragic Tyranny

Three Tyrannical Characteristics

Prometheus Bound and Oresteia

Democratic Ideology

Does the Tyrant Embody the Polis? Antigone and Bacchae

Might the Tyrant Symbolise the Polis? Oedipus Tyrannus

Chapter 6 Aeschylus and the Unity of Opposites

1. Lamentation

2. Mystic Initiation

3. Mystery Cult, Lamentation, Tragedy

4. Differentiation of United Opposites in the Oresteia

5. Permanent Resolution

Part II Performance and the Mysteries

Chapter 7 The 'Hyporchema' of Pratinas

Chapter 8 The Politics of the Mystic Chorus

1. Capitalist Space

2. Ancient Greek Processions

3. The Mystic Chorus

4. Cosmos and Mystic Chorus

5. The Solidarity of the Mystic Chorus

6. Chorus and Powerful Individual

7. The Politicisation of the Dithyramb

8. Public and Private Space

Chapter 9 Immortality, Salvation and the Elements.

1. The Association of Prometheus with the Titans in His Parentage, Punishment and Release

The Prometheia and Hesiod

The Mysticism of Magna Graecia

2. The Cosmological Elements

The Prometheia

The Presocratics and Mystic Doctrine

3. The Crowning of Prometheus

Chapter 10 Sophocles and the Mysteries

Part III Tragedy and Death Ritual

Chapter 11 The Last Bath of Agamemnon

Chapter 12 The Destruction of Limits in Sophocles' Electra

Part IV Tragedy and Marriage

Chapter 13 The Tragic Wedding

1. Introductory

2. The Girl About to Be Married

3. The Death of the Wife

4. The Extramarital Union

Chapter 14 The Structural Problems of Marriage in Euripides

1

2

3

4

5

6

Part V New Testament

Chapter 15 1 Corinthians 13.12: 'Through a Glass Darkly'

Chapter 16 Thunder, Lightning and Earthquake in the Bacchae and the Acts of the Apostles

Part VI The Inner Self

Chapter 17 Monetisation and the Genesis of the Western Subject

Sohn-Rethel and the Transcendental Subject

The Homeric Psyche

Money and Psyche

Reincarnation

Parmenides and Plato

Chapter 18 The Fluttering Soul

Part VII India and Greece

Chapter 19 Why Did the Greeks Not Have Karma?

1. Presocratic Thought and Monetisation

2. The Metaphysical Revolution in India and Greece

3. Monetisation in India

4. Cosmic Cycle and Metaphysical Merit

5. Cosmic Debt

6. Heraclitus

7. Ethicised Indiscriminate Reincarnation (EIR)

8. Karma

9. Fundamental Differences

10. Brahman and Karman

11. Plato

Part VIII Money and Modernity

Chapter 20 Form and Money in Wagner's Ring and Aeschylean Tragedy

Oresteia

Thebes

Prometheia

Isolation.

Props

Nature and Love Against Money and Power?

Conclusion

Chapter 21 World Without Limits

References

Richard Seaford: Publications (Excluding Reviews)

General References

Index Locorum

General Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 16 Nov 2018).

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN:

1-316-77207-1

1-316-76158-4

1-316-77424-4

OCLC:

1060524748