Spoken like a woman : speech and gender in Athenian drama / Laura McClure.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McClure, Laura, 1959- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Greek drama--History and criticism.

Greek drama.

Women and literature--Greece--Athens.

Women and literature.

Greek language--Sex differences.

Greek language.

Sex role in literature.

Speech in literature.

Greek language--Spoken Greek.

Gender identity in literature.

Athens (Greece)--Intellectual life.

Athens (Greece).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (336 p.)

Edition:

Digit. repr. d. Ausg. 1999.

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [1999]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

In ancient Athens, where freedom of speech derived from the power of male citizenship, women's voices were seldom heard in public. Female speech was more often represented in theatrical productions through women characters written and enacted by men. In Spoken Like a Woman, the first book-length study of women's speech in classical drama, Laura McClure explores the discursive practices attributed to women of fifth-century b.c. Greece and to what extent these representations reflected a larger reality. Examining tragedies and comedies by a variety of authors, she illustrates how the dramatic poets exploited speech conventions among both women and men to construct characters and to convey urgent social and political issues.From gossip to seductive persuasion, women's verbal strategies in the theater potentially subverted social and political hierarchy, McClure argues, whether the women characters were overtly or covertly duplicitous, in pursuit of adultery, or imitating male orators. Such characterization helped justify the regulation of women's speech in the democratic polis. The fact that women's verbal strategies were also used to portray male transvestites and manipulators, however, suggests that a greater threat of subversion lay among the spectators' own ranks, among men of uncertain birth and unscrupulous intent, such as demagogues skilled in the art of persuasion. Traditionally viewed as outsiders with ambiguous loyalties, deceitful and tireless in their pursuit of eros, women provided the dramatic poets with a vehicle for illustrating the dangerous consequences of political power placed in the wrong hands.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

NOTE ON ABBREVIATIONS

CHAPTER ONE. The City of Words: Speech in the Athenian Polis

CHAPTER TWO. Gender and Verbal Genres in Ancient Greece

CHAPTER THREE. Logos Gunaikos: Speech and Gender in Aeschylus' Oresteia

CHAPTER FOUR. At the House Door: Phaedra and the Politics of Reputation

CHAPTER FIVE. Women's Wordy Strife: Gossip and Invective in Euripides' Andromache

CHAPTER SIX. Obscenity, Gender, and Social Status in Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae and Ecclesiazusae

CHAPTER SEVEN. Conclusion

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [263]-284) and index.

ISBN:

9780691144412

0691144419

9781400832446

1400832446

OCLC:

1255222217