Revenge in Attic and Later Tragedy / Anne Pippin Burnett.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Burnett, Anne Pippin, 1925-2017, author.

Series:

Sather classical lectures ; Volume 62.

Sather Classical Lectures ; Volume 62

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Greek drama (Tragedy)--History and criticism.

Greek drama (Tragedy).

Revenge in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (330 p.)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, California : University of California Press, [1998]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Modern readings of ancient Athenian drama tend to view it as a presentation of social or moral problems, as if ancient drama showed the same realism seen on the present-day stage. Such views are belied by the plays themselves, in which supremely violent actions occur in a legendary time and place distinct both from reality and from the ethics of ordinary life. Offering fresh readings of Attic tragedy, Anne Pippin Burnett urges readers to peel away twentieth-century attitudes toward vengeance and reconsider the revenge tragedies of ancient Athens in their own context. After a consideration of how our view of Elizabethan drama has obscured an accurate view of the ancient tragedies, Burnett reviews early Greek notions of vengeance as expressed in the Odyssey, Heracles' tales, Pindar's odes, Attic judicial processes, and the legend of Harmodius and Aristogeiton. Then, setting aside post-Platonic and Judeo-Christian notions of criminality, she provides new interpretations of all the Attic tragedies in which revenge is a central theme: Aeschylus' Libation Bearers, Sophocles' Ajax, Electra, and Tereus, and Euripides' Children of Heracles, Hecuba, Medea, Electra, and Orestes. Burnett shows that for the ancients, revenge meant a redress of imbalances in both human and divine worlds, achieved through human actions. The vengeful heroines thus appear in a new light. Electra, Hecuba, Medea, and others cease to be the picture of depravity in dramas that are grotesque and sensational, and are instead representative human figures who respond with grandeur to the outsize demands of necessity and supernatural powers.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

NOTE ON ABBREVIATIONS

PREFACE

1. Huge Frenzy and Quaint Malice

2. Odysseus, Pindar's Heracles, and the Tyrannicides

3. Festival Vengeance

4. Ritualized Revenge

5. Delphic Matricide

6. Women Doing Men's Work

7. Child-Killing Mothers

8. Connubial Revenge

9. The Women's Quarters

10. Philanthropic Revenge

APPENDIX: MEDEA'S MONOLOGUE

INDEX OF CLASSICAL AUTHORS AND TITLES AND BIBLICAL CITATIONS

GENERAL INDEX

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 25. Nov 2020)

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780520919952

0520919955

9780585160191

0585160198

OCLC:

1224279649