Pollution and crisis in Greek tragedy / Fabian Meinel, Centre Paul-Albert Février, Aix-en̄ - Provence (Université d'Aix-Marseille, CNRS, TDMAM-UMR 7297).

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Meinel, Fabian, 1982- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Greek drama (Tragedy).

Pollution--Religious aspects.

Pollution.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 278 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Other Title:

Pollution & Crisis in Greek Tragedy

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Pollution is ubiquitous in Greek tragedy: matricidal Orestes seeks purification at Apollo's shrine in Delphi; carrion from Polyneices' unburied corpse fills the altars of Thebes; delirious Phaedra suffers from a 'pollution of the mind'. This book undertakes the first detailed analysis of the important role which pollution and its counterparts - purity and purification - play in tragedy. It argues that pollution is central in the negotiation of tragic crises, fulfilling a diverse array of functions by virtue of its qualities and associations, from making sense of adversity to configuring civic identity in the encounter of self and other. While primarily a literary study providing close readings of several key plays, the book also provides important new perspectives on pollution. It will appeal to a broad range of scholars and students not only in classics and literary studies, but also in the study of religions and anthropology.

Contents:

Preface and acknowledgements

Note on the text

Abbreviations

Introduction

Plays with pollution

Backdrops

Tragedy and crisis

Pollution, crisis, tragedy

Texts and contexts

The plot

1. Pollution, interpretation and understanding

Euripides' Hippolytus

Inherited evil and pollution

Ritual pollution as subtext of causation

The spread of pollution and excessive characters

Medicine and miasma

The question of causation

A journey inwards: Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus

Overture and minor key: the story of the plague

Crescendo and major keys: the story of Oedipus

The limits of ritual: miasma

The limits of ritual: purification

2. Pollution and the stability of civic space

Law and stability and ancient Greece

Pollution and civic stability

Sophocles' Antigone

The crisis of civic space

Pollution and civic space

Transgressing corpses: nameless pollution and Creon's failure

Transgressive corpses: Polyneices' dissolving body and civil war

3. Evaluation and stability in Aeschylus' Oresteia

Part I: Evaluation, justice, pollution

Part II: Stability and justice

Appendix: pollution, purification, release

Excursus: re-reading the Oresteia. Euripides' Iphigenia among the Taurians

Release and purification in Iphigenia among the Taurians and the Oresteia

Pollution, purification and release

Metatheatre, rewriting and the question of release

4. Pollution, purity and civic identity

Purity, space and civic identity

Ethnic purity and identity

Aeschylus' Suppliants

Suppliants' spaces

Purity, territory, identity

Purity, sanctity, virginity

Sacred space, virginity and civic space

Sophoclean variations: excursus to Colonus

Euripides' Ion

Identity, boundaries, purity: Athens

Identity, boundaries, purity: Apollo and Ion

Intermezzo: purity at play

Problematic purities: Apollo and Ion

First conclusions: dissonances

Pure identity as clarified identity

Second conclusions: relocating Athenian purity

Envoi

Bibliography

Index locorum

General index.

Notes:

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

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-316-25530-1

1-316-23449-5

1-316-23638-2

1-316-25340-6

1-316-24962-X

1-316-24772-4

1-316-25151-9

1-107-36057-9