In Aristophanes' Male and Female Revolutions author Kenneth M. De Luca offers a detailed study of two of Aristophanes' plays and reveals how each illuminates the other and the question of the rule of law through the lens of democracy. De Luca uses classical thought to clarify contemporary and foundational issues in political theory.
Examines the political dimensions of Aristophanes comic poetry. This original and wide-ranging collection of essays offers, for the first time, a comprehensive examination of the political dimensions of that madcap comic poet Aristophanes. Rejecting the claim that Aristophanes is little more than a mere comedian, the contributors to this fascinating volume demonstrate that Aristophanes deserves to be placed in the ranks of the greatest Greek political thinkers. As these essays reveal, all of Aristophanes plays treat issues of fundamental political importance, from war and peace, poverty and wealth, the relation between the sexes, demagoguery and democracy to the role of philosophy and poetry in political society. Accessible to students as well as scholars, The Political Theory of Aristophanes can be utilized easily in the classroom, but at the same time serve as a valuable source for those conducting more advanced research. Whether the field is political philosophy, classical studies, history, or literary criticism, this work will make it necessary to reconceptualize how we understand this great Athenian poet and force us to recognize the political ramifications and underpinnings of his uproarious comedies.
This volume brings together Seth Benardete's studies of Hesiod's Theogony, Homer's Iliad, and Greek tragedy, of eleven Platonic dialogues, and Aristotle's Metaphysics. These essays, some never before published, others difficult to find, span four decades of his work and document its impressive range. Benardete's philosophic reading of the poets and his poetic reading of the philosophers share a common ground that makes this collection a whole. The key, suggested by his reflections on Leo Strauss in the last piece, lies in the question of how to read Plato. Benardete's way is characterized not just by careful attention to the literary form that separates doctrine from dialogue, and speeches from deed; rather, by following the dynamic of these differences, he uncovers the argument that belongs to the dialogue as a whole. The "turnaround" such an argument undergoes bears consequences for understanding the dialogue as radical as the conversion of the philosopher in Plato's image of the cave. Benardete's original interpretations are the fruits of this discovery of the "argument of the action."
The Chorus of Drama in the Fourth Century BCE seeks to upend conventional thinking about the development of drama from the fifth to the fourth centuries and to provide a new way of talking and thinking about the choruses of drama after the deaths of Euripides and Sophocles. Set in the context of a theatre industry extending far beyond the confines of the City Dionysia and the city of Athens, the identity of choral performers and the significance of their contribution to the shape and meaning of drama in the later Classical period (c.400-323) as a whole is an intriguing and under-explored area of enquiry. This volume draws together the fourth-century historical, material, dramatic, literary, and philosophical sources that attest to the activity and quality of dramatic choruses and, having considered the positive evidence for dramatic choral activity, provides a radical rethinking of two oft-cited yet ill-understood phenomena that have traditionally supported the idea that the chorus of drama 'declined' in the fourth century: the inscription of χοŕο*u~ με ́λο*s in papyri and manuscripts in place of fully written-out choral odes, and Aristotle's invocation of embolima (Poetics 1456a25-32). It also explores the important role of influential fourth-century authors such as Plato, Demosthenes, and Xenophon, as well as artistic representations of choruses on fourth-century monuments, in shaping later scholars' understanding of the dramatic chorus throughout the Classical period, reaching conclusions that have significant implications for the broader story we wish to tell about Attic drama and its most enigmatic and fundamental element, the chorus.
Classical stories about women who wield power, from the Amazons to Dido to Cleopatra A Penguin Classic There is no other anthology that brings together similar stories of ancient women in power. These women threaten male power by stepping into the roles traditionally held by men. They command armies, exercise sexual autonomy and even dominance, speak in public, issue laws, and subject others (even masculine heroes and citizen men) to their control. All of these stories were written by men, and none of them can be read as affirmations or celebrations of women in power. They are instead misogynistic tales that aim to shore up masculine authority by exposing the consequences when women rather than men wield it. The sexist attitudes voiced in these stories continue to justify women’s exclusion from power in our contemporary world. Yet despite the fear and suspicion the male authors direct toward these women, we can find much to admire in their tales, from the coordinated action of the women of Aristophanes’s Assemblywomen, to Dido’s questioning of the male value system that leads Aeneas to abandon her, to the righteous anger of Boudicca against sexual violence by men in power, to the successful resistance of Amanirenas against Rome’s colonial expansion. Read differently, these tales testify to the long history of women in power and help us forge new paths for female empowerment.
