Looking at Greek Drama
Looking at Greek Drama

Author: David Stuttard

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-11-14

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1350320862

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This is a vital and accessible overview of Greek drama from its origins to its later reception, including chapters on authors and dramas in their social and religious context as well as key aspects such as structure, character, staging and music. With contributions by 13 international scholars, world experts in their field, it provides readers with clear, authoritative, up-to-date considerations of both the theory and practice of Greek drama. While each chapter can stand in isolation, the overall structure takes readers on a natural progression – beginning with sources of evidence and origins, considering the major genres and their authors, examining the traditional Aristotelean components of drama in the context of performance, and ending with later reception. In doing so, it explores Greek drama as at once a religious act, a stage for political propaganda, an opportunity for questioning social issues, and pure entertainment – a stunning melange of poetry, music, dance, and visual spectacle, specific to, yet transcending, its immediate context. Written for students, practitioners and a general readership, it forms part of Bloomsbury's Looking at... series, appealing to the same readership and providing context to existing volumes which focus on individual plays.

A Guide to Ancient Greek Drama
A Guide to Ancient Greek Drama

Author: Ian C. Storey

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2008-04-15

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 1405137630

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This Blackwell Guide introduces ancient Greek drama, which flourished principally in Athens from the sixth century BC to the third century BC. A broad-ranging and systematically organised introduction to ancient Greek drama. Discusses all three genres of Greek drama - tragedy, comedy, and satyr play. Provides overviews of the five surviving playwrights - Aeschylus, Sophokles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Menander, and brief entries on lost playwrights. Covers contextual issues such as: the origins of dramatic art forms; the conventions of the festivals and the theatre; the relationship between drama and the worship of Dionysos; the political dimension; and how to read and watch Greek drama. Includes 46 one-page synopses of each of the surviving plays.

Greek Drama and Dramatists
Greek Drama and Dramatists

Author: Alan H. Sommerstein

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2003-09-02

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 1134509847

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The history of European drama began at the festivals of Dionysus in ancient Athens, where tragedy, satyr-drama and comedy were performed. Understanding this background is vital for students of classical, literary and theatrical subjects, and Alan H. Sommerstein's accessible study is the ideal introduction. The book begins by looking at the social and theatrical contexts and different characteristics of the three genres of ancient Greek drama. It then examines the five main dramatists whose works survive - Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes and Menander - discussing their styles, techniques and ideas, and giving short synopses of all their extant plays. Additional helpful features include succinct coverage of almost sixty other authors, a chronology of significant people and events, and an anthology of translated texts, all of which have been previously inaccessible to students. An up-to-date study bibliography of further reading concludes the volume. Clear, concise and comprehensive, and written by an acknowledged expert in the field, Greek Drama and Dramatists will be a valuable orientation text at both sixth form and undergraduate level.

The Greek Plays
The Greek Plays

Author: Sophocles

Publisher: Modern Library

Published: 2016-08-23

Total Pages: 866

ISBN-13: 0679644482

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A landmark anthology of the masterpieces of Greek drama, featuring all-new, highly accessible translations of some of the world’s most beloved plays, including Agamemnon, Prometheus Bound, Bacchae, Electra, Medea, Antigone, and Oedipus the King Featuring translations by Emily Wilson, Frank Nisetich, Sarah Ruden, Rachel Kitzinger, Mary Lefkowitz, and James Romm The great plays of Ancient Greece are among the most enduring and important legacies of the Western world. Not only is the influence of Greek drama palpable in everything from Shakespeare to modern television, the insights contained in Greek tragedy have shaped our perceptions of the nature of human life. Poets, philosophers, and politicians have long borrowed and adapted the ideas and language of Greek drama to help them make sense of their own times. This exciting curated anthology features a cross section of the most popular—and most widely taught—plays in the Greek canon. Fresh translations into contemporary English breathe new life into the texts while capturing, as faithfully as possible, their original meaning. This outstanding collection also offers short biographies of the playwrights, enlightening and clarifying introductions to the plays, and helpful annotations at the bottom of each page. Appendices by prominent classicists on such topics as “Greek Drama and Politics,” “The Theater of Dionysus,” and “Plato and Aristotle on Tragedy” give the reader a rich contextual background. A detailed time line of the dramas, as well as a list of adaptations of Greek drama to literature, stage, and film from the time of Seneca to the present, helps chart the history of Greek tragedy and illustrate its influence on our culture from the Roman Empire to the present day. With a veritable who’s who of today’s most renowned and distinguished classical translators, The Greek Plays is certain to be the definitive text for years to come. Praise for The Greek Plays “Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm deftly have gathered strong new translations from Frank Nisetich, Sarah Ruden, Rachel Kitzinger, Emily Wilson, as well as from Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm themselves. There is a freshness and pungency in these new translations that should last a long time. I admire also the introductions to the plays and the biographies and annotations provided. Closing essays by five distinguished classicists—the brilliant Daniel Mendelsohn and the equally skilled David Rosenbloom, Joshua Billings, Mary-Kay Gamel, and Gregory Hays—all enlightened me. This seems to me a helpful light into our gathering darkness.”—Harold Bloom

Tragedy, the Greeks and Us
Tragedy, the Greeks and Us

Author: Simon Critchley

Publisher: Profile Books

Published: 2019-03-28

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1782834907

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We might think we are through with the past, but the past isn't through with us. Tragedy permits us to come face to face with the things we don't want to know about ourselves, but which still make us who we are. It articulates the conflicts and contradictions that we need to address in order to better understand the world we live in. A work honed from a decade's teaching at the New School, where 'Critchley on Tragedy' is one of the most popular courses, Tragedy, the Greeks and Us is a compelling examination of the history of tragedy. Simon Critchley demolishes our common misconceptions about the poets, dramatists and philosophers of Ancient Greece - then presents these writers to us in an unfamiliar and original light.

Greek Drama
Greek Drama

Author: Moses Hadas

Publisher: Bantam Classics

Published: 2006-05-30

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 055390258X

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In power, passion, and the brilliant display of moral conflict, the drama of ancient Greece remains unsurpassed. For this volume, Professor Hadas chose nine plays which display the diversity and grandeur of tragedy, and the critical and satiric genius of comedy, in outstanding translations of the past and present. His introduction explores the religious origins, modes of productions, structure, and conventions of the Greek theater, individual prefaces illuminate each play and clarify the author's place in the continuity of Greek drama.

Pots & Plays
Pots & Plays

Author: Oliver Taplin

Publisher: Getty Publications

Published: 2007-10-15

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0892368071

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This interdisciplinary study opens up a fascinating interaction between art and theater. It shows how the mythological vase-paintings of fourth-century B.C. Greeks, especially those settled in southern Italy, are more meaningful for those who had seen the myths enacted in the popular new medium of tragedy. Of some 300 relevant vases, 109 are reproduced and accompanied by a picture-by-picture discussion. This book supplies a rich and unprecedented resource from a neglected treasury of painting.

Dramatic Action in Greek Tragedy and Noh
Dramatic Action in Greek Tragedy and Noh

Author: Mae J. Smethurst

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 127

ISBN-13: 0739172425

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This book explores the ramifications of understanding the similarities and differences between the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles and realistic Japanese noh. First, it looks at the relationship of Aristotle's definition of tragedy to the tragedies he favored. Next, his definition is applied to realistic noh, in order to show how they do and do not conform to his definition. In the third and fourth chapters, the focus moves to those junctures in the dramas that Aristotle considered crucial to a complex plot - recognitions and sudden reversals -, and shows how they are presented in performance. Chapter 3 examines the climactic moments of realistic noh and demonstrates that it is at precisely these moments that a third actor becomes involved in the dialogue or that an actor in various ways steps out of character. Chapter 4 explores how plays by Euripides and Sophocles deal with critical turns in the plot, as Aristotle defined it. It is not by an actor stepping out of character, but by the playwright's involvement of the third actor in the dialogue. The argument of this book reveals a similar symbiosis between plot and performance in both dramatic forms. By looking at noh through the lens of Aristotle and two Greek tragedies that he favored, the book uncovers first an Aristotelian plot structure in realistic noh and the relationship between the crucial points in the plot and its performance; and on the Greek side, looking at the tragedies through the lens of noh suggests a hitherto unnoticed relationship between the structure of the tragedies and their performance, that is, the involvement of the third actor at the climactic moments of the plot. This observation helps to account for Aristotle's view that tragedy be limited to three actors.

But What If We're Wrong?
But What If We're Wrong?

Author: Chuck Klosterman

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2017-04-25

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0399184139

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“Full of intelligence and insights, as the author gleefully turns ideas upside down to better understand them. . . Replete with lots of nifty, whimsical footnotes, this clever, speculative book challenges our beliefs with jocularity and perspicacity.” —Kirkus (starred review) “Klosterman’s trademark humor and unique curiosity propel the reader through the book. He remains one of the most insightful critics of pop culture writing today and this is his most thought-provoking and memorable book yet.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) The tremendously well-received New York Times bestseller by cultural critic Chuck Klosterman, exploring the possibility that our currently held beliefs and assumptions about the world will eventually be proven wrong—now in paperback. But What If We're Wrong? is a book of original, reported, interconnected pieces, which speculate on the likelihood that many universally accepted, deeply ingrained cultural and scientific beliefs will someday seem absurd. Covering a spectrum of objective and subjective topics, the book attempts to visualize present-day society the way it will be viewed in a distant future. Klosterman cites original interviews with a wide variety of thinkers and experts—including George Saunders, David Byrne, Jonathan Lethem, Alex Ross, Kathryn Schulz, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene, Junot Díaz, Amanda Petrusich, Ryan Adams, Dan Carlin, Nick Bostrom, and Richard Linklater. Klosterman asks straightforward questions that are profound in their simplicity, and the answers he explores and integrates with his own analysis generate the most thought-provoking and propulsive book of his career.

The Hard Problem
The Hard Problem

Author: Tom Stoppard

Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Published: 2015-09-22

Total Pages: 71

ISBN-13: 0802190502

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Above all don’t use the word good as though it meant something in evolutionary science. The Hard Problem is a tour de force, exploring fundamental questions of how we experience the world, as well as telling the moving story of a young woman whose struggle for understanding her own life and the lives of others leads her to question the deeply held beliefs of those around her. Hilary, a young psychology researcher at the Krohl Institute for Brain Science, is nursing a private sorrow and a troubling question. She and other researchers at the institute are grappling with what science calls the “hard problem”—if there is nothing but matter, what is consciousness? What Hilary discovers puts her fundamentally at odds with her colleagues, who include her first mentor and one-time lover, Spike; her boss, Leo; and the billionaire founder of the institute, Jerry. Hilary needs a miracle, and she is prepared to pray for one.