This study is an interpretation of the choices the tragedians made in regard to certain forms of standardized variations in word order and prosody. Those choices were made in response to the competing demands of metrical constrain and the poets' sense of what was stylistically appropriate for tragic trimeters.
Helma Dik approaches word order in Greek tragic dialogue from the perspective of language rather than metre. The tragic poets engaged in mimesis of natural dialogue; therefore the analysis of the linguistic characteristics of the dialogue precedes exploration of the metrical dimension, on the assumption that poets would not be overly constrained by the iambic trimeter, which, after all, was the most natural speaking verse according to Aristotle. Dik analyses the word order of tragic dialogue in pragmatic terms, arguing that, in sentences, words functioning as Topic (the 'starting point' of an utterance) or Focus (the most salient piece of information) will come early, and that other less important words will follow. Similarly, the position of adjectives within noun phrases is analysed as a function of their relative salience rather than in terms of their semantics. This approach aims to account for word order in sentences generally, but it also allows for a new interpretation of familiar phenomena in Greek, such as 'postponed interrogatives'. The book concludes with a commentary on the word order in four passages of Sophocles' Electra.
By looking at 15th/16th realistic noh and Greek tragedies through the lens of Aristotle and of each other, this comparison reveals a previously 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 in both and the actor stepping out of character in noh. This observation helps to account for Aristotle’s view that tragedy be limited to three actors.
John T. Hogan’s The Tragedy of the Athenian Ideal in Thucydides and Plato assesses the roles of Pericles, Alcibiades, and Nicias in Athens’ defeat in Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War. Comparing Thucydides’ presentation of political leadership with ideas in Plato’s Statesman as well as Laches, Charmides, Meno, Symposium, Republic, Phaedo, Sophist, and Laws, it concludes that Plato and Thucydides reveal Pericles as lacking the political discipline (sophrosune) to plan a successful war against Sparta. Hogan argues that in his presentation of the collapse in the Corcyraean revolution of moral standards in political discourse, Thucydides shows how revolution destroys the morality implied in basic personal and political language. This reveals a general collapse in underlying prudential measurements needed for sound moral judgment. Furthermore, Hogan argues that the Statesman’s outline of the political leader serves as a paradigm for understanding the weaknesses of Pericles, Alcibiades, and Nicias in terms that parallel Thucydides’ direct and implied conclusions, which in Pericles’ case he highlights with dramatic irony. Hogan shows that Pericles failed both to develop a sufficiently robust practice of Athenian democratic rule and to set up a viable system for succession.
Euripides' Bacchae is one of the most widely read and performed Greek tragedies. A story of implacable divine vengeance, it skilfully transforms earlier currents of literature and myth, and its formative influence on modern ideas of Greek tragedy and religion is unparalleled. This up-to-date edition offers a detailed literary and cultural analysis. The wide-ranging Introduction discusses such issues as the psychological and anthropological aspects of Dionysiac ritual, the god's ability to blur gender boundaries, his particular connection to dramatic role-playing, and the interaction of belief and practice in Greek religion. The Commentary's notes on language and style are intended to make the play fully accessible to students of Greek at all levels, while the edition as a whole is designed for anyone with an interest in Greek tragedy or cultural history.
Euripides’ Ion is a highly complex and elusive play and thus poses considerable difficulties to any interpreter. On the basis of a new recension of the text, this commentary offers explanations of the language, literary technique, and realia of the play and discusses the main issues of interpretation. In this way the reader is provided with the material required for an appreciation of this entertaining as well as provocative dramatic composition.
Interjections in Ancient Greek have long lacked a comprehensive account, despite their frequent occurrence in major texts. The present study of their semantics and pragmatics, encompassing all items encountered in Greek drama from the 5th century BC, applies a moderate minimalism, theory-driven method. Readers are offered a thorough and detailed study of this elusive, and in several respects deviant, class of linguistic items.
Euripides’ Electra opened up for its audience an opportunity to become self-aware as to the appeal of tragic Kunstsprache: it both reflected and sustained traditional, aristocratically-inflected assumptions about the continuity of appearance and substance, even in a radical democracy. A complex analogy between social and aesthetic valuation is played out and brought to light. The characterization of Orestes early in the play demonstrates how social appearances made clear the identity of well-born, and how they were still assumed to indicate superior virtue and agency. On the aesthetic side of the analogy, one of the functions of tragic diction, as an essential indication of heroic character and agency, comes into view in a dramatic and thematic sequence that begins with Achilles ode and ends with the planning of the murders. Serious doubts are created as to whether Orestes will realize the assumed potential inherent in his heroic genealogy and, at the same time, as to whether the components of his character as an aesthetic construct are congruent with such qualities and agency. Both sides of this complex analogy are thus problematized, and, at a metapoetic level, its nature and bases are exposed for reflection.
A Companion to Greek Literature presents a comprehensive introduction to the wide range of texts and literary forms produced in the Greek language over the course of a millennium beginning from the 6th century BCE up to the early years of the Byzantine Empire. Features contributions from a wide range of established experts and emerging scholars of Greek literature Offers comprehensive coverage of the many genres and literary forms produced by the ancient Greeks—including epic and lyric poetry, oratory, historiography, biography, philosophy, the novel, and technical literature Includes readings that address the production and transmission of ancient Greek texts, historic reception, individual authors, and much more Explores the subject of ancient Greek literature in innovative ways
