Tragic Failures
Tragic Failures

Author: Evina Sistakou

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2016-07-11

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 3110482320

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This is the first study considering the reception of Greek tragedy and the transformation of the tragic idea in Hellenistic poetry. The focus is on third-century Alexandria, where the Ptolemies fostered tragedy as a theatrical form for public entertainment and as an official genre cultivated by the Pleiad, whereas the scholars of the Museum were commissioned to edit and comment on the classical tragic texts. More importantly, the notion of the tragic was adapted to the literary trends of the era. Released from the strict rules established by Aristotle about what makes a good tragedy, the major poets of the Alexandrian avant-garde struggled to transform the tragic idea and integrate it into non-dramatic genres. Tragic Failures traces the incorporation of the tragic idea in the poetry of Callimachus and Theocritus, in Apollonius’ epic Argonautica, in the iambic Alexandra, in late Hellenistic poetry and in Parthenius’ Erotika Pathemata. It offers a fascinating insight into the new conception of the tragic dilemmas in the context of Alexandrian aesthetics.

Essays on Euripidean Drama
Essays on Euripidean Drama

Author: Gilbert Norwood

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2023-11-10

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0520318609

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This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1954.

Hellenistic Tragedy
Hellenistic Tragedy

Author: Agnieszka Kotlinska-Toma

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2014-11-20

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 1472524896

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Ancient Greek tragedy is ubiquitously studied and researched, but is generally considered to have ended, as it began, in the fifth century BC. However, plays continued to be written and staged in the Greek world for centuries, enjoying a period of unprecedented popularity and changing significantly from the better known Classical drama. Hellenistic drama also heavily influenced the birth of Roman tragedy and the development of other theatrical forms and literature (including comedies, mime and Greek romance). Hellenistic Tragedy: Texts, Translations and a Critical Survey offers a comprehensive picture of tragedy and the satyr play from the fourth century BCE. The surviving fragments of this dramatic genre are presented, alongside English translations and critical analysis, as well as a survey of the main writers involved and an exploration of the genre's formation, later influence and staging. Key features of the plays are analysed through extant texts and other evidence, including plots based on contemporary political themes, mythical subjects and Biblical themes, and features of metre and language. Practical elements of Hellenistic performance are also discussed, including those which have become the hallmarks of ancient theatre: actors' costumes of long robes, kothurnoi and high onkos-masks, the theatre building and the closed stage on the logeion. Piecing together a synthetic picture of Hellenistic tragedy and the satyr play, the volume also examines the key points of departure from earlier drama, including the mass audience, the mutual influence of Greek and Eastern traditions and the changes inside the genre which prove Hellenistic drama was an important stage in the development of the European theatre.