Kategoria BISAC: Drama >> Ancient & Classical

He who learns must suffer.
Before setting out for the Trojan War, King Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia. Many years later, when Agamemnon returns to his palace, his adulterous Queen Clytemnestra takes her revenge by brutally murdering him and installing her lover on the throne. How will the gods judge Orestes, their estranged son, who must avenge his father's death by murdering his mother?
The curse of the House of Atreus, passing from generation to generation, is one of the great myths of Western literature. In the hands of Aeschylus, the story enacts the final...

This excellent introduction to the six extant plays of Aeschylus is fully revised and updated, with additional further reading, ideal for the student unfamiliar with these earliest of Greek tragedies. Aeschylus is the oldest of the three great Greek tragedians and lived from 525/524 to 465/455. He took part in the battle of Marathon in 490 and probably also in the battle of Salamis in 480, the subject of his Persians.

Working in chronological order of their first production, this volume explores Persians, the earliest Greek tragedy that has come down to us; Seven...

Antigone is universally celebrated as the ultimate figure of ethical resistance to the state power which oversteps its legitimate scope and as the defender of simple human dignity (more important than all political struggles). But is she really so innocent and pure? What if there is a dark side to her? What if Creon, the representative of state power, also has a valuable point to make? And what if both Antigone and Creon are part of a problem that only a popular intervention can confront?
Zizek's rewriting of this classic play confronts these issues in a practical way: not by theorizing...

Roman plays have been well studied individually (even including fragmentary or spurious ones more recently). However, they have not always been placed into their context, though plays (just like items in other literary genres) benefit from being seen in context. This edited collection aims to address this issue: it includes 33 contributions by an international team of scholars, discussing single plays or Roman dramatic genres (including comedy, tragedy and praetexta, from both the Republican and imperial periods) in contexts such as the literary tradition, the relationship to works in...

A major, defining polarity in Euripidean drama, wisdom and folly, has never so far been the subject of a book-length study. The volume aims at filling this gap. Virtually all Euripidean characters, from gods to slaves, are subject to some aspect of folly and claim at least some measure of wisdom. The playwright s sophisticated handling of the tradition and the pervasive ambiguity in his work add extra layers of complexity. Wisdom and folly become inextricably intertwined, as gods pursue their agendas and mortal characters struggle to control their destiny, deal with their troubles,...

The characters are expressively and movingly...

Theater, spectacle, and performance played significant roles in the political and social structure of the Roman Empire, which was diverse in population and language. A wide and varied range of entertainment was available to a Roman audience: the traditional festivals with their athletic contests and dramatic performances, pantomime and mime, the chariot races of the circus, and the gladiatorial shows and wild beast hunts of the arena. In Theater and Spectacle in the Art of the Roman Empire, which is richly illustrated in color throughout, Katherine M. D. Dunbabin emphasizes the...

This is the first study of Menander, one of the most popular of ancient dramatists, who wrote over 100 plays. Although most have been lost, what survives was only rediscovered in the 20th century, and his work has not yet had the scholarly attention it deserves. Seeking to address this gap, Angela Heap introduces her reader to the texts, archaeology and performance of Menander. Using the remarkable finds on the Aeolian island of Lipari as a starting point, she explores the mystery of the loss of the plays, their rediscovery, and key questions surrounding the transmission of these and other...