ENGLISH

Aristophanes and His Tragic Muse: Comedy, Tragedy and the Polis in 5th Century Athens

By Stephanie Nelson

Book information

Publisher
Brill Academic Publishers
Year
2016
ISBN
9004310908, 9789004310902
ISSN
0169-8958
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
2 MB (2052081 bytes)
Series
Mnemosyne Supplements 390
Pages
x+384\395
Topic
Literature Literary
Orientation
yes
Paginated
yes
Scanned
portrait
Time added
2016-05-20 23:16:44
Tragedy;Dramas & Plays;Literature & Fiction;MedievUsed & Rental Textbooks;Specialty Boutique

Description

Despite the many studies of Greek comedy and tragedy separately, scholarship has generally neglected the relation of the two. And yet the genres developed together, were performed together, and influenced each other to the extent of becoming polar opposites. In Aristophanes and His Tragic Muse, Stephanie Nelson considers this opposition through an analysis of how the genres developed, by looking at the tragic and comic elements in satyr drama, and by contrasting specific Aristophanes plays with tragedies on similar themes, such as the individual, the polis, and the gods. The study reveals that tragedy’s focus on necessity and a quest for meaning complements a neglected but critical element in Athenian comedy: its interest in freedom, and the ambivalence of its incompatible visions of reality.

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