Poet and Orator: A Symbiotic Relationship in Democratic Athens

Description

This multiauthored volume, as well as bringing into clearer focus the notion of drama and oratory as important media of public inquiry and critique, aims to generate significant attention to the unified intentions of the dramatist and the orator to establish favourable conditions of internal stability in democratic Athens. We hope that readers both enjoy and find valuable their engagement with these ideas and beliefs regarding the indissoluble bond between oratorical expertise and dramatic artistry. This exciting collection of studies by worldwide acclaimed classicists and acute younger Hellenists is envisaged as part of the general effort, almost unanimously acknowledged as valid and productive, to explore the impact of formalized speech in particular and craftsmanship rhetoric in general upon Attic drama as a moral and educational force in the Athenian city-state. Both poet and orator seek to deepen the central tensions of their work and to enlarge the main themes of their texts to even broader terms by investing in the art of rhetoric, whilst at the same time, through a skillful handling of events, evaluating the past and establishing standards or ideology. Preface Contents Part I: Rhetoric in Attic Drama Hecuba’s Rhetoric The Rhetoric of Erôs in Menander’s Samia Competitive Vocal Performance in Aristophanes’ Knights Fragments of Euripidean Rhetoric Praise, Past and Ponytails Greek Tragedy and Attic Oratory ‘Do you see this, natives of this land?’ Justifying Murder and Rejecting Revenge Part II: Politics, Rhetoric and Poetry Drama and Democracy From the Ancient Quarrel Between Philosophy and Poetry: Archaic Moral Values and Political Behaviour in Aristophanes’ Frogs Aspects of Epinician Rhetoric and the Democratic polis Performing the Past in Lycurgus’ Speech Against Leocrates Part III: Drama in Attic Oratory Rhetoric, Poetry and the agelaioi sophistai The Orators and Greek Drama Dramatic Elements as Rhetorical Means in Hyperides’ Timandrus Thespians in the Law-Court Part IV: Society, Law and Drama The Reception of Rhetoric in Greek Drama of the Fifth Century BCE Families and Family Relationships in the Speeches of Isaios and in Middle and New Comedy Aeschylus’ Eumenides List of Contributors General Index Index Locorum Index of Greek Words