Tragic Failures: Alexandrian Responses to Tragedy and the Tragic

Description

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. Contents Preface Introduction: From Tragedy to the Tragic 1. Tragedy, from Athens to Alexandria The contexts of Hellenistic tragedy Ptolemaic cultural politics and tragedy Performing, reciting or reading tragedy? Tragedy enters the Library 2. The Metaclassical Tragic Tragedy as philosophy and its Hellenistic reworking The impossibility of Aristotelian tragedy Callimachus on (not) writing tragedy Establishing tragedy and the tragic in Alexandria 3. Alexandrian Tragedy The star system of the Alexandrian tragedians Rupture and revival of tragic myth Historical tragedy makes a comeback Generic divergences and tragic crossovers 4. Callimachus Displaces the Tragic Transcending the tragic in the Hymns Tragic fragmentariness in the Aetia Hecale, a mundane tragedy 5. Redefining the Tragic in the Idylls of Theocritus A messenger speech without a messenger The bucolic world’s a stage Simaetha’s tragic failures 6. Tragedy into Epic in Apollonius’ Argonautica Distilling Attic tragedy into the Argonautica Epic teleologies and tragic modalities An Alexandrian epic on tragic passions 7. In the Metatragic Cosmos of the Alexandra The Alexandra, a metatragic play From the tragedy of Cassandra to ‘becoming Alexandra’ Tragedy as textual unconscious 8. The Romantic Tragic Domesticizing tragedy The tragedy of love Parthenius, from tragedy to melodrama Conclusion: Tragic Failures and Hellenistic Challenges Bibliography Abbreviations Editions Translations Bibliography Index