Tragedy and Athenian religion
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Tragedy and Athenian religion
（Greek studies）
Lexington Books, c2003
- : pbk
Available at 5 libraries
Note
Bibliography: p. [519]-541
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Stemming from Harvard University's Carl Newell Jackson Lectures, Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood's Tragedy and Athenian Religion sets out a radical reexamination of the relationship between Greek tragedy and religion. Based on a reconstruction of the context in which tragedy was generated as a ritual performance during the festival of the City Dionysia, Sourvinou-Inwood shows that religious exploration had been crucial in the emergence of what developed into fifth-century Greek tragedy. A contextual analysis of the perceptions of fifth-century Athenians suggests that the ritual elements clustered in the tragedies of Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles provided a framework for the exploration of religious issues, in a context perceived to be part of a polis ritual. This reassessment of Athenian tragedy is based both on a reconstruction of the Dionysia and the various stages of its development and on a deep textual analysis of fifth-century tragedians. By examining the relationship between fifth-century tragedies and performative context, Tragedy and Athenian Religion presents a groundbreaking view of tragedy as a discourse that explored (among other topics) the problematic religious issues of the time and so ultimately strengthened Athenian religion even at a time of crisis in very complex ways— rather than, as some simpler modern readings argue, challenging and attacking religion and the gods.
Table of Contents
Part 1 Tragedy, Audiences, and Religion Chapter 2 Tragedy and Religion: Shifting Perspectives and Ancient Filters Chapter 3 Setting Out the Distances: Religion, Audiences, and the World of Tragedy Part 4 The Ritual Context Chapter 5 The Great Dionysia: a Reconstruction Chapter 6 [Re]Constructing the Beginnings Chapter 7 The Great Dionysia and the "Ritual Matrix" of Tragedy Part 8 Religion and the Fifth-Century Tragedians Chapter 9 "Starting" with Aeschylus Chapter 10 From Phyrynichos to Euripides: the Tragic Choruses Chapter 11 Euripidean Tragedy and Religious Exploration Chapter 12 Walking Among Mortals? Modalities of Divine Appearance in Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides Part 13 A Summary of the Central Conclusion
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