Author: John L. Hilton
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783039109296
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364
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Book Description
This original collection of articles, derived in part from the papers presented at the twenty-sixth biennial conference of the Classical Association of South Africa held at Durban and Pietermaritzburg 5-7 July 2005, explores a wide range of receptions of Classical ideas in the fiction, drama, poetry, history, opera, and popular culture of a number of countries from South Africa to Cuba. There is a strong emphasis on the use of Greek and Roman tragedy, especially Aeschylus Seven against Thebes, the Electra plays of Sophocles and Euripides, various reworkings of the figures of Antigone and Medea, and the dramatic style of Seneca, but the compendium also includes chapters on Platonism, Horatian Satire, Mythology, Roman Civilization, Roman Historiography, and Greek erotic spells. Chronologically, the scope of reception extends from the contemporary (the problem of HIV/AIDS in South Africa), to the twentieth century (Soyinka, Walcott, Forster, Seth, Campbell), and the Renaissance (Daniel Heinsius). The book illustrates the depth, diversity, and complexity of the interconnections between the Classical past and the present. It provides a refreshingly different perspective on a vitally important and vibrant field of research.
Author: Astrid Van Weyenberg
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 940120957X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 263
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Book Description
This book explores contemporary African adaptations of classical Greek tragedies. Six South African and Nigerian dramatic texts – by Yael Farber, Mark Fleishman, Athol Fugard, Femi Osofisan, and Wole Soyinka – are analysed through the thematic lens of resistance, revolution, reconciliation, and mourning. The opening chapters focus on plays that mobilize Greek tragedy to inspire political change, discussing how Sophocles’ heroine Antigone is reconfigured as a freedom fighter and how Euripides’ Dionysos is transformed into a revolutionary leader. The later chapters shift the focus to plays that explore the costs and consequences of political change, examining how the cycle of violence dramatized in Aeschylus’ Oresteia trilogy acquires relevance in post-apartheid South Africa, and how the mourning of Euripides’ Trojan Women resonates in and beyond Nigeria. Throughout, the emphasis is on how playwrights, through adaptation, perform a cultural politics directed at the Europe that has traditionally considered ancient Greece as its property, foundation, and legitimization. Van Weyenberg additionally discusses how contemporary African reworkings of Greek tragedies invite us to reconsider how we think about the genre of tragedy and about the cultural process of adaptation. Against George Steiner’s famous claim that tragedy has died, this book demonstrates that Greek tragedy holds relevance today. But it also reveals that adaptations do more than simply keeping the texts they draw on alive: through adaptation, playwrights open up a space for politics. In this dynamic between adaptation and pre-text, the politics of adaptation is performed.
Author: Craig W. Kallendorf
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1405172029
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 512
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Book Description
A Companion to the Classical Tradition accommodates the pressing need for an up-to-date introduction and overview of the growing field of reception studies. A comprehensive introduction and overview of the classical tradition - the interpretation of classical texts in later centuries Comprises 26 newly commissioned essays from an international team of experts Divided into three sections: a chronological survey, a geographical survey, and a section illustrating the connections between the classical tradition and contemporary theory
Author: Grant Parker
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108210481
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 579
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Book Description
How have ancient Greece and Rome intersected with South African histories? This book canvasses architecture, literature, visual arts and historical memory. Some of the most telling manifestations of classical reception in South Africa have been indirect, for example neo-classical architecture or retellings of mythical stories. Far from being the mere handmaiden of colonialism (and later apartheid), classical antiquity has enabled challenges to the South African establishment, and provided a template for making sense of cross-cultural encounters. Though access to classical education has been limited, many South Africans, black and white, have used classical frames of reference and drawn inspiration from the ancient Greeks and Romans. While classical antiquity may seem antithetical to post-apartheid notions of heritage, it deserves to be seen in this light. Museums, historical sites and artworks, up to the present day, reveal juxtapositions in which classical themes are integrated into South African pasts.
Author: Lorna Hardwick
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191029947
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 516
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Book Description
Classics in the Modern World brings together a collection of distinguished international contributors to discuss the features and implications of a 'democratic turn' in modern perceptions of ancient Greece and Rome. It examines how Greek and Roman material has been involved with issues of democracy, both in political culture and in the greater diffusion of classics in recent times outside the elite classes. By looking at individual case studies from theatre, film, fiction, TV, radio, museums, and popular media, and through area studies that consider trends over time in particular societies, the volume explores the relationship between Greek and Roman ways of thinking and modern definitions of democratic practices and approaches, enabling a wider re-evaluation of the role of ancient Greece and Rome in the modern world.
Author: Russ Leo
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192571680
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 463
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Book Description
Tragedy as Philosophy in the Reformation World examines how sixteenth- and seventeenth-century poets, theologians, and humanist critics turned to tragedy to understand providence and agencies human and divine in the crucible of the Reformation. Rejecting familiar assumptions about tragedy, vital figures like Philipp Melanchthon, David Pareus, Lodovico Castelvetro, John Rainolds, and Daniel Heinsius developed distinctly philosophical ideas of tragedy, irreducible to drama or performance, inextricable from rhetoric, dialectic, and metaphysics. In its proximity to philosophy, tragedy afforded careful readers crucial insight into causality, probability, necessity, and the terms of human affect and action. With these resources at hand, poets and critics produced a series of daring and influential theses on tragedy between the 1550s and the 1630s, all directly related to pressing Reformation debates concerning providence, predestination, faith, and devotional practice. Under the influence of Aristotle's Poetics, they presented tragedy as an exacting forensic tool, enabling attentive readers to apprehend totality. And while some poets employed tragedy to render sacred history palpable with new energy and urgency, others marshalled a precise philosophical notion of tragedy directly against spectacle and stage-playing, endorsing anti-theatrical theses on tragedy inflected by the antique Poetics. In other words, this work illustrates the degree to which some of the influential poets and critics in the period, emphasized philosophical precision at the expense of--even to the exclusion of--dramatic presentation. In turn, the work also explores the impact of scholarly debates on more familiar works of vernacular tragedy, illustrating how William Shakespeare's Hamlet and John Milton's 1671 poems take shape in conversation with philosophical and philological investigations of tragedy. Tragedy as Philosophy in the Reformation World demonstrates how Reformation took shape in poetic as well as theological and political terms while simultaneously exposing the importance of tragedy to the history of philosophy.
Author: Leigh K. Jenco
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190253754
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 772
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Book Description
Chapters emphasize exploration of substantive questions about political life in a range of global contexts, with attention to whether and how those questions may be shared, contested, or reformulated across differences of time, space, and experienceAn interdisciplinary volume that bridges the gaps between various traditions, regions, and concerns regarding political theoryProvides tags and keywords to aid navigation of the handbook and help readers trace disruptions, thematic connections, and conceptual contrasts across entries.
Author: Candida R. Moss
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300154658
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
Using perspectives on death from ancient Greek, Roman and Jewish traditions, a theology professor discusses the history of Christian martyrdom and challenges the traditional understanding of the spread of Christianity.
Author: Barbara Goff
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 178093467X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 249
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Book Description
This book is the first to examine the complex and contradictory history of Classics in Sierra Leone, Ghana and Nigeria. It investigates how Classical Studies, as an integral part of colonial education, enforced a notion of cultural inferiority on African subjects, but conversely played an enabling role in nationalist expression. The enquiry is structured around three main questions: how Classics contributed to the formation of a new class of Europeanising West Africans in the late 19th century; how Classics was implicated in the ideological struggles of the early twentieth century over the desirability of 'practical' or 'agricultural' education; and how the uses of Classics changed in the years leading up to independence.
Author: Betine van Zyl Smit
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118347765
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 624
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Book Description
A Handbook to the Reception of Greek Drama offers a series of original essays that represent a comprehensive overview of the global reception of ancient Greek tragedies and comedies from antiquity to the present day. Represents the first volume to offer a complete overview of the reception of ancient drama from antiquity to the present Covers the translation, transmission, performance, production, and adaptation of Greek tragedy from the time the plays were first created in ancient Athens through the 21st century Features overviews of the history of the reception of Greek drama in most countries of the world Includes chapters covering the reception of Greek drama in modern opera and film
